Dealing with large, angry groups of potentially dangerous and violent people is not a job to envy. In law enforcement, such confrontations seldom end well for either side: Participants risk arrest and injury, homeowners and businesses risk arson, vandalism and theft, and police risk injury if their response is too tepid—and blame if it is too forceful.

Within the last few decades, soldiers have been increasingly placed in the law-enforcement role as they have been assigned peacekeeping duties around the globe. Indeed, a measured response for dealing with unarmed but volatile crowds of civilians is exactly what the Italian army was seeking when they approached Beretta for a solution.

Ultimate LL Hybrid
While there are available crowd-dispersal tools such as water cannons and irritants, they can be somewhat indiscriminate. In any crowd, there will be a mix of peaceful, if vociferous, persons and more violence-minded agitators. Being able to dissuade the latter while avoiding the former requires precision. Beretta’s answer is the LTLX7000 developed by the Beretta Group, which will be marketing these types of military and LE products under a new Defense Division called, Beretta Defense Technologies or BDT. BDT is made up of Beretta, Benelli, Sako and Steiner products, services and capabilities. The LTLX7000 Less Than Lethal Launcher is a 12-gauge pump with a collapsible stock that fires a specially designed rubber projectile out of a rifled barrel. The platform chosen by Beretta was from its sister company’s combat-proven line of Benelli SuperNova shotguns. This system is certainly precise: It will consistently place shots inside a 20-inch square at 70 meters. Rubber bullets are considered less-than-lethal because their elasticity helps prevent penetration to vital organs and because they travel at much lower velocities than traditional ammunition. That, along with the lower overall mass of the projectile, reduces the force with which it strikes the target.