Riot gun

Less-lethal launchers can fire various sorts of ammunition, including: To avoid breaking the projectile up, less-lethal cartridges are often propelled by gunpowder, which, when fired, may make an eruption of sparks and smoke larger than those made by modern cartridges propelled by smokeless powder.

These are specialized gas grenades designed to penetrate light barriers, such as windows, hollow core doors, and interior walls, and disperse chemical agents on the far side.

Baton rounds are the subject of significant controversy, due to extensive use by British and Israeli forces, resulting in a number of avoidable fatalities.

These, also called stinger rounds, consist of a number of rubber balls ranging from around 0.32 to 0.60 inches (8.1 to 15.2 mm) in diameter, and are used for direct fire.

PepperBall projectiles are deployed by air powered launchers and are similar in theory to a paintball marker.

The PAVA in a PepperBall projectile is a pharmaceutical grade organic irritant and is based on one of the hottest of the six Capsaicinoids found in pepper plants.

Capsaicin and Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl amide (aka “PAVA”) are the hottest of the six Capsaicinoids and are equal in heat value.

The barrels are relatively short, resulting in a carbine sized gun, and may have a shoulder stock and/or a forward handgrip to provide greater control.

Pistol launchers exist, but are generally only used for short range, muzzle dispersing chemical agents.

Riot control ammunition may be restricted in various jurisdictions, to a lesser or greater degree than normal shotgun shells.

Since firearms over .50 caliber (12.7 mm) with rifled barrels are considered destructive devices under the National Firearms Act, only smoothbore riot guns may be sold to civilians without an NFA permit; a common form found on the civilian market are M203 grenade launcher replicas, which can be used to fire 37 mm practice rounds.

[5] Riot guns have been documented to be lethal in some cases, with the use of an FN 303 by the Boston Police Department in October 2004 resulting in the fatal shooting of Victoria Snelgrove being one such incident.