No More Killing

Electroshock guns, rubber bullets and related weapons are not designed to kill. Their proponents point out that police officers who have them to hand can significantly reduce the use of lethal firearms. Critics, on the other hand, stress that those devices are merely less lethal that traditional guns and their metal bullets. "No More Killing" juxtaposes proponents and critics of these weapons from the US and Russia. The film was made at a time when the relations between the two formerly uncontested superpowers were rather amicable. A less-lethal weapons experts from the U.S. visits his Moscovite counterpart. They talk about the tragedy of the hostages of the Nord Ost Theatre. Russian special forces used a purportedly non-lethal gas to incapacitate the Chechen hostage-takers, an experiment that killed at least 130 innocent hostages. The U.S. security specialist still sends a positive message to the Russian OMON troups. "They did the right thing", he tells his Russian counterpart, adding that new methods never work out perfectly at the first try. Today, in 2021, less-lethal weapons such as electroshockers are widely used in the US. Even though guidelines of their use by police was revised in 2011, they still lead to deaths. Between January and Nov 5, 2015, 47 officer-involved deaths in the U.S. occurred following the use of a Taser, an investigative report of the U.K. newspaper "The Guardian" found. At the same time, levels of gun-related deaths in the US remain high. According to the statistics service destatis, 1021 people were shot dead by police in the U.S. in 2020. The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence listed 45,222 gun deaths in the United States, including 4,368 children and teens, for 2020. In 2021, every third US American adult possessed a firearm. As for Russia, statistics about police violence are much harder to come by. According to Amnesty International, police routinely use excessive and unnecessary force against peaceful protesters while also allowing anti-protester violence by other groups, including private security staff.