Non-lethal weapons may be used by conventional military in a range of missions across the force continuum. They may also be used by military police, by United Nations forces, and by occupation forces for peacekeeping and stability operations. Non-lethal weapons may also be used to channelize a battlefield, control the movement of civilian populations, or to limit civilian access to restricted areas (as they were utilized by the USMC’s 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Somalia in 1995). Similar weapons, tactics, techniques and procedures are employed by police forces domestically in riot control, prisoner control, crowd control, refugee control, and self-defense, where the terminology of “less-than-lethal” is often used.
