Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7

The Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7, also known simply as the Tangle Gun 7 or tangle pistol, was a crowd control defense weapon manufactured by Merr-Sonn Munitions, Inc. for use by the Galactic Empire. The gun fired a pellet that, when exposed to air, explosively expanded into a multi–meter–wide webbed net that enveloped its victim and then shrank, thus immobilizing the target. Sometimes the webbing contracted too tightly, causing the victim to suffocate and die.

Description
The Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7 was a crowd control defense weapon that shot a naorstrachem pellet mixed with a shrinking agent. The pellet, when exposed to air, explosively expanded into a webbed net several meters in width. The net automatically contracted as soon as it came into contact with a warm surface, such as a living body. It then wrapped around the target and tightened, trapping the target almost instantly. However, a problem with tangle guns like the Tangle Gun 7 was that the webbing often contracted too much, resulting in the target being suffocated&mdash;and sometimes killed&mdash;by the intense pressure of the webbing.

The gun carried a load of fifteen pellets and had a short range of three to ten meters, a medium range of eleven to nineteen meters, and a long range of twenty to twenty-five meters. The weapon cost 300 to 500 credits. The size of a blaster carbine and light in weight, the gun had a light polycarbonate furniture and a short, wide-mouthed barrel. The gun also comprised of additional polymer material, non-ferrous metal, and Codoan copper. The reload cartridge for the gun was located at the top rear just above the handle.

History
The tangle gun was produced by Merr-Sonn Munitions, Inc. for use by the Galactic Empire. However, independent weaponsmiths and munitions traders who were in possession of the schematics were also known to produce the weapon for various spacers. Considered more humane than a blaster, the Anti-Riot Tangle Gun was often used when non-lethal force was needed. Therefore, when Imperial policy went from one of seduction to one of brute force, the weapon was mostly mothballed.

The gun was included in General Airen Cracken's field guide for the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The weapon's article was accompanied by an illustration of the weapon along with a depiction of a Duros caught in the gun's webbing.

Behind the scenes
The Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7 was introduced in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide, a reference book written by Christopher Kubasik for the West End Games Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, which was published in June 1991. The gun was later mentioned in The Far Orbit Project, designed by Timothy S. O'Brien and released in 1998, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, written by Stephen J. Sansweet and Pablo Hidalgo and released in 2008, and Far Horizons, developed by Sam Stewart for the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire roleplaying game and released in 2014.

However, the pistol's first actual appearance was in the 2003 video game Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, a massively multiplayer online-role playing game developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts, prior to its closure on December 15, 2011. In the game, the weapon was simply identified as a "tangle pistol," and it could be crafted by weaponsmiths and later by munitions traders using a number of different components and resources, including Codoan copper, non-ferrous metal, and polymer.

The gun was also listed in several reference guides for Star Wars Galaxies, including Prima's Official Strategy Guide published in July of 2003, An Empire Divided Quick Reference Guide published on December 16, 2003, the Total Experience: Prima Official Game Guide published in 2005, and the Complete Guide: Prima Official Game Guide published on December 20, 2005. In all of these reference guides, the gun is identified as a Tangle Pistol. The first of these two guides characterize the gun as a stun weapon with a maximum range of 48 meters, whereas the latter two identify it as a kinetic weapon with a range of 35 meters. It is not clear if these reference guides characterize the true maximum range of the Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7 in the Star Wars Legends continuity, or if the statistics are purely game mechanics.