Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7

The Anti-Riot Tangle Gun 7 was a crowd-control snare rifle 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 snare rifle 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 adhered 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 contraction 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 credits.

History
The tangle gun was produced by Merr-Sonn Munitions, Inc for use by the Galactic Empire. 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 gun 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.