Pepper Spray Guns to be used at DNC on protestors.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Police dealing with protesters at the Democratic

National

Convention may be armed with paintball guns that shoot balls filled with

pepper spray.

The balls, as big around as a nickel, would be used only against

protesters

who are violent or destroying property, a police spokesman said. He said

the

Police Department had ordered the guns but no decision had been reached

on

whether they would be deployed during the Aug. 14-17 convention.

Paintball is a war game in which players use high-powered air guns,

firing

capsules filled with water-based paint. Instead of paint, the police

would

use the pepper spray.

Pepper spray canisters are standard issue, but using the guns would

allow

police to hit from a distance, Sgt. John Pasquariello said Monday.

``It's a

very accurate weapon ... so you can pinpoint people, and then an arrest

team

would move in,'' he said.

Using the guns would be important, he said, ``because we are certainly

outnumbered in a mass demonstration situation and we need tools that can

control a large number of people without hurting them.''

Balls fired from a stock paintgun travel about 240 feet per second,

leaving a

welt when they strike someone's skin, said Matt Boggs, a gun technician

at

I&I Sports in Carson, which sells paintball equipment.

Participants playing at licensed paintball fields are required to wear

face

and eye protection, he said.

Police are aware of the injury risk, but officers who use non-lethal

weapons,

such as beanbag-firing shotguns, are trained to fire at a person's torso

and

avoid his head, Pasquariello said.

Protest organizers criticized potential use of the paintball guns,

saying the

weapons could inflame a crowd rather than quiet it.

``Police tactics can seriously escalate situations that don't need to be

escalated, and that's why everybody is calling on them to use

restraint,''

said Lisa Fithian of Direct Action Network, an advocacy group formed

during

the World Trade Organization protests last year in Seattle.