METAIRIE, La. (WVUE/Gray News) – As the country grapples with the ongoing threat of school shootings, a man in Louisiana believes his invention could provide a non-lethal solution to save lives and protect classrooms.
A 73-year-old businessman in Metairie named Rick Sinclair has spent the past three years working on the Bopper Defense System. The device is designed to disorient and incapacitate active shooters without taking lives.
Sinclair calls the Bopper a “hybrid of a grenade launcher.”
The device does not shoot bullets and instead uses twin barrels to launch oversized darts packed with fly ash, a fine material Sinclair compared to barbecue grill ash “on steroids.”
The darts travel at 100 feet per second and are designed to cause enough pain and disorientation to neutralize a threat temporarily, giving teachers and students precious moments to escape or shelter.
“It’s going to break a rib. If it hits him in the head, it’s going to render him either unconscious or at least dizzy,” Sinclair said. “It’s going to concuss him, but it’s not going to kill him. If you hit him in the shoulder, it’s like ‘OK, that hurts,’ but he’s all pumped up on adrenaline, so the fly ash comes up and hits him in the face, in the eyes and even though he’s still conscious, he can’t see for a minute. Remember, this is only to bring him down long enough for the security people to get there or the police to arrive.”
Sinclair spent $100,000 researching and developing the Bopper Defense System.
According to Sinclair, it cost $40,000 to work with a military contractor to bring the device’s prototype to fruition. Sinclair estimates it would cost a school district $1,800 for each device.
He has been pitching the bopper to school systems, but so far, none have committed. Sinclair said having a powerful, yet non-lethal device in classrooms can empower teachers without the pressures of handling a firearm.
“You know, you hear, ‘Let’s give teachers guns.’ The biggest problem that I’ve seen is when the conversation turns to arming a teacher, they stop at guns,” he said. “And when they go to talk about it, teachers go, ‘I don’t want a gun.’ Teachers right now are target practice if a shooter gets into the school. They have all these things to keep them out but once they get in, there’s nothing in there for teachers to defend themselves or their students.”
Sinclair said his inspiration came three years ago when his grandson asked for a bulletproof backpack for Christmas.
“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ Just hearing it made me want to do something about school shootings,” Sinclair said. “I’ve been a problem solver in industry for 40 years and I thought this is a problem I can solve. I whipped something up in a couple of weeks and three years later we are here.”
Three years later, the threat of school shootings is as real as ever. As long as that threat remains, Sinclair said he’ll keep classroom safety in his sights.
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