Federal Laboratories

Federal Laboratories (often FedLabs or Federal Labs) is a producer of tear gas and less-lethal riot guns, particularly the widespread Federal Riot Gun, based in New Jersey and established in the early part of the 20th century. Federal Laboratories (often FedLabs or Federal Labs) is a producer of tear gas and less-lethal riot guns, particularly the widespread Federal Riot Gun, based in New Jersey and established in the early part of the 20th century. In the 1930s, custom gas guns by FedLabs were adopted by the New York Prison department, following a sales pitch made before the APA by the president of FedLabs in Baltimore in 1931. Also in the 1930s, Federal Laboratories actively worked to sell gas guns for the purpose of strikebreaking, with one FedLabs representative firing a tear gas grenade during the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, resulting in the death of a striker due to skull fracture. Auerbach notes, however, that despite FedLabs stated opposition to 'communist' strikers, the firm continued to sell tear gas to the Soviet Union even during 1933. During World War II, the company's factory near Saltsburg, PA along Tunnelton Road employed women to replace drafted male workers. There the women produced 'incendiary magnesium powder bombs, grenades and other munitions', including FedLabs tear gas grenades. The single shot FRG became the standard riot gun used extensively by the British Army throughout The Troubles in Northern Ireland. FedLabs gas guns, and CS and CN grenades, were imported by Israel for use in the Palestinian Territories; in 1988 FedLabs discontinued sales of CS and CN to Israel following multiple reports of abusive use of the products. In March 1994, TransTechnology sold FedLabs to Mace Security International.