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In my city we have seen several peaceful protesters (some quite some distance away from police) be nearly killed by less lethal ammunition. Being hit in the hea

In my city we have seen several peaceful protesters (some quite some distance away from police) be nearly killed by less lethal ammunition. Being hit in the head or neck by a rubber bullet will drop a person to the ground unconscious instantly. This means they can even hit their head again against pavement. Nobody has died yet, but they are clearly extremely dangerous. We have also seen the use of tear gas. I don't want the police to hurt anyone, but I haven't seen any long term damage from its use. If police are going to use force, from what I have seen, tear gas is less dangerous. It is still awful. I'd rather it not be used, but I just wanted to share what I've seen.

ashtonkem 6y ago
Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. Rubber bullets are supposed to be fired at shin height, to achieve the appropriate mix of pain and risk reduction. They’re not zero risk because of ricochets, but flat, low trajectories help. It should go without saying that they should only be used when necessary, but if they must be used there is a way it should be done. The number of people being struck in the chest and head by rubber bullets implies that the cops are aiming for the head, a gross abuse of force if true.
- brenden2 6y ago
  There are multiple videos of cops aiming and firing directly at the face and head, sometimes only a few feet away. It's terrifying and disheartening.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    I feel like rubber bullets should be serialized, so you can know who fired it. It shouldn’t be too hard, they’re both extremely large and consumed in relatively small quantities.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      It seems like the last point is sadly becoming less and less true.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        In theory, cops aren’t supposed to use a lot of lethal ammunition either, but here we are.
    - milkytron 6y ago
      I agree, although I have a feeling police unions would be adamantly opposed to this. Similar to their opposition to body cameras.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        Given the behavior of the police this week, we can no longer afford to tailor our reforms to the whims of the police unions.
        klmadfejno 6y ago
        Great. All you need to do is disentangle one of the most powerful labor unions in the country.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        Alas, I am not under the impression it will be easy.
        craftinator 6y ago
        Maybe our glorious leader should declare them a "domestic terrorist organization"...
    - brenden2 6y ago
      That's an interesting idea, but I think the police are too powerful for that to happen at this point.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  They bounce up so even with proper technique someone in the wrong place can take one to the eye.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    And that’s why they should only be applied once de-escalation and containment have failed. There is no such thing as a non-lethal round, the correct term is “less-lethal”, and as such should only be applied when justified.
- Razengan 6y ago
  I just learned that "rubber" bullets have a steel core: https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln/steel_core_inside_a_rubber_bullet_620413/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln...
  - craftinator 6y ago
    I learned that at combat training; up until then I assumed they were basically rubber paint balls with a higher velocity. We asked why we had to use chalk rounds for training (basically a 9mm pistol powder charge with a chalk bullet in front of it) instead of rubber bullets, and our combat instructor laughed and said he didn't want to see anyone blinded, unconscious, or permanently damaged, so they were a no go, even when we were wearing ballistic vests, helmets and face shields. Those chalk rounds still hurt like crazy, and would break skin through military camo uniforms; can't imagine being unloaded on with rubber bullets without protection.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      So, basically these cops don't actually know how to use the weapons they are wielding? If they used those rubber bullets against realistic targets they would learn how to use them properly.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  This [1] from a group that usually investigates Russia's security services. [1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e...
- celticninja 6y ago
  In the UK (N.Ireland) rubber baton rounds used to (not sure about currently) have to be shot to ricochet off something, so you would fire it a few feet infront of the protestors with the round deflecting up to the legs/lower body and losing some of its velocity during the ricochet.
  - dmurray 6y ago
    That might have been the official doctrine, but the British Army absolutely used them to kill people, often firing directly at the head or chest at close range.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet When I was at school they[0] brought round a rubber bullet (I presume it was a plastic bullet actually but they called it rubber). It was a light grey, featureless cylinder, flat at both ends, at least as my memory has it. It was surprisingly light, seemed to have barely any heft at all. We were told it was the very bullet that killed a protester in northen ireland. [0] I can't remember who 'they' were, an ant-violence group I guess.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      The official count is 17, if you trust that.
    - celticninja 6y ago
      Oh I agree, that was how they were supposed to be used but rarely were.
- LiquidSky 6y ago
  >Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. They don't care how they're using rubber bullets because there are zero consequences for misusing them, or anything else they do.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. It used to be batons. Then beanbag guns. Then it was tasers. Then rubber bullets. Every time the police are given a new tool, it is used to its maximum force, which is scary considering so many departments are now getting military equipment without military training in how to use it right. The politicians who authorize these purchases don't seem to understand that police are not trained to use minimum force in a life-threatening situation. The cop shooting a guy in the foot to get him to drop a weapon is just Hollywood. In real life, cops are trained to shoot for the chest to kill because in real life when they draw their guns, it's almost always a life-or-death situation. Give a cop a "less lethal" weapon, and he still uses it with his shoot-to-kill training. Police officers aren't soldiers, but we're turning them into soldiers.
  - anamexis 6y ago
    Cops might be trained to only draw their guns in life-or-death situations, but that certainly isn't the case in real life.
    - sky_rw 6y ago
      Important distinction lies between "life-or-death" and "perceived life-or-death". The leeway given to police over civilians in this matter seems at the root of a lot of these issues.
arethuza 6y ago
17 people were killed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles by "rubber bullets" so they are quite capable of killing people: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbullet.htm https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbulle...
- boogies 6y ago
  3 of those people are listed there as killed by rubber bullets, the other 14 as being killed by plastic ones.
  - splitrocket 6y ago
    A distinction without a difference.
    - boogies 6y ago
      According to Wikipedia's separate article for plastic bullets, they were developed to be less lethal than rubber (no citations for it though). IMHO, this could teach a useful lesson, that even the ones intended to harm less can be made harmful to the point of deadliness. I think it depends on the (ab)user, even dihydrogen monoxide is deadly when abused. Just wanted to "[point] out some consideration that hadn't previously been mentioned" and "[give a tiny bit] more information about the topic" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.) :/
- squarefoot 6y ago
  Also, more than a thousand people were killed by Tasers in North America alone. This is an outdated (2017) list with names. https://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/ https://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/ Non-lethal my ass, I'd say.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    They're usually sold as 'less lethal'
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
coronadisaster 6y ago
I have seen videos showing police shooting tear gas canister at peaceful protesters' head from about 10ft...
diggan 6y ago
> If police are going to use force, from what I have seen, tear gas is less dangerous. It is still awful. I'd rather it not be used, but I just wanted to share what I've seen. It's worth noting here that tear gas is generally prohibited to use during wartime. Bunch of treaties that countries have signed forbids the usage of tear gas. But, seems what's not fine to use in war against enemy combatants, is fine to use against your own people in order to control crowds of people. Something here feels wrong, if it's put like this. I'm neither agreeing/disagreeing with you, just worth noting how the rest of the world considers tear gas.
- karatestomp 6y ago
  I suspect those sorts of blanket bans for warfare had more to do with easing enforcement (are those canisters tear gas or nerve gas? Doesn't matter, they're banned) and reducing availability of equipment that could easily be re-purposed to deliver lethal or maiming chemical weapons than any particular horror associated with tear gas per se. I mean bombs are allowed in war, but my preference for getting badly tear-gassed rather than having a bomb fall anywhere near me is pretty high. (Nb I don't intend this as support of any particular actions by the police lately)
  - evil-olive 6y ago
    Part of the rationale is that tear gas and other chemical weapons are indiscriminate. When you aim a bomb or gun, you know what you're aiming at, and if a civilian is in your sights, you can choose not to fire. Once you release chemical weapons, you can't control them, they go wherever the wind takes them. This could be in the direction of civilians or friendly troops. Here in Seattle they used so much tear gas in Capitol Hill last night that it was seeping into homes. A coworker reported that his 3 month old child woke up coughing like crazy.
rafaelm 6y ago
Law enforcement can get pretty creative when they use these "non-lethal" weapons as well. In Venezuela, police forces killed a student and have injured hundreds of people by shooting the canisters straight at protesters. They also killed at least two people and horribly injured thousands by shooting at them point blank with rubber bullets.
slg 6y ago
We are in the middle of a pandemic in which the disease attacks the lungs and is primarily spread through water droplets expelled from a person's nose or mouth. Due to the number of factors involved, it will be incredibly difficult to link tear gas and pepper spray directly to deaths in comparison to rubber bullets. However it seems obvious that the overreliance police forces have on these chemicals is much more dangerous today that it would be traditionally.
GordonS 6y ago
A peaceful protester posted on twitter the other day, after taking a direct hit in the eye by a gas cannister - he was going for surgery, and is most likely going to lose his eye. Some footage of the incident emerged, but I presume the chance of him getting any kind of compensation is nil.
Lendal 6y ago
The reason is more practical. The only effective use of tear gas is against peaceful untrained civilians. It doesn't work against looters and vandals because they are highly mobile and aren't going to stick around long enough for tear gas to be effective. Provocateurs and ex-military are trained against the mind game that tear gas is. I know this because I've stood in a tent filled with tear gas reciting the UCMJ while my unmasked sergeant looked on, himself seemingly unaffected by the gas. Tear gas does not affect an individual trained in it. The only people you're instilling fear into is untrained moms and dads and children who are peacefully exercising their 1A right to stand there and breathe it in. The use of tear gas is unconscionable mainly because it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. Its only purpose is to make its user feel strong laying waste to crowds of unruly women and children and stop them screaming at you.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. Rubber bullets are supposed to be fired at shin height, to achieve the appropriate mix of pain and risk reduction. They’re not zero risk because of ricochets, but flat, low trajectories help. It should go without saying that they should only be used when necessary, but if they must be used there is a way it should be done. The number of people being struck in the chest and head by rubber bullets implies that the cops are aiming for the head, a gross abuse of force if true.

brenden2 6y ago
There are multiple videos of cops aiming and firing directly at the face and head, sometimes only a few feet away. It's terrifying and disheartening.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I feel like rubber bullets should be serialized, so you can know who fired it. It shouldn’t be too hard, they’re both extremely large and consumed in relatively small quantities.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    It seems like the last point is sadly becoming less and less true.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      In theory, cops aren’t supposed to use a lot of lethal ammunition either, but here we are.
  - milkytron 6y ago
    I agree, although I have a feeling police unions would be adamantly opposed to this. Similar to their opposition to body cameras.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Given the behavior of the police this week, we can no longer afford to tailor our reforms to the whims of the police unions.
      - klmadfejno 6y ago
        Great. All you need to do is disentangle one of the most powerful labor unions in the country.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        Alas, I am not under the impression it will be easy.
        craftinator 6y ago
        Maybe our glorious leader should declare them a "domestic terrorist organization"...
  - brenden2 6y ago
    That's an interesting idea, but I think the police are too powerful for that to happen at this point.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
They bounce up so even with proper technique someone in the wrong place can take one to the eye.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  And that’s why they should only be applied once de-escalation and containment have failed. There is no such thing as a non-lethal round, the correct term is “less-lethal”, and as such should only be applied when justified.
Razengan 6y ago
I just learned that "rubber" bullets have a steel core: https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln/steel_core_inside_a_rubber_bullet_620413/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln...
- craftinator 6y ago
  I learned that at combat training; up until then I assumed they were basically rubber paint balls with a higher velocity. We asked why we had to use chalk rounds for training (basically a 9mm pistol powder charge with a chalk bullet in front of it) instead of rubber bullets, and our combat instructor laughed and said he didn't want to see anyone blinded, unconscious, or permanently damaged, so they were a no go, even when we were wearing ballistic vests, helmets and face shields. Those chalk rounds still hurt like crazy, and would break skin through military camo uniforms; can't imagine being unloaded on with rubber bullets without protection.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    So, basically these cops don't actually know how to use the weapons they are wielding? If they used those rubber bullets against realistic targets they would learn how to use them properly.
rmrfstar 6y ago
This [1] from a group that usually investigates Russia's security services. [1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e...
celticninja 6y ago
In the UK (N.Ireland) rubber baton rounds used to (not sure about currently) have to be shot to ricochet off something, so you would fire it a few feet infront of the protestors with the round deflecting up to the legs/lower body and losing some of its velocity during the ricochet.
- dmurray 6y ago
  That might have been the official doctrine, but the British Army absolutely used them to kill people, often firing directly at the head or chest at close range.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet When I was at school they[0] brought round a rubber bullet (I presume it was a plastic bullet actually but they called it rubber). It was a light grey, featureless cylinder, flat at both ends, at least as my memory has it. It was surprisingly light, seemed to have barely any heft at all. We were told it was the very bullet that killed a protester in northen ireland. [0] I can't remember who 'they' were, an ant-violence group I guess.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The official count is 17, if you trust that.
  - celticninja 6y ago
    Oh I agree, that was how they were supposed to be used but rarely were.
LiquidSky 6y ago
>Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. They don't care how they're using rubber bullets because there are zero consequences for misusing them, or anything else they do.
reaperducer 6y ago
Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. It used to be batons. Then beanbag guns. Then it was tasers. Then rubber bullets. Every time the police are given a new tool, it is used to its maximum force, which is scary considering so many departments are now getting military equipment without military training in how to use it right. The politicians who authorize these purchases don't seem to understand that police are not trained to use minimum force in a life-threatening situation. The cop shooting a guy in the foot to get him to drop a weapon is just Hollywood. In real life, cops are trained to shoot for the chest to kill because in real life when they draw their guns, it's almost always a life-or-death situation. Give a cop a "less lethal" weapon, and he still uses it with his shoot-to-kill training. Police officers aren't soldiers, but we're turning them into soldiers.
- anamexis 6y ago
  Cops might be trained to only draw their guns in life-or-death situations, but that certainly isn't the case in real life.
  - sky_rw 6y ago
    Important distinction lies between "life-or-death" and "perceived life-or-death". The leeway given to police over civilians in this matter seems at the root of a lot of these issues.

arethuza 6y ago

17 people were killed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles by "rubber bullets" so they are quite capable of killing people: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbullet.htm https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbulle...

boogies 6y ago
3 of those people are listed there as killed by rubber bullets, the other 14 as being killed by plastic ones.
- splitrocket 6y ago
  A distinction without a difference.
  - boogies 6y ago
    According to Wikipedia's separate article for plastic bullets, they were developed to be less lethal than rubber (no citations for it though). IMHO, this could teach a useful lesson, that even the ones intended to harm less can be made harmful to the point of deadliness. I think it depends on the (ab)user, even dihydrogen monoxide is deadly when abused. Just wanted to "[point] out some consideration that hadn't previously been mentioned" and "[give a tiny bit] more information about the topic" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.) :/
squarefoot 6y ago
Also, more than a thousand people were killed by Tasers in North America alone. This is an outdated (2017) list with names. https://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/ https://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/ Non-lethal my ass, I'd say.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  They're usually sold as 'less lethal'

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

coronadisaster 6y ago

I have seen videos showing police shooting tear gas canister at peaceful protesters' head from about 10ft...

diggan 6y ago

> If police are going to use force, from what I have seen, tear gas is less dangerous. It is still awful. I'd rather it not be used, but I just wanted to share what I've seen. It's worth noting here that tear gas is generally prohibited to use during wartime. Bunch of treaties that countries have signed forbids the usage of tear gas. But, seems what's not fine to use in war against enemy combatants, is fine to use against your own people in order to control crowds of people. Something here feels wrong, if it's put like this. I'm neither agreeing/disagreeing with you, just worth noting how the rest of the world considers tear gas.

karatestomp 6y ago
I suspect those sorts of blanket bans for warfare had more to do with easing enforcement (are those canisters tear gas or nerve gas? Doesn't matter, they're banned) and reducing availability of equipment that could easily be re-purposed to deliver lethal or maiming chemical weapons than any particular horror associated with tear gas per se. I mean bombs are allowed in war, but my preference for getting badly tear-gassed rather than having a bomb fall anywhere near me is pretty high. (Nb I don't intend this as support of any particular actions by the police lately)
- evil-olive 6y ago
  Part of the rationale is that tear gas and other chemical weapons are indiscriminate. When you aim a bomb or gun, you know what you're aiming at, and if a civilian is in your sights, you can choose not to fire. Once you release chemical weapons, you can't control them, they go wherever the wind takes them. This could be in the direction of civilians or friendly troops. Here in Seattle they used so much tear gas in Capitol Hill last night that it was seeping into homes. A coworker reported that his 3 month old child woke up coughing like crazy.

rafaelm 6y ago

Law enforcement can get pretty creative when they use these "non-lethal" weapons as well. In Venezuela, police forces killed a student and have injured hundreds of people by shooting the canisters straight at protesters. They also killed at least two people and horribly injured thousands by shooting at them point blank with rubber bullets.

slg 6y ago

We are in the middle of a pandemic in which the disease attacks the lungs and is primarily spread through water droplets expelled from a person's nose or mouth. Due to the number of factors involved, it will be incredibly difficult to link tear gas and pepper spray directly to deaths in comparison to rubber bullets. However it seems obvious that the overreliance police forces have on these chemicals is much more dangerous today that it would be traditionally.

GordonS 6y ago

A peaceful protester posted on twitter the other day, after taking a direct hit in the eye by a gas cannister - he was going for surgery, and is most likely going to lose his eye. Some footage of the incident emerged, but I presume the chance of him getting any kind of compensation is nil.

Lendal 6y ago

The reason is more practical. The only effective use of tear gas is against peaceful untrained civilians. It doesn't work against looters and vandals because they are highly mobile and aren't going to stick around long enough for tear gas to be effective. Provocateurs and ex-military are trained against the mind game that tear gas is. I know this because I've stood in a tent filled with tear gas reciting the UCMJ while my unmasked sergeant looked on, himself seemingly unaffected by the gas. Tear gas does not affect an individual trained in it. The only people you're instilling fear into is untrained moms and dads and children who are peacefully exercising their 1A right to stand there and breathe it in. The use of tear gas is unconscionable mainly because it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. Its only purpose is to make its user feel strong laying waste to crowds of unruly women and children and stop them screaming at you.