Caution for anyone in the US β’ ironically named "non-lethal" weapons
All so-called "non-lethal" weapons can be lethal or cause serious injury if used incorrectly. They *are* being used incorrectly.
Tear gas cannisters carry warnings that they're not supposed to be aimed at people. Rubber bullets are intended to be aimed at the ground to only hit people after they ricochet.
US police have been aiming both of these things at people's faces. They have caused grievious injuries which I will not describe here. Even protestors standing peacefully. Even people with their hands up. Even medics and journalists.
Some people injured, weren't even protesting and were just out buying groceries
If you're going anywhere near protests, please be extremely careful.
Caution for anyone in the US β’ ironically named "non-lethal" weapons
@InvaderXan I don't think "non-lethal" is even a real term, these sort of weapons are actually categorized as "less-lethal" and for this good reason.
ironically named "non-lethal" weapons
@wolfcoder While "non-lethal" is technically a proper term for them, I agree. I think a lot of people are pushing to have it permanently changed to "less-lethal" because, yeah.
Apparently, there are even a lot of studies by experts advising that things like rubber bullets to be banned because they're dangerous and don't help anything. Not that governments are ever good at listening to experts.
ironically named "non-lethal" weapons
@InvaderXan if you think that's bad there was a plan at one time to just literally microwave whole crowds of protestors
ironically named "non-lethal" weapons
Yes I've seen demonstrations of that. Is it not in use anywhere? I thought it was just too expensive for some police forces.
ironically named "non-lethal" weapons
@InvaderXan @john with this one its got two big problems. the first one is the assumption that it will not be used in sustained fire on targets that are incapable of leaving the area (if cops had that kind of self control the protests wouldn't be a thing in the first place), and the second one is that it can be defeated by thick clothing or aluminum foil, the kind protesters are already putting on to protect them from projectiles and tear gas.