There's a reason tear gas is prohibited in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 right up there with the other chemical weapons.
I got an extremely diluted dose of it while in my apartment with a window cracked, and I had to immediately close the window and leave to another room.
I can't believe they're subjecting their own domestic population with chemical weapons.
The reason for that is not necessarily its direct harm though, but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare, e.g starting with teargas and escalating to sarine gas or whatever. This post explains it better: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_c...
How? There's no risk of escalation in the chemical weapons regime from the protestors, nor is there any chance of the police using lethal chemical weapons such as sarin gas.
The logic around chemical weapons in the Geneva conventions was specific to escalation around chemical weapons. It wasn't a fully general argument about the use of force. Any force used by police could cause escalation, but we do allow the police to use force.
It's not about escalating use of chemical weapons, it's about escalating the use of violence. It's not hard to see that the same tit-for-tat mentality in chemical weapons escalation could easily apply to any form of violence. Sure, protesters don't have chemical weapons like tear gas, but they could start with bleach, or a mixture or bleach & ammonia, or Molotov cocktails. It's not like the list of home-made destructive devices is a short list.
Authority isn't the point and is irrelevant when it comes to simply observing the pattern. The point is a pattern where violence can often escalate with a more violent response. Recognizing that pattern can help in short-circuiting it.
However, if you do want to get into "authority", just look at the many officers around the country in the last few week that have been suspended or fired for unjustified use of force against protesters after being caught on camera. They had no authority for that use of force. Authority has limits, and those limits do not prevent the escalating pattern of violent behavior. But again, that isn't the point: Authority is irrelevant when speaking of observed behavioral patterns like this. The pattern exists, authority doesn't prevent that, and a failure to recognize that pattern or simply brush it aside by saying, "well the police had authority to do it" is not helpful, not if you're interested in actually solving the problem
Let me put it into technical terms if that helps you understand it better: Imagine a buffer overflow results in a escalated permissions for code execution. Here I am saying "This is what's happening." While there you are saying, "But that code had no authority to execute like that!" It is both true, and irrelevant. It is happening, and recognizing that problem helps in moving towards a solution.
What authority does the US have to invade a foreign country. Kill thousands and destroy billions in property to “spread democracy”. Americans are okay with the destruction of property “for freedom” as long as it happens on foreign soil.
I think you rather underestimate the resourcefulness of pissed off people. Furthermore, your statement pretty much demonstrates exactly why it is that government's shouldn't have an exception carved out for them with regard to protests.
The seemingly unanswerable tactic will be used as often as possible. This prioritizes the existence of the government over irs compliance with the will of the people.
At this point, and this may be controversial, but I wouldn't blink an eye if a form of chemical attack were perpetrated against police forces. Yes, I understand the consequences of that statement. Yes, I realize those are people's sons, daughters, wives, husbands, etc who would be harmed.
I cannot judge a group for giving back as much as they get. The protesters didn't start gassing people. The police did. Rendering the air unbreathable is the ultimate in scummy tactics. It shows a wanton disregard for everyone's well-being, and when you come to the fight with a gas mask knowing you'll be crippling an enemy to take advantage of their weakness/ill-equippedness, I'm sorry. It may be tactically and strategically sound, but the inhumanity of it instantly puts you on the low ground. You are at war (whether international formalities are accommodated for or not) with your own population at that point. There is no legitimacy in my eyes that justifies resorting to gas weaponry; and may they who do reap what they sow 7 fold. Ranks right up there with poisoning the water supply in my book.
To be human is to understand that the occasional bout of violent opposition will happen in your lifetime. To poison the very air we breathe is to abandon all standard of decency, and deserves to be returned in kind.
Zero percent chance of police pumping in something lethal
No its specifically about field commanders. When a field commander sees gas they respond with gas because the taboo has been broken and they may have insufficient data to know that its less-than-lethal. Protesters are not armed with WMDs that they can radio in before the smoke clears. It can certainly escalate a situation but its unlikely to break the WMD taboo which is what the treaty cares about.
Escalation is still an issue with protests. Police respond with tear gas, protestors respond with bleach (like in Austin). Police respond with rubber bullets, protestors respond with bricks. Police respond with batons, protestors respond with baseball bats. Etc.
Eventually, this tit-for-tat ends up with lead bullets and dead people.
This sounds like a claim that wars happen because of weapons.
Protesters, and police sometimes have incompatible goals (say crowd wants to block traffic somewhere, and police ordered to prevent it), and the conflict is inevitable in such circumstances. It's a little naïve to claim that it would not happen if one, or even both sides would come unprepared for violence. Deescalation is preferred way, but it works as much as either protesters would be ready to back off (and some protesters may see it as a surrender), or political power giving orders to police is ready to let protesters get what they want (and it's not always possible for them for variety of reasons). Also, ability to show force often plays a role in deescalation strategies.
They tear gassed my campus back when we won the national championship in football. People at bars would hide in the bathrooms from the gas, and it still would reach them inside.
Every full face respirator you see riot (-causing) police wearing or holding has a P100 particulate filter and could have instead been used by a nurse, EMT, or an at-risk person for protection from COVID-19. And to have so many ready to go, the cops were likely just sitting on their stockpiles throughout that period of dire PPE shortage. If that PPE had been used for healthcare as it should have, the cops would have had to think twice before adding tear gas to the air during a respiratory pandemic.
My girlfriend worked in eye care for years, she's seen a lot of pretty bad injuries over the years one of the worst stories though was a teenage girl who was pepper sprayed in the face at close range. It basically disintegrated her eye balls. One of them was nearly completely gone and the other one had about 30% of its tissue remaining. She permanently lost her vision and had to undergo multiple surgeries and rehabilitation for months. The damage was worse than a patient she seen who was shot in the face with a shotgun. His vision was able to be partially restored.
This probably had a lot to do with it, I wasn't implying the tear gas itself can melt eyes. But used that way, at close range it can be more damaging than a firearm. She also ended up with some respiratory problems, but I don't know much about that, it wasn't part of my girlfriend's work.
Oleoresin capsicum (OC) can cause a hydraulic needle effect if sprayed from too close. The velocity of the stream allows it to penetrate the eye tissue. A trained user would know the range in which it is dangerous (usually about 3 ft but depending on manufacturer, type, etc). So the police officer in question could have felt especially threatened and used it in a manner that he/she knew would be damaging or, more likely, it was an excessive use of force.
However, the amount of damage you describe sounds rather exaggerated. Maybe you mean "disintegrated" corneas, not the whole eyeball?
describe sounds rather exaggerated. Maybe you mean "disintegrated" corneas, not the whole eyeball?
That was how it was described to me. Well the words use were more like completely gone or something like that but essentially the same thing. She got a nice up close view with an opthalmic camera so...that I guess.
Pepper-spray is not just capsaicin. The capsaicin is emulsified in propylene glycol and then mixed into water and pressurized. Other emulsifiers in the past have been ethanol. The capsaicin for law enforcement use is ~2%, personal pepper-spray is about the same, though it varies more. Propylene glycol is mostly non-irritating to the eyes, even in pretty high dosages times, barring allergies to it.
Likely it was the pressurization issue that just blasted the person's eyes. Meaning that the pepper-spray had to be right up in there. I would not want to take a hist from a garden hose at full blast to my eyes, let alone something like that.
With the exception of sound & water cannons, all of these other methods have been used in the last two weeks, with many recorded usages on peaceful protesters.
The alternatives would be the government not giving people a reason to riot.
If we're at the point of debating which weapons are or are not allowed to be used on a civilian population, then the government has already failed in its most basic responsibilities.
There's a reason tear gas is prohibited in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 right up there with the other chemical weapons.
I got an extremely diluted dose of it while in my apartment with a window cracked, and I had to immediately close the window and leave to another room.
I can't believe they're subjecting their own domestic population with chemical weapons.
The reason for that is not necessarily its direct harm though, but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare, e.g starting with teargas and escalating to sarine gas or whatever. This post explains it better: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_c...
That policy makes sense and seems applicable to protests to prevent peaceful protests from escalating and becoming violent.
How? There's no risk of escalation in the chemical weapons regime from the protestors, nor is there any chance of the police using lethal chemical weapons such as sarin gas.
The logic around chemical weapons in the Geneva conventions was specific to escalation around chemical weapons. It wasn't a fully general argument about the use of force. Any force used by police could cause escalation, but we do allow the police to use force.
It's not about escalating use of chemical weapons, it's about escalating the use of violence. It's not hard to see that the same tit-for-tat mentality in chemical weapons escalation could easily apply to any form of violence. Sure, protesters don't have chemical weapons like tear gas, but they could start with bleach, or a mixture or bleach & ammonia, or Molotov cocktails. It's not like the list of home-made destructive devices is a short list.
What authority does protesters have for escalating violence?
Authority isn't the point and is irrelevant when it comes to simply observing the pattern. The point is a pattern where violence can often escalate with a more violent response. Recognizing that pattern can help in short-circuiting it.
However, if you do want to get into "authority", just look at the many officers around the country in the last few week that have been suspended or fired for unjustified use of force against protesters after being caught on camera. They had no authority for that use of force. Authority has limits, and those limits do not prevent the escalating pattern of violent behavior. But again, that isn't the point: Authority is irrelevant when speaking of observed behavioral patterns like this. The pattern exists, authority doesn't prevent that, and a failure to recognize that pattern or simply brush it aside by saying, "well the police had authority to do it" is not helpful, not if you're interested in actually solving the problem
Let me put it into technical terms if that helps you understand it better: Imagine a buffer overflow results in a escalated permissions for code execution. Here I am saying "This is what's happening." While there you are saying, "But that code had no authority to execute like that!" It is both true, and irrelevant. It is happening, and recognizing that problem helps in moving towards a solution.
What authority does the US have to invade a foreign country. Kill thousands and destroy billions in property to “spread democracy”. Americans are okay with the destruction of property “for freedom” as long as it happens on foreign soil.
I think you rather underestimate the resourcefulness of pissed off people. Furthermore, your statement pretty much demonstrates exactly why it is that government's shouldn't have an exception carved out for them with regard to protests.
The seemingly unanswerable tactic will be used as often as possible. This prioritizes the existence of the government over irs compliance with the will of the people.
At this point, and this may be controversial, but I wouldn't blink an eye if a form of chemical attack were perpetrated against police forces. Yes, I understand the consequences of that statement. Yes, I realize those are people's sons, daughters, wives, husbands, etc who would be harmed.
I cannot judge a group for giving back as much as they get. The protesters didn't start gassing people. The police did. Rendering the air unbreathable is the ultimate in scummy tactics. It shows a wanton disregard for everyone's well-being, and when you come to the fight with a gas mask knowing you'll be crippling an enemy to take advantage of their weakness/ill-equippedness, I'm sorry. It may be tactically and strategically sound, but the inhumanity of it instantly puts you on the low ground. You are at war (whether international formalities are accommodated for or not) with your own population at that point. There is no legitimacy in my eyes that justifies resorting to gas weaponry; and may they who do reap what they sow 7 fold. Ranks right up there with poisoning the water supply in my book.
To be human is to understand that the occasional bout of violent opposition will happen in your lifetime. To poison the very air we breathe is to abandon all standard of decency, and deserves to be returned in kind.
Tell that to these folks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisi...
Or to all the folks with asthma to which tear gas can be lethal.
No its specifically about field commanders. When a field commander sees gas they respond with gas because the taboo has been broken and they may have insufficient data to know that its less-than-lethal. Protesters are not armed with WMDs that they can radio in before the smoke clears. It can certainly escalate a situation but its unlikely to break the WMD taboo which is what the treaty cares about.
Escalation is still an issue with protests. Police respond with tear gas, protestors respond with bleach (like in Austin). Police respond with rubber bullets, protestors respond with bricks. Police respond with batons, protestors respond with baseball bats. Etc.
Eventually, this tit-for-tat ends up with lead bullets and dead people.
Tactics like those used in Denver, ones of deescalation, have been far more successful in keeping protests calm, coordinated, and predictable: https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/04/denver-george-floyd-prote...
This sounds like a claim that wars happen because of weapons.
Protesters, and police sometimes have incompatible goals (say crowd wants to block traffic somewhere, and police ordered to prevent it), and the conflict is inevitable in such circumstances. It's a little naïve to claim that it would not happen if one, or even both sides would come unprepared for violence. Deescalation is preferred way, but it works as much as either protesters would be ready to back off (and some protesters may see it as a surrender), or political power giving orders to police is ready to let protesters get what they want (and it's not always possible for them for variety of reasons). Also, ability to show force often plays a role in deescalation strategies.
Unpopular opinion. Maybe they should. Would police have acted as aggressively if the protestors took advantage of open carry laws like in Michigan?
They tear gassed my campus back when we won the national championship in football. People at bars would hide in the bathrooms from the gas, and it still would reach them inside.
Every full face respirator you see riot (-causing) police wearing or holding has a P100 particulate filter and could have instead been used by a nurse, EMT, or an at-risk person for protection from COVID-19. And to have so many ready to go, the cops were likely just sitting on their stockpiles throughout that period of dire PPE shortage. If that PPE had been used for healthcare as it should have, the cops would have had to think twice before adding tear gas to the air during a respiratory pandemic.
If they had gone to the nurses it would have saved a lot of lives. There have been about 300 medical personnel deaths due to covid already.
600 medical personnel deaths globally.
I was tear gassed once and it was hell, I have nothing to compare it to. But it should be illegal, it was torture.
My girlfriend worked in eye care for years, she's seen a lot of pretty bad injuries over the years one of the worst stories though was a teenage girl who was pepper sprayed in the face at close range. It basically disintegrated her eye balls. One of them was nearly completely gone and the other one had about 30% of its tissue remaining. She permanently lost her vision and had to undergo multiple surgeries and rehabilitation for months. The damage was worse than a patient she seen who was shot in the face with a shotgun. His vision was able to be partially restored.
any idea why this happened to her in particular. Was there anything special about this pepper spray.
No, normal pepper spray at point blank, about an inch from her face, from a police officer arresting her.
there's got to be some relevant detail missing here, pepper spray wouldn't cause your eyes to disintegrate in the way you described.
I wonder if it's just from the force of the propellant at too close a range. Can't be good for the eye.
This probably had a lot to do with it, I wasn't implying the tear gas itself can melt eyes. But used that way, at close range it can be more damaging than a firearm. She also ended up with some respiratory problems, but I don't know much about that, it wasn't part of my girlfriend's work.
Oleoresin capsicum (OC) can cause a hydraulic needle effect if sprayed from too close. The velocity of the stream allows it to penetrate the eye tissue. A trained user would know the range in which it is dangerous (usually about 3 ft but depending on manufacturer, type, etc). So the police officer in question could have felt especially threatened and used it in a manner that he/she knew would be damaging or, more likely, it was an excessive use of force.
However, the amount of damage you describe sounds rather exaggerated. Maybe you mean "disintegrated" corneas, not the whole eyeball?
Some police forces are using pepper balls in airguns, and I wonder if it's one of those? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGCLL-rxQVQ
That was how it was described to me. Well the words use were more like completely gone or something like that but essentially the same thing. She got a nice up close view with an opthalmic camera so...that I guess.
There's no way this was from regular pepper spray. Maybe some kind of acid? Or blunt force?
Some pepper sprays contain tear gas in liquid form. Which is also outlawed in international military conflicts.
Pepper-spray is not just capsaicin. The capsaicin is emulsified in propylene glycol and then mixed into water and pressurized. Other emulsifiers in the past have been ethanol. The capsaicin for law enforcement use is ~2%, personal pepper-spray is about the same, though it varies more. Propylene glycol is mostly non-irritating to the eyes, even in pretty high dosages times, barring allergies to it.
Likely it was the pressurization issue that just blasted the person's eyes. Meaning that the pepper-spray had to be right up in there. I would not want to take a hist from a garden hose at full blast to my eyes, let alone something like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol
but its inflammatory not caustic?
most police-grade pepper sprays contain either CS gas (tear gas) or xylyl bromide
If used properly, tear gas is less dangerous than at least some of the alternatives. Imagine actual riots, not peaceful protestors.
The alternatives might be literally deafening sound, rubber bullets, tasers, batons, water cannons, and real guns; all of these can hurt people.
With the exception of sound & water cannons, all of these other methods have been used in the last two weeks, with many recorded usages on peaceful protesters.
If governed properly, populations tend to not riot in the first place, so I see this as a moot point.
The alternatives would be the government not giving people a reason to riot.
If we're at the point of debating which weapons are or are not allowed to be used on a civilian population, then the government has already failed in its most basic responsibilities.