Beyond that, these weapons are often intentionally and viciously misused by police with callous disregard for human life & safety.
A clear example, caught on camera, is when -- during #Occupy protests in Oakland -- police fired a teargas canister directly at Scott Olsen's head.
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Think on that: these teargas guns are capable of launching their metal canisters hundreds of feet into the air, & a police officer in Oakland purposely fired one directly at Scott's head from about ten feet away. Predictably, it fractured his skull.
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In 2003, I was at anti-Iraq War protest at the Oakland Docks where the police went apeshit. Oakland police ran over folks w/ motorcycles & fired "wooden dowel" bullets straight at people's heads & faces & bodies. I saw huge purple welts on torsos & jaws; bleeding noses & hands..
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... At one point I was near the police & saw that on every one of these wooden bullet guns was a sticker: "WARNING: DO NOT FIRE DIRECTLY AT PEOPLE." The were meant to be used as crowd control by skipping the wooden bullets off the ground, ricocheting them into people's legs...
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The Oakland police completely ignored the manufacturer's warning stickers on proper use & fired the wooden bullets straight at heads, eyes, faces, bodies. (And I'm sure the police and the manufacturer never intended otherwise.)
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As I think more about it, I'm SURE the manufacturers knew police forces would fire these wooden bullets directly at people. The stickers warning not to do that were likely there primarily to deflect legal liability when these "non-lethal" guns inevitably killed folks.
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Gun maker's lawyer: "These wooden bullet guns were misused! See the sticker we put on every weapon? Can't blame us!" GTFO.
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They are referred to as both. Here is an
@latimes article about the protest I'm describing. The very first sentence says: "Police opened fire with nonlethal weapons on antiwar protesters and some longshoremen Monday morning." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-apr-08-war-protests8-story.html …pic.twitter.com/hmJBCEq4j7
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Ya people need to stop calling these weapons non-lethal. They are "less-lethal" and rightly described as such.
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