Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On - Especially During COVID

There&#x27;s a reason tear gas is prohibited in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 right up there with the other chemical weapons.<p>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.<p>I can&#x27;t believe they&#x27;re subjecting their own domestic population with chemical weapons.

My girlfriend worked in eye care for years, she&#x27;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.

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.

I was tear gassed once and it was hell, I have nothing to compare it to. But it should be illegal, it was torture.

If used properly, tear gas is less dangerous than at least some of the alternatives. Imagine actual riots, not peaceful protestors.<p>The alternatives might be literally deafening sound, rubber bullets, tasers, batons, water cannons, and real guns; all of these can hurt people.