Police officers continue to use “tear gas” as a form of riot control, of which, just the very name “tear gas” is a great disservice to those that have been subjected to such; for the reality of the situation is that “tear gas” is far more invasive, dangerous, debilitating, and cruel, than the belief that somehow all “tear gas” does is produce a few unwelcomed tears. In truth, those suffering from these chemical attacks, find that the chemical agent mist can create skin burns, all sorts of respiratory and gastrointestinal discomfort and pain, along with the aforementioned tearing of the eyes, itching of eyes, aching, and blurry vision; making this chemical agent far more insidious than what its street name so suggests.
The fact that chemical warfare has been banned in the field of war for a century, makes it especially cruel and somewhat ironic that somehow, it’s okay to use this substance against civilians, that in virtually all cases, have no good protection, whatsoever, such as a gas mask, against this debilitating agent. While, no doubt, there are conditions in which, the police are far outnumbered by an upset population and of which, it is imperative that some sort of control be imposed, the go-to solution of basically indiscriminately spraying tear gas in which those within the closest proximity as well as those trapped in enclosed spaces, do especially suffer and are susceptible to real harm from this agent, is morally suspect.
There is no doubt, other ways to effectively address crowds that by their behavior are either out-of-control or veering to becoming out-of-control, and it so behooves this country, that insists upon being known, as the premier defender of freedom throughout the world, to live that creed in principle. This thus signifies that with the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on the nation’s military as well as the militarization of the police, that, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to come up, for instance, with a concentrated energy source, such as sound, wind, heat, or cold, that when forcefully directed at social human disturbances that need to be quelled for the safety of the public, or to prudently protect infrastructure, that in its implementation, it would be effective in that purpose, with a corresponding minimal amount of damage being inflicted upon those on the receiving end of such.
When it comes to chemical agents so being utilized today, it must be acknowledged that on the one hand, the evidence seems to point to such convincedly accomplishing its goal of crowd dispersal; but on the other hand, such crowd dispersal comes at a real cost to civilians, who typically are completely unarmed and typically merely expressing their viewpoint through the means of a group protest. This, in a sense, means for those suffering from that chemical agent, that they are being punished in an unusually cruel way, without having been convicted of a crime, or even having been formally accused of such. The apparatus of the state, consists of many different things, of which one of those attributes is force; and when that state uses that force indiscriminately and with nary a real concern other than silencing those that are inconvenient to it, then the state has lost is moral compass, and is in danger of losing its legitimacy, as well.