YOURE TELLING ME THIS IS WHAT THEY'VE BEEN SHOOTING PROTESTERS WITH????
YEP! These are meant to be skipped into the ground and then spin into people's legs and dissuade people from advancing or move them away. FIRING THEM AT PEOPLE'S HEADS IS 100% AGAINST THE PROPER USE.
AND THEY ARE SHOOTING THESE AT MEDICS. DOCTORS, EMTS, AND NURSES. AT CLOSE RANGE.
THESE CAN BREAK YOUR SKULL. THEY ARE NOT A JOKE.
THIS IS LESS LETHAL LIKE A BASEBALL BAT IS LESS LETHAL THAN A SWORD. BOTH STILL CAN KILL.
I only found out today they’re meant to be fired at the ground to bounce back at protesters... I don’t think I’ve ever seen the cops use them that way
They're also often actually metal with a thin coating of rubber.
Hi.
Your buddy from the ammo industry here.
1) these are absolutely not supposed to be fired directly at people, they are supposed to be fired indirectly.
2) they can kill and seriously injure people
3) this type of "rubber bullet" (often called a "foam baton" or "rubber baton" round) is a lightweight projectile that will nonetheless fuck you up. I've loaded and worked with foam batons and rubber shot for a long time and in all the time I've worked with people who were loading and firing rubber bullets with police departments I've never encountered any version of a 37 or 40mm baton round that has a "thin layer of rubber over a metal core," which is a description I've seen a lot of in the last few days and wanted to correct.
And yet...
Yep, ACAB.
What I will say, and I know it's cold comfort, is that everyone in photos like these has an incredible case against these PDs because the rounds they're firing say right on the casing that they're not to be fired except by properly trained users in appropriate ways so either this is a trained person who ignored the training and can be held liable or this is an untrained person whose department should be held liable
They 100% know this is not how these are supposed to be used and they are intentionally misusing them in ways they are aware make the weapons more lethal and will later claim they didn't know better. They're lying, and everyone should know they're lying.