far-flung protests are presently charge through America and around the macrocosm as a result of tenner of frustration , angriness , and letdown over law brutality and systemic racism that come to a caput of late with the death of a sinister man , George Floyd , by awhite constabulary officerin Minneapolis on May 25 . In cases where bacchanal have broken out , US natural law enforcement has returned fire on protestors usingtear gasand rubber eraser bullet as a means of “ non - deadly ” gang mastery , but a work issue inBMJ Openin 2017 bear witness that pencil eraser bullets can sometimes match the lethality of alive ammunition . Also known as " kinetic impact munition " or " baton round " , pencil eraser smoke are think of to have pain but not serious injury with expected accidental injury include contusions , detrition , and hematomas , but a widescale analysis reveal this is often not the case .
The subject area analyzed 1,984 rubber bullet trauma and found that of those , 300 hoi polloi ended up with injuries that led to permanent disability and 53 multitude died . The justification for police possibility blast on protestors with rubber bullets is that they ’re non - lethal but as this field , as well as report from the on-going dissent and riots , show , these bullets are equal to ofcausing pregnant , aliveness - neutering , and even fateful injury .
“ stark trauma can be as deadly as penetrative harm , ” Michele Heisler , a University of Michigan medical prof and the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights , toldInverse . “ When they are fire at close range , the levels of lethality and patterns of injury of many types of [ energizing impingement projectile ] are similar to those of live ammo . Most just can not be used safely against gang . ”
Reports of injuries from recent dissent have admit ruptured orb and broken osseous tissue , with several cases include journalists and members of the populace resulting in theloss of an eyeafter being directly strike by a rubber bullet . Police rule of thumb indicate that rubber bullets should be shoot at the priming nearby protestors so they are discover by a rebounding bullet rather than a verbatim hit , but the Black Lives Matter protest have take in the bullet instead being fired directly at protestors ' heads and throats .
Even indirect bullets pose a meaning scourge as its out of the question to auspicate where they will reverberate to . Delicate areas of the nerve and soundbox such as the eyes , mouth , and groin do n’t ask the full force of a unmediated nip to be catastrophically damaged , and indirect shots have injured and even killed hoi polloi in the past times .
[ H / T : Inverse ]
