As police officers struggling against increasing unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and a dozen witnesses come forward to collaborate the account of events as told by the police officer, a report emerges discussing the types of non-lethal devices police officers use to control unruly and even riotous crowds.
Lost in the discussion is what the crowds are often intent on doing and that is bring about the destruction of property and threaten the safety of innocents. Case in point is the rubber bullets often fired by Israeli law enforcement at Molotov cocktail hurling, stone throwing Palestinians. In one photograph, a young Palestinian man shows the deep pock-mark like bruises on his arm and torso after being fired upon by police. One such pockmark is just right of his sternum about where his heart is or a critical artery to his heart.
The image is intended to evoke anger at the police because the political Left wants to treat the term non-lethal as a synonym for painless. Lost in the discussion is the fact that the bullet been made of lead, the man would most certainly lying lifeless on his back. Had he been left alone, someone might have been injured or killed. In another image, a Black man is running away in pain after inhaling tear gas.
The airborne smoky irritant causes the eyes to water uncontrollably, the sinuses to emit copious amounts of mucous, and the throat and lungs to burn.
Again, the question isn’t whether the term non-lethal will cause pain, but what the pain will spare all parties involved from which is loss of life and destruction of property.