US 'Non-Lethal' Projectiles: Blindness Edition, Made in America
Al Jazeera's coverage of a protester being shot in the face with a 'non-lethal' round, resulting in skull fractures and blindness in one eye, highlights a grim reality: the state's definition of 'non-lethal' is often just a euphemism for 'severely disabling'. This isn't an isolated incident; during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, police deployed an array of crowd control tools, from tear gas
– banned in warfare, perfectly acceptable for domestic crowds – to rubber bullets and flash-bangs, causing numerous severe injuries, including permanent blindness and brain damage. (Amnesty International documented hundreds of such instances, for example, during the protests following George Floyd's murder). The irony deepens when considering the sheer quantity of these 'crowd control' weapons –
often manufactured by companies like Safariland or Combined Systems, Inc. – frequently procured by local police departments with federal funding. One might wonder if the efficacy of these tools is measured by their ability to quell dissent, regardless of the human cost, rather than their supposed 'non-lethal' nature. How many more eye-gouging, bone-shattering 'warnings' will it take before we
question the nature of the 'peace' being enforced?