The OutofControl Spread Of CrowdControl Tech

Sells nonlethal tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets. The company also offers its own version of a Venom-like weapon, a multi-launcher called the Ironfist, "for rapid deployment over minimal civilian ammunition cover and hostile crowds."

Like firearms manufacturers, combination systems and non-lethal technologies hold federal firearms licenses and federal explosives licenses. However, there are no federal regulations distinguishing between lethal and less lethal firearms, and all firearms are exempt from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. While Combined Systems and Non-Lethal Technologies market their weapons as less lethal, there is no regulatory framework to ensure the reduced lethality of their products. They do not address chemical composition clauses, for example, in prescriptions for tear gas or other chemical irritants, or in safety guidelines for the speed and accuracy of the projectiles they fire.

There are also no federal guidelines requiring police officers to use less lethal means in the performance of their duties. In the absence of such standards, law enforcement agencies have developed their own protocols. An activity that will make you shoot rubber bullets in one city may not in another.

The landscape outside the United States is very similar. Instead of an international treaty specifically regulating the production, sale and use of non-lethal weapons, the United Nations released a 2020 Less-Lethal Weapons Law Enforcement Guidelines. The document has nothing to say about best practices for manufacturing and sales and instead outlines guidelines for enforcement. It is not fully enclosed.

Talk to many law enforcement officials and they'll tell you that less lethal weapons are the saving grace that keeps protests from getting bloodier. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Pittsburgh Fraternal Order of Police President Bob Swartzwelder argued that without tools like tear gas and rubber bullets, "police would be forced [to do] what was seen in '68. The Chicago riots, dog bites as well as baton waving." , Swartzwelder's position was echoed by police chiefs across the United States.

But in fact, the story offers an alternative to the brutal police tactics used in "Bloody Sunday" Chicago, Birmingham, and Selma in the 1960s. Those violent protests spawned a presidential commission that in turn created a new model of policing. The protests, sometimes called "brokerage governments," would dominate many U.S. offices. Under that model, the police were meant to protect public safety and the First Amendment rights of protesters; Officers explained what they would and would not accept from protesters and how they would respond if those lines were crossed. Sometimes arrests are planned in advance with protest organizers.

Then, at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, a group of protesters rejected the "choreographed" plan of the march and dismantled police barricades, with Police Chief Norm Stamper agreeing to the arbitrary use of tear gas and other lesser options. Scrum scenes dominate the news and the "deliberative management" model falls apart visibly. Stamper would later regret his decision, calling it "the worst mistake of my career". We use chemical agents…against non-violent and essentially non-threatening protesters.” But in the United States there has been a shift toward negotiated management and a greater reliance on non-lethal means.

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