A Demonstrator’s Guide to Understanding Riot Munitions
If there’s one thing that police officers prefer to hitting people with sticks, it’s shooting blunt objects and chemical weapons at people. Arms manufacturers are constantly developing new ways to assault people from a distance—and taxpayers keep buying new toys for their oppressors.
This article offers an overview of less-lethal projectiles—both chemical weapons and impact munitions. The police themselves don’t bother distinguishing the two. We’ll cover chemical weapons like tear gas and pepper spray. We’ll cover impact weapons like baton rounds, rubber bullets, and pepper-balls. We’ll cover the systems police use to apply these weapons, including air guns, sprays, grenades, grenade launchers, and shotguns. We’ll cover the ways that police mark people for arrest—and the ways they probably don’t. Other articles in this series discuss batons and other police weaponry. One of the most useful articles to read in conjunction to this one is our “Protocols for Common Injuries from Police Weapons.”
This can be a scary subject. But remember—their goal isn’t to strike us with plastic bullets or spray us with chemicals. Their goal is to make us live in fear. They want us to stay home, disconnected, leaving their authority absolute and unchallenged. They fail to achieve goal every time we take the streets together. They fail every time we refuse to let that fear dictate what we do.
In this article, we’ll touch briefly on how to protect ourselves via gas masks, armor, shields, and the like. Other articles explore those options in detail. But the chief thing that can protect us against the police is solidarity. We are the ones who must keep each other safe. One shield on the front line of a demonstration can protect many people. One medic willing to treat those in the line of fire can protect many people. A few people who risk jail time to push the police back can protect many people. Our best protection against riot munitions is each other.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting despite fear. Together, we can overcome fear.
On Standardization and Oversight
We have found no evidence that there is any federal or state oversight of what weapons police are permitted to use to quell civil disturbances. According to an anarchist lawyer who specializes in this field, each of roughly 18,000 agencies in the US maintains its own use of force guidelines detailing internal standards regarding what its officers can do to people. We’ve found no body that certifies the chemistry employed in chemical weapons. Any given chemical weapons manufacturer chooses their own binding agents and chemical additives; it appears there is no easy way to know what chemicals we are being exposed to when police target us with these weapons. While this shouldn’t cause us to back down and accede to authoritarianism, it’s important to remember that these weapons are only “less lethal” in comparison to live ammunition.
There are only two factors contributing to standardizing these weapons. The first is that weapons that use existing projectile systems (such as 37mm launchers) are more likely to be widely adopted than oddball systems that require entirely new training and weaponry. The second is that manufacturers tend to copy each other’s innovations.
While the federal government apparently does not provide oversight, it does occasionally offer advice and suggestions—for example, in this somewhat-outdated 2004 manual of less-lethal weaponry.
Impact Munitions
Police fire a wide range of blunt force projectiles from a variety of weapons. Manufacturers and police departments sometimes call these “Blunt Impact Projectiles” (BIPs) or “Kinetic Impact Projectiles (KIPs). “Rubber bullets” are only one of many variants. They vary in size, force, composition, delivery methods, and lethality.
The sales pitches that manufacturers make to law enforcement agencies emphasize the ability to obtain compliance from subjects via projected force with minimal risk of injury or death. All of the academic studies—not to mention our lived experience—show that neither of these claims is correct: impact munitions regularly maim and kill protestors and they rarely succeed at breaking up demonstrations. They’re even less effective at stopping social movements. Often, when one of us loses an eye or suffers a fractured skull, more people come out to the streets.
Some of the more common impact munitions include baton rounds, large plastic, foam, gel, or even wooden projectiles that are fired from a multi-launcher or occasionally a shotgun; rubber bullets, metal projectiles coated in rubber or PVC; bean bag rounds, woven bags filled with either silica or lead, usually fired from shotguns; pepper-balls, which are essentially paintballs filled with pepper spray; FN303 rounds, a combination of pepper-balls and regular impact munitions; rubber balls, which are rubber or plastic or foam pellets packed into grenades to explode like shrapnel or shotgun shot; and, of course, the venerable gas canister (bearing chemical agents or smoke), which is not designed to be fired directly at protestors—but regularly is.
Contrary to popular supposition, most modern impact munitions are designed for “direct fire” rather than “skip fire.” Direct fire munitions are for shooting directly at individuals, while skip fire projectiles are designed to be skipped off the ground into the crowd. Tear gas canisters are generally intended for skip firing at close range or firing at a 25-30 degree arc into the air for maximum range; they are not rated for direct fire. Some styles of baton rounds that split into multiple projectiles are designed for skip fire to distribute the projectiles more widely, while others are designed to be fired over the heads of protesters in order to rain chemicals down. Full-size wooden baton rounds and some rubber bullets seem to be designed for skip fire as well, but in general, skip fire is less accurate and less common.
Baton rounds, stinger grenades, and beanbags hurt. They injure people. Occasionally, they maim or—even more rarely—kill people. Yet of all the tools used by the police, they are some of the least effective at stopping demonstrations. Unlike a cop within mêlée range, a baton round cannot arrest you. Unlike a cloud of gas, it can’t force you to disperse. Ranged impact weapons rely primarily on pain compliance. While this may work on individuals, pain alone usually cannot force a resolute crowd to comply. Standing around getting shot at isn’t always the right move. But the effects of impact munitions can be mitigated by protective equipment including shields, armor, helmets, goggles, barricades, and even umbrellas. Impact weapons rely on fear above all—and through mental preparation and mutual support, we can defend ourselves from fear. We can choose not to comply with fear.
All around the world, intimidation is the chief weapon of the mercenaries who serve the ruling class.
Common Injuries
Impact munitions are ostensibly designed to hurt people and cause compliance without causing significant injury. But there’s nothing safe about them.
It’s been difficult for us to parse the available data to work out which parts are applicable specifically in the United States. The largest study, from 2017, includes information from many other studies around the world. But a good portion of its data—about 41%—describes the use of rubber bullets. Rubber bullets account for a vastly disproportionate number of the serious injuries in the study, and a slightly disproportionate number of deaths. The study found that 3% of people injured with impact munitions die as a result, but that is not a useful number to understand in the context of a demonstration of the US. People do die as a consequence of impact munitions—but it will not be anywhere near 3% of those who are injured by them. We have not been able to confirm whether rubber bullets are currently in use in the US (as they are easily confused with rubber ball ammunition), but if they are, they are not the predominant impact munition in use.
The 2017 study found that the majority of serious injuries and deaths were the result of impacts to the head or neck. A smaller study from 2000 found that the majority of deaths were the result of impacts to the chest (causing ribs to break and puncture the heart or lungs).
After the type of munition fired, the most significant factors determining the severity of injuries are the distance from which it is fired and the speed with which the victim can access medical care. Attacks from within ten feet caused the greatest number of broken bones, for example. Also, street medics save lives.
The most common injury from impact weapons is intense bruising. And despite police lacking competence and acting with impunity, it does seem like most impact munitions are aimed where they are supposed to be aimed, at the abdomen or lower, where serious injuries are less likely to occur.
Occasionally, injuries and deaths occur when an officer fires breaching rounds (projectiles designed to break through barriers such as doors) directly at people, presumably by accident.
Three weeks into the George Floyd uprising, the American Academy of Ophthalmology reported at least 20 serious eye injuries at protests caused by impact weapons (including baton rounds, bean bag rounds, and pepper-balls), tear gas canisters, and, in one case, the probe of a Taser. These included seven instances in which people lost an eye as a result of such an incident, with many more people awaiting surgery, unsure if they would keep their eyes. In one case this year, a journalist suffered a serious eye injury after a projectile broke the protective lenses of his gas mask.
Across the world, medical specialists continue to call for the abolition of impact munitions in policing.
Protection
Based on street experience and the analysis of studies, the most vital areas to protect are the head, eyes, neck, and chest. Helmets, gorgets, sports armor breastplates, and impact-resistant goggles, face masks, or gas masks can protect against this, potentially combined with shields. The neck is the most complicated of these areas to protect; most people have never heard the word “gorget,” let alone imagined wearing one while protesting against the police. Basically, a gorget is an item of neck armor worn by fencers. None of us have ever seen anyone wear one at a demonstration.
We will discuss shields in a later article. Here, suffice it to say that, to protect against impact munitions, a shield must be strong enough to resist penetration of the round, rigid enough to distribute the force of impact across a large surface area, and be backed by foam wherever the wielder’s body is in contact with it. Plywood 3/8” thick serves well enough, though 1/2” can hold up to more weaponry. Traffic barrel plastic resists penetration well but distributes the force poorly, though it is substantially lighter than wood. No shield makes you invulnerable.
Most injuries occur below the waist. It appears that the most effectively trained police prefer to shoot demonstrators in the kneecaps. In view of this, it may be worth considering wearing kneepads or more complete sports armor, not so much to avoid permanent injury or death as to remain mobile, effective, and uninjured.
Shields and barricades can help mitigate all of these potential injuries as well.
Understanding Ballistics
To understand impact, we have to understand kinetic energy.
Kinetic energy, often called muzzle energy in ballistics, is measured in joules (or in foot-pounds, if you’re not feeling metric). It’s derived from the velocity of an object and its weight, with velocity being exponentially more important. The formula to determine the kinetic energy of a projectile is Ek = (1/2)mv2 with Ek representing energy (kinetic), m representing mass, and v representing velocity.
None of us are engineers, but we consulted a couple in the course of writing this article. Basically, we can understand joules measuring the answer to the question “How much did I get hit with?” A baseball thrown at 90 mph might have 120 joules. A baton round might have 240 joules, hitting you twice as hard as that baseball. A .22 rifle might also deliver projectiles with 240 joules, but the baton round is a blunt impact whereas a bullet is designed to penetrate. A 9mm pistol might deliver bullets with 470 joules, an AR-15 with 1850, while a slug from a 12-gauge shotgun could approach 4500. If a 180-pound person fell from a height of 15 feet, they’d have around 4000 joules when they hit the ground. A speeding car? Easily 200,000 joules.
Yet most of us would rather get shot with a baton round than a .22. As one contributor to this text put it, “I’d rather be hit with 200 joules of marshmallows than 200 joules of baton.” Joules are far from the whole story about the damage a given projectile can inflict. The surface area it hits you with (the joules per square meter), the angle it hits you, where it hits you, and the object’s composition (a wooden baton round will absorb less of its own impact than a gel baton round, for example) all matter more. In one study, it took only 375 joules to break bones when pressure was applied at certain angles, while it took 9920 joules to break the same bones when pressure was applied at other angles.
Because velocity is more important to energy than the weight of the projectile, the energy with which a projectile strikes a target drops off quickly at distance. A faster object will often carry more kinetic energy than a slower, heavier object.
It is useful to start with the energy various weapons can deliver and the impact testing to which various pieces of protective gear are subjected. We’ve found one military document that refers to a “internationally recognized lethality limit” of 75 joules. But these factors do not give us enough information to know how a given projectile will affect a given target. While we are testing various impact munitions against various items of protective gear, we’d like to hear any anecdotes or research you can share about the effectiveness of different forms of protection against projectiles.
Baton rounds
Material composition: plastic, foam, gel, wood
Delivery methods: mostly 37/40mm launchers, some 12-gauge shotguns
Velocity: most seem to be around 300 fps (feet per second), with some examples up to 650 fps
Energy: one example is 244 joules
Range: depends widely on composition, but an overall advertised range of between 1.5 and 80 meters
Baton rounds come in multiple shapes, sizes, and materials, but they’re basically big chunks of painful object. They tend to be large-caliber (37mm and 40mm), so that they impart as much force as possible while remaining too blunt to penetrate skin. Many baton rounds also include some kind of payload, such as chemical agents or marking dye.
Most projectiles that get called “rubber bullets” are probably baton rounds. It’s not necessary to correct people pedantically, but for the purpose of this article, we’re going to make the distinction and call them baton rounds instead.
The most common materials for baton rounds are plastic, foam, gel, and wood. While there are far too many varieties list at length, and different manufacturers use different materials for different purposes, the general idea seems to be that foam rounds tend to be intended for short-range fire while plastic and wood are intended for longer range applications. Gel rounds are advertised as being useful at short or long range, as are “collapsible head” plastic rounds. Of course, it’s hard to imagine the police really thinking through exactly which round they want to use for which tactical purpose, especially in chaotic situations, and it’s safe to assume that they are firing all of these at any range they want.
40mm foam baton round.
Baton rounds often contain multiple projectiles within each shell that are designed to split apart.
Some baton rounds have rifling built into the shell or into the barrel of the launcher to spin-stabilize the projectile for accuracy. Most appear not to. While every baton round is rated to a different range, most seem to be designed for use between 2 and 40 meters; only a few varieties are designed for up to 80 meters.
Direct fire baton rounds are supposed to be aimed at the navel, thighs, buttocks, or knees—though as previously mentioned, it is a mistake to expect police to limit themselves thus.
Most people struck with baton rounds just come away with a nasty welt. However, baton rounds have maimed and killed people, especially when they strike people’s faces. In July, Portland police shot a 26-year-old protestor in the face with a baton round while he had his hands up. We believe that round to have been a Sage International 37mm KO1 round. The blow fractured his skull, nearly killing him and necessitating surgery.
There are also 12-gauge shotgun baton rounds. Most of these are various rubber projectiles that have fins and look like tiny missiles or rocket ships. One, for example, the stabili-shock, weighs 6 grams and is meant to fire at 426 fps for a total of 51 joules of force. We found one video of someone loading the round wrong and shooting it at three times that velocity. We have seen some evidence of police using these at protests in the US.
Another make is the Lightfield Superstar, a colorful sea urchin of pain. It is a close-quarters weapon, considered safe for direct fire at as close as two meters. We have found no evidence of law enforcement using these in the US.
Baton rounds seem to have been invented by the British for use in their colonial project in Ireland, because the rubber bullets they were using at the time were killing too many people. Plastic baton rounds still killed colonial subjects, but at a slower rate.
Modern baton rounds often contain one or more chemical weapons, including OC (Oleoresin capsicum) and CS (common tear gas) most commonly, though CN (which is more dangerous) is used as well. Some baton rounds also contain marking compounds.
37mm wooden baton round.
Rubber Balls
Composition: hard rubber
Delivery methods: hand-thrown grenades, 37/40mm canisters, 12-gauge shotguns, possibly .68 caliber air guns
Velocity: variable
Energy: 30-200 joules when fired from a shotgun, other styles unknown
Range: widely variable
Rubber balls are fired individually or, more often, packed into shotgun shells, multi-launcher shells, or hand-thrown grenades. They shoot out wildly and injure people unpredictably. Brand names include Stinger, Sting-ball, and Hornet’s Nest; they are sometimes generically described as rubber buckshot. We’ve found a few common calibers of balls: .32 caliber and .60 caliber (which is to say .32” and .6”), are common in grenades and larger canisters, while “rubber buckshot” seems to come in 00 buckshot size: .33”. Some shotgun rounds are packed with one to three .68” rubber balls.
According to one manufacturer, rubber ball weapons are considered a weapon of last resort when other less lethal options have failed. This is probably because rubber balls are unpredictable in who they strike and where.
It’s possible, though we have not been able to confirm it, that most of what people describe as rubber bullets in the United States are the larger caliber of rubber ball. Combined Tactical Systems Sting-balls are in common use in Portland—they are presumed to be the means by which police broke someone’s finger in August. Anecdotally, a lot of them seem to misfire, as demonstrators have found a large number of improperly-deployed canisters.
A sting-ball grenade.
There is speculation that expired rubber balls lose some elasticity over time and become more hazardous.
Rubber balls are also packed into grenades that for all other purposes function as flash-bang grenades: disorientation devices that use sound and light to distract people. One hand grenade we looked at, the ALS Hornets Nest Sting Grenade, holds 180 .32 caliber balls and produces a flash of 1-2 million candela and a bang of 130 db at five feet.
Rubber balls move very chaotically; grenades detonated on the ground can easily send projectiles towards our faces and eyes.
These grenades are absolutely not safe to handle and should not be caught or thrown back.
12-gauge stinger balls.
Beanbags
Composition: silica or lead in Kevlar or other fabric
Delivery method: Mostly 12-gauge shotguns, but also 37/40mm launchers
Range: 20-35 feet
Velocity: ~270 fps
Force: one 12-gauge example was 146 joules
Beanbag rounds are bags full of metal (such as #9 shotgun shot) or silica (sand). On average, they are for closer-range use than baton rounds; they more often used inside buildings—specifically, in jails. Every manufacturer and every round will be different, but most seem to be intended for use between 20-35 feet. Some beanbag rounds are “drag stabilized” with a bit of cloth that hangs off the back to keep it accurate its entire effective distance. They are fired from 37mm and 40mm launchers and 12-gauge shotguns.
Manufacturer’s guidelines suggest that it would take 2-3 shots with a beanbag round to incapacitate a target. When they are used in riot situations, they are not usually employed to incapacitate people so much as to inflict a psychological impact on the crowd.
We saw one police officer on a forum telling the story of a man on PCP surviving 34 shots with beanbag rounds (though one round shattered the bones in his hand). Police on internet forums often boast about how they shoot rookies with beanbag rounds to haze them.
We found Safariland beanbag rounds for retail at $30 or available on eBay for $10. Other manufacturers charge around $6-7 per round.
40mm beanbag round.
Rubber Bullets
Composition: rubber- or nylon- or PVC-coated steel, or a hard composition of rubber and silica
Delivery method: varied
Thus far, our research into rubber bullets has been less conclusive than our research into the other rounds. Historically, rubber bullets for crowd control come in two forms: metal projectiles coated in rubber, as British occupiers used extensively in Northern Ireland, and hard pellets made of a homogenous mixture of roughly 20% rubber and 80% silica, as commonly deployed by the Israeli colonial occupation in Palestine.
We know that the police in the US are shooting people with rubber balls, and there has been some speculation that in 2020, DC police have used the steel-cored variety that have killed so many people over the years.
As metal-cored projectiles were disproportionately responsible for death and maiming in the 2017 study of less-lethal weapons, this warrants further investigation. If you see police fire rubber balls at people, try to grab some. Measure them, cut them open, and send us pictures.
There are also bullet-shaped rubber bullets designed to be fired from 9mm handguns and, presumably, every other common firearm caliber. But as these are fired from regular firearms, they do not seem to have found their way into the police riot control weapon arsenal. So far, the only manufacturer we’ve tracked down that makes this style of bullet is in Canada: Lamperd Less Lethal. It’s safest to assume that the rifles and handgun you see police carrying hold live ammunition.
Pellets and Paintballs
More and more commonly, less lethal munitions are fired from .68” caliber airguns—which is to say, paintball guns. A few styles that we have not confirmed to be in use in the USA are covered above under “rubber bullets.” The more common styles are pepper-balls and FN303 rounds.
While both are used as impact munitions, they are unique to their individual platforms, so we’ll cover them under “launchers” below. However, fascists have lately adopted the paintball gun as a favored tool for street conflict. Rumors abound that they are using frozen paintballs, but we suspect that they may be using rubber balls.
Frozen paintballs are nearly mythical in the paintball world because local media outlets falsely claim they are favored tool of Halloween vandals. Paintballs frozen in a home freezer for 48 hours do not freeze solid; they only become slightly more brittle and tacky, and they thaw quickly. Paintballs frozen in dry ice are much more solid and potentially dangerous, but unwieldy to shoot. Liquid nitrogen frozen paintballs are as hard as ice, but so brittle they are nearly impossible to load and fire. All cold paintballs become less accurate—as the shell becomes tackier—but sting more.
In parts of the world where access to firearms for self-defense is less ubiquitous, airguns are sometimes used to deliver near-lethal force, firing pellets including solid rubber and rubber- or PVC-coated steel balls such as those covered under rubber bullets above, sometimes referred to as “glass breaker” balls. These projectiles are certainly available to US law enforcement as well as civilians; they can be fired from any paintball launcher.
“Glass breaker” balls.
Anti-fascists leaking far-right communication logs in Portland in 2020 revealed that at least one far-right militia member discussed using frozen paintballs but noted their lack of accuracy. He suggested instead using glass breaker balls, as detailed above.
There are also self-defense rounds for airguns that use a D-shaped round like First Strike. First Strike is a style of paintball round fired from a magazine instead of a hopper, designed for greater accuracy. The same system has been adapted to shoot rubber projectiles with enough force to be deadly. We’ve seen no evidence of their use by police, besides the Pepperball VXR rounds covered under pepper-balls, below, and the FN303 rounds.
FN303 rounds.
Barricade Rounds
Barricade rounds are projectiles that are designed to penetrate barriers as tough as glass windows (12-gauge), hollow-core doors (37mm), or thin wallboard or plywood (40mm) and release chemical agents from their nosecone upon impact with said barrier. They are not as effective at breaking through double-pane windows or getting past heavy drapes. The rounds are not meant to be fired at people; they have killed multiple people who were struck directly by them.1
They carry OC, CS, CN, or inert liquid or powder. The liquid-carried ones are heavier and penetrate barricades more effectively, while powder carriers are more effective at dispersing gas. Liquid rounds come with red dye that mark where they hit.
Launchers and Dispersal Methods
Police have access to a wide variety of tools they use to project force at a distance. The most common of these include .68 caliber airguns (essentially, paintball guns), 12-gauge shotguns (referred to and usually marked as less-lethal shotguns, but effectively interchangeable with any other 12-guage shotgun), grenades, and 37 or 40mm “multi-launchers,” which are functionally grenade launchers. They also disperse chemicals with sprays, hoses, and smoke candles.
These weapons are not particularly inaccurate, manufacturers’ promises notwithstanding. Studies show that when the operators of less-lethal weapons are under stress, their vertical accuracy past 30 meters is significantly compromised. Other factors include fatigue, the weight of the launcher itself, which is significant when loaded, and the recoil of the rounds, which tend to “pull” the round up when fired. These minor differences multiply in effect over distance. What would be a one-inch variance at close range can become a difference of several feet at a longer range. This means that even if an officer chooses to aim a crowd control weapon at someone’s lower body, he could easily hit his target in the head—or hit someone else entirely. There is not a surefire way to shoot any weapon into a crowd of people and be certain to hit your intended target.
.68 Caliber Air-Powered Guns
Police use what amount to paintball guns to launch chemical agents, impact munitions, and marking rounds at people. These are .68 caliber air-powered rifles and handguns. At one time, these were used almost exclusively to shoot pepper-balls and paintballs at protestors, but it wasn’t long before one manufacturer added impact munitions to the projectiles by forgoing a round ball and making fin-stabilized projectiles that contain both chemical agents and enough metal to hurt.
There seem to be two primary manufacturers of .68 caliber “less lethal” weapons and ammunition: Pepperball and FN Herstal. We will focus on each one’s flagship rifle as an example, but police might be armed with older models of these weapons, the pistol versions of these weapons, or systems from other companies entirely. The pistol version of the Pepperball system seems to be even less accurate than other options.
Pepperball pistol.
There are also a large number of “riot ball”-style munitions designed to be fired from air rifles/paintball guns (including .68 caliber and .50 caliber), though we have not collected evidence of their use in the United States. These might be anything from solid rubber balls to PVC- or nylon-coated steel pellets to D-shaped projectiles that use “First Strike” paintball guns for increased accuracy.
There is a lot of anecdotal information about paintball players suffering eye damage from ordinary paintballs. These smaller projectiles may be especially dangerous in demonstrations. That’s a good reason to wear goggles.
Of the two weapon systems known to be employed by US law enforcement, the FN303 seems to be substantially more dangerous in terms of pain, injury, and death, while the Pepperball system is more tactically versatile.
The FN303.
FN303
Effective range: 50 m
Maximum range: 100 m
Caliber: .68
Magazine capacity: 15
Weight: 5 pounds
Velocity: 295-300 fps
Energy: 35 Joules
List price: $1699
Ammunition list price: $2.85-$4.65/round (paint rounds are cheaper, chemical weapon rounds more expensive)
The FN303 is a gun that uses compressed air to fire rounds at targets. While the actual barrel is small, firing a .68” projectile like other paintball and pepper-ball guns, the FN303 looks a bit like a grenade launcher from some angles because the compressed air tank sits above the barrel and can be mistaken for a larger barrel itself. It fires polystyrene projectiles that are fin-stabilized for accuracy. Each projectile has a front section containing tiny pellets of bismuth and a rear section containing the payload. Bismuth is essentially a non-toxic alternative to lead. The front section is designed to deliver trauma without skin penetration; but tests on ballistic gel imply that it often penetrates skin regardless, and protestors in Portland have found that the rounds can penetrate bicycle helmets. Bismuth pellets can penetrate skin and stay embedded for weeks until manually removed.
The FN303 has a 10” barrel (shorter than a rifle) and a 15-round drum magazine. The air tank can fire up to 110 shots before it needs refilling. The safety is inside the trigger guard. The entire device can be removed from its stock and mounted underbarrel on a rifle, although fortunately, we have not seen any evidence of civilian police doing so. It is also available in a pistol format, with a six-round magazine that contains a disposable carbon dioxide cartridge that powers the gun.
Each FN303 projectile weighs 8.5 grams. There are five versions on the market, each color-coded. White projectiles contain inert powder and are used for training; clear projectiles have no rear payload and are only used to hurt people; orange projectiles contain PAVA powder (synthetic pepper spray—see below); pink projectiles contain a pink, water-soluble, washable paint for marking targets; yellow projectiles contain a yellow, latex-based, indelible paint for marking targets that cannot as easily be washed off. The projectiles have a shelf life of three years when kept in their original, foil-lined packaging.
In 2004, a Boston police officer used an FN303 to shoot and kill Victoria Snelgrove. The officer was allegedly aiming at someone else in the crowd. The pellet entered her eye, breaking through bone and injuring her brain. She died of her injuries a few hours later. Studies indicate that an individual FN303 loses accuracy after a few hundred rounds have been fired through it; the FN303 was the weapon used in the aforementioned study showing how inaccurate less lethal weapons are in the hands of an operator in a stressful situation. The city of Boston discontinued the use of the FN303 as a result, as did several other cities. Boston apparently melted theirs down to make manhole covers. As of this writing, Portland police continue to employ the FN303, as many other departments around the country presumably do.
In Luxembourg, in 2009, police using FN303s for the first time shot and broke a journalist’s finger.
In 2020, Portland police shot a National Geographic filmmaker with an FN303 round; it broke the plastic lens on his Czech M10 gas mask, lacerating his eye and necessitating surgery. Weeks later, the bismuth pellets were still embedded in the skin of his face, looking like small blackheads that he has been removing himself with a needle.
In July 2020, federal agents shot Trip Jennings, a videographer who has worked with PBS and National Geographic, in the eye with a less-lethal round in Portland, Oregon.
Pepperball VKS
Effective range of pepper-balls: 20 m
Effective range of VXR projectiles: 50 m
Caliber: .68
Magazine capacity: 10-15 rounds in magazine, 180 rounds in hopper
Weight: 6.2 pounds without hopper
Energy: Adjustable between 10-28 joules
Velocity: 280–425 fps
List price: around $1200
Ammunition list price: unknown
The Pepperball VKS (Variable Kinetic System) is essentially a paintball gun designed to look and function like an AR-15 and to fire paintballs full of pepper spray or other rounds. The user can switch between feeding them via a rifle-style magazine (which can hold pepper-balls or shaped rounds) or a paintball-style hopper (that holds only pepper-balls) by rotating the barrel. They can also use two different compressed air sources: the stock itself is a compressed 13ci HPA air canister or a remote air line can connect to any compressed air tank. Online forums suggest a wide range of how many shots one can get from a 13ci tank, estimating between 80-250. The AR-style safety switch has three modes: (S) Safety, (F) Fire, and (D) Disassemble. A velocity adjustment screw sits above the trigger on the right side. The VKS comes in black-and-yellow, black-and-orange, and all black.
The manufacturer’s guidelines say that the weapon is not to be fired at the head, face, eyes, ears, throat, or spine.
Police departments use pepper-balls for direct impact as well as area saturation. A Denver PD trainer says that the police use pepper-balls to saturate an area that would otherwise be dangerous to approach, to draw suspects out from hiding or cover.
The rifle fires two types of ammunition: round pepper-balls, loaded from the hopper or magazine, which are accurate up to 20 meters, and the newer form of ammunition, VXR-shaped projectiles, which are only loaded from the magazine. The VXR projectiles are accurate up to 50 meters, as they are fin-stabilized.
This rifle can fire projectiles at speeds of up to 425 fps. For comparison, most paintball fields limit guns to 280fps for safety.
Each round is color-coded. The shelf life of ammunition is 3 years.
A pepper-ball launcher with a hopper.
Pepper-balls: 280-350 fps, 12-15 joules, 20 meter accuracy, 50 meters+ area saturation
White and red: LIVE, 0.5% PAVA (synthetic pepper spray)
Black and red: LIVE-X, 5% PAVA
White and blue: CS, 2.5% CS (tear gas)
Blue and red: CS/PAVA, 1.25% CS and 1.25% PAVA
White and purple: Inert, used for training or just to hurt people
Solid green: marking, contains paint for identification
Solid white/beige: glass breaker, designed to shatter glass and then itself shatter, not designed for use on people or animals
Clear: water-filled, used for training or just to hurt people
Also clear: UV marking, used to mark people with ink that can only be detected under UV light
VXR rounds: 280-425 fps, 12-28 joules, 50 meter accuracy, 130 meter+ area saturation
Red and orange-red: VXR Live, .25% PAVA
Red and black: VXR Live-X, 2.5% PAVA
Blue and black: VXR CS, 1.25% CS
Blue and red: VXR CS/PAVA, 0.625% CS Powder and 0.625% PAVA Powder
Purple: VXR inert powder, used for training or just to hurt people
White and black: VXR inert liquid, used for training; might containing marking paint—documentation is unclear
Dark blue and black: VXR marking, contains paint for identification
Also white and black: VXR UV marking, used to mark people with ink that can only be detected under UV light
A “less lethal” shotgun.
12-Gauge Shotgun
A large number of less-lethal projectiles are fired from 12-gauge shotguns. Beanbag rounds are the most common, but rubber ball rounds exist, as do baton rounds, as do muzzle blasts—a means of dispersing chemical agents directly from the barrel of the gun, shooting a cloud of dust 10-15 feet or so.
Note that the title “riot shotgun” does not apply to dedicated less-lethal shotguns but instead describes shotguns that are designed for defensive fighting, in contrast to a hunting shotgun for hunting or a tactical shotgun for offensive combat.
We have not found evidence that there is any oversight in the US that requires police departments to use dedicated less-lethal shotguns, though most departments do. Dedicated less-lethal shotguns are generally designated by the use of bright orange, red, or other color furniture (i.e., the outer parts of a firearm) on the stock and/or the fore end (the part you pump on a pump-action shotgun). While some models of shotgun are sold specifically for less-lethal use, many departments retrofit existing models to color-code them instead. This makes it hard to offer specifics about what shotguns are in use.
Most police shotguns are pump-action shotguns, as these enable them to fire a wider variety of ammunition. A semi-automatic shotgun usually uses the blowback from the shell to chamber the next shell, and that amount of force is irregular if different types of ammunition are used, causing feeding problems and jamming.
Most police shotguns appear to have either 14” or 18” barrels. It is illegal for a civilian to own a 14” barrel shotgun without filing federal paperwork for a short-barreled shotgun. Most pump-action shotguns hold between 4 and 8 shells. One less-lethal 18” shotgun we found held 6+1: that is, six shells in the magazine tube and one chambered.
However, we have received reports on the ground of police using full-length hunting shotguns, presumably with barrel lengths of 26 or 28 inches. One comrade in Cleveland reports that these were being carried primarily for intimidation purposes, while the same department fired actual less-lethal rounds out of 18” barrel shotguns instead. The longer the barrel of a firearm, the more accurate it will be, but also the faster the projectile will go and more powerful the impact will likely be.2
Barricade rounds can be launched from a 12-gauge shotgun. They are not designed for firing directly at people. Despite this, since they are loaded into less-lethal shotguns, officers have killed multiple people with direct shots, presumably unintentionally. Relatedly, “breaching rounds” are designed to destroy locks and doors. These are shotgun rounds generally comprised of small metal shot, or metal powder, often lead, suspended in a medium like wax. The idea is that the round maintains rigidity until impact, expels energy into a hinge, lock, or doorframe, then fragments into a powder after impact.
With both barricade rounds and breaching rounds, the injuries result from the initial impact, which can transfer a lethal amount of energy into a target.
Several manufacturers of police munitions sell “grenade launching cups” that attach to the muzzle of 12-gauge shotguns, enabling police to launch grenades that are ordinarily thrown by hand. These are used by attaching the cup to the end of the barrel and loading special launching cartridges into the gun.
12-gauge beanbag round.
37mm and 40mm Launchers
The majority of riot munitions—including tear gas canisters, muzzle blasts, baton rounds, flash-bangs, and marking rounds—are fired from devices designed as grenade launchers. For the purpose of disambiguation, we’re going to refer to them as “multi-launchers,” as some sites call them, because they fire a wide range of devices, not just grenades. These are also sometimes called “riot guns” or “less-lethal launchers,” but “riot gun” is often used in the US to describe lethal “riot shotguns.”
There are two common calibers of multi-launchers, 37mm and 40mm. Traditionally, 40mm launchers are seen as “military” and 37mm launchers as “civilian,” but the police employ both and the differences between the two seem to be minor. It can be legal for a civilian in the United States to own a 37mm launcher so long as the munitions they use with it are not anti-personnel; flares and fireworks are legal, while baton rounds are not. There are also 38mm munitions, and most 37mm less-lethal launchers we’ve seen are advertised as firing 38mm munitions as well. 38mm munitions might be more common outside the United States.
All 40mm grenades used in protest situations seem to fit the “40x46mm” NATO standard for low-velocity grenades, which is the standard used for handheld launchers, unlike the 40x53mm high-velocity grenades that are generally fired from mounted and crew-served weapons (i.e., guns that are designed to be operated by two or more people at a time). The ammunition is not interchangeable between these systems.
Many multi-launcher projectiles are fired with black powder, rather than more modern gunpowder, which causes sparks and smoke. This is done because these projectiles are more fragile than most modern ammunition. Some are available in “smokeless” models that, presumably, use EC smokeless powder, a slightly more modern variant of black powder that produces less smoke.
When people report with shock that police who work at public schools have “grenade launchers,” this likely means multi-launchers. The police probably don’t plan to fire live grenades at students; rather, they plan to poison them with chemical weapons that are explicitly banned for use in war by the Geneva Convention.
Pistol-style launchers exist, but are generally designed only for muzzle blasts.
Full-size launchers are usually either breech-loaded single-shot guns (in which the barrel hinges away from the handle and a single round is inserted) or drum-fed versions that look like gigantic revolvers. These revolvers are usually advanced by a pump action, rather than a trigger as in a conventional revolver. These tend to hold between 4 to 6 rounds, depending on the model. Some are rifled to spin projectiles for better accuracy. Internationally, many have wooden stocks and look more like traditional rifles, while most of what we’ve seen in the US are “tactical” style guns with pistol grips in addition to stocks as well as vertical fore grips—a style that is not legal for civilians without special permission.
Launchers can also be mounted under the barrel of a rifle, rather than operating as standalone devices. This style is in common use in military situations but does not seem to be common among law enforcement.
A multi-launcher.
Canisters and Grenades
For the purpose of this article, we are distinguishing “canisters,” designed to be fired from launchers, from “grenades” that are designed to be thrown by hand. In reality, there is no such clear distinction. Some weapons are designed to be thrown or rolled by hand, while others are designed to be loaded into multi-launchers—but some are designed for both.
Grenades are often used to disperse chemical agents and/or impact munitions, particularly rubber balls. Other grenades are “distraction devices,” generally referred to as flash-bangs. Many combine these functions.
We’ve found at least three body styles for police grenades. There is the ball grenade, which looks like a classic baseball-style military grenade, designed to be thrown or rolled. These often contain rubber ball impact munitions, possibly paired with chemical weapons, while others are traditional pyrotechnic tear gas grenades. There are the “low roll” body grenades, which are cylinders with large hex-shaped ends that minimize the distance the grenade will roll. Then there are the regular canister grenades, which appear to be the most common style. These can be of any diameter, but 37/38m, 40mm, 45mm, and 60mm seem to be the most common.
Gas grenades and canisters can disperse chemical agents through a number of methods. The most common is the classic pyrotechnic dispersal, which works by creating a fire inside the canister that releases the chemical agent as smoke. These canisters are very hot and can spark and start other fires.
Another dispersal method, used more often by OC canisters than CS canisters, is aerosol dispersal (sometimes called “flameless expulsion”). Releasing something more akin to a mist than a smoke, these are more commonly used indoors, where pyrotechnic canisters would be less convenient. As best as we are able to determine, these are generally not used as much outside because they produce less dense concentrations of chemical agents.
An instantaneous blast grenade.
Finally, there are instantaneous blast canisters, which explode all at once and release their payload as a powder. These are designed for inside or outside use, but as the dust is easily dispersed by wind, they are intended primarily for use against dense crowds of people, when pyrotechnic grenades are less effective, either owing to throwback potential or the risk of starting unintentional fires. These canisters are easily identified after the fact because they are split open along the sides.
Gas dispersal canisters are often designed to separate into a number of sub-munitions, like the “triple chaser” from Defense Technology that splits into three smaller tear gas canisters. This is done to make it more work for us to throw them back or douse them with water.
The “triple chaser” from Defense Technology that splits into three smaller tear gas canisters.
Less-lethal grenades are generally equipped with fuses like any military grenade: the user pulls a pin, which makes it possible to release a lever that is gripped in the hand. Once the lever is released, the fuse is ignited. While fuses could be of varying length, we have found two second delays to be common: a 1.5-second delay before the fuse is ignited, then .5 seconds for the fuse itself. On at least some models, the fuse assembly ejects itself before the payload is ignited so that it does not become a projectile.
Some grenades come with additional safety clips that prevent the fuse from being pulled while the grenade is being carried. Some come with water-resistant bodies for high-humidity environments. Some, particularly flash-bangs, are reloadable. People have reported seeing police combing the area after protests and picking up certain spent munitions. It’s possible they are doing this to conceal the use of some particularly egregious weapons (such as DM gas), but it’s also possible they are recovering reloadable grenades.
Grenades can also be “command initiated” instead of lit by a fuse. This system seems to be more common in tactical situations, such as house raids, rather than at demonstrations that are more dynamic. This system involves attaching a tube to the grenade to allow for instantaneous, remote detonation.
A federal officer using a fogger to assault a legal observer from the American Civil Liberties Union in Portland, summer 2020.
Sprays and Foggers
In addition to firing canisters that release chemicals as smoke, police also spray people directly with chemicals with handheld devices. The two chemicals we’ve found in our research are OC (pepper spray) and CS (a tear gas), but almost any chemical agent can be aerosolized and sprayed. Depending on the manufacturer, the chemical irritant, and the spray pattern, these can employ any number of propellants, such as compressed air, nitrogen, or the refrigeration chemical ominously named 134a. There are numerous spray patterns, from the simple “stream” pattern to cones, fog (or “vapor”), and even foam.
Chemical sprays, unlike pyrotechnic dispersal methods that disperse a powdered irritant, generally aerosolize a liquid form of the chemical. This can be water-based or oil-based; consequently, chemical weapon protection should be rated against oil-borne particulates (P100 filters instead of N100 filters). Foggers use a liquid formulation as well, but aerosolize this liquid pyrotechnically (the way a fog machine does) rather than by using an aerosol gas.
Chemical sprays come in a range of different concentrations and it would be difficult to anticipate which is ones law enforcement are utilizing without research. To make matters more complicated, the strength of OC (the most common sprayed irritant) is notoriously difficult to identify. Manufacturers’ claims are not regulated, and there are many different types of capsaicinoids that might be present in a given variant of OC gas. There is probably internal consistency within each manufacturer’s line of weapons, but that’s about it. One manufacturer’s 2% spray might be more powerful than another’s 4% spray. Those numbers are almost meaningless on their own.
Small handheld canisters with a button on top seem to be accurate from 10-12 feet, while larger canisters with a trigger assembly seem to be accurate up to 15-20 feet, although this differs from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Many spray systems also contain visible or UV reactive dyes to mark targets. UV dye is particularly common in civilian self-defense spray, while police in Seattle and other cities are known to use visible dye to mark demonstrators for arrest.
There are larger canisters that operate on the same principles as the smaller ones. These often look more like full-size fire extinguishers. Then there are backpack devices with separate spray nozzles and tanks—the “Ghostbusters” variety, as some have called them. These can operate with either powder or liquid chemicals; at least one model has an effective range of 45 feet. Portland police have been seen to conceal backpack chemical foggers inside an unmarked black backpack with a spray nozzle attached to a hose protruding from the bottom.
There are also devices that look like a cross between a fog machine and a leaf blower that are gas-powered and are designed to fill large areas with poison. Like the backpack foggers, these are generally designed for use in prisons, not at demonstrations. As we’ve seen recently, however, riot police will often use any weapon available to them.
Finally, chemical weapons are sometimes mixed with water and dispersed through fire hoses or water cannons. None of us had seen this method in use in the United States until the 2020 protests in Portland. Chemical burns on a nearby tree were consistent with chlorine poisoning, which could be the result of expired chemistry. This means of chemical weapon dispersal has been used in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Turkey; it is presumably possible in any country that uses water cannons against demonstrators.
Federal troops poisoning downtown Portland with a fogger, summer 2020.
Candles
A hundred years ago, when chemical warfare was first emerging, some poisonous gasses were dispersed by “candles,” which would burn and release gas. Functionally, this is the same thing as a modern tear gas grenade, which uses pyrotechnics to disperse chemical powder; the phrase “tear gas candle” could be used to describe any pyrotechnic tear gas canister.
Yet in the summer of 2020, we saw either police or federal agents walking through the streets of Portland holding a burning object at the end of a stick. This looked, for all the world, like a censor at a Catholic mass with smoke pouring out of it.
Officers distributing tear gas in Portland, summer 2020.
We don’t know for certain whether this was a chemical agent (probably) or inert smoke, but it feels noteworthy that the only tear gas we’ve come across that was designed for dispersal in “candles” like this is DM gas, the vomit gas that protestors believe is in use in Portland. This would mark a major escalation in the form of chemical warfare employed against protestors.
A civilian pepper spray.
Chemical Weapons
As with all many other less-lethal weapons, the distinctions between categories of chemicals are actually quite blurry.
Conventional parlance divides chemical weapons in two categories: tear gas and pepper spray. While these distinctions exist, they’re not clear-cut. If we imagine “tear gas” as clouds of smoke or dust and “pepper spray” as chemical sprays, this is really a question of methods of dispersal, not the actual chemicals being used.
We will discuss seven different chemicals herein. Although something like fifteen varieties have been developed, we will focus on the most common ones that are either known to be used against demonstrators or at least widely suspected of being used thus. Of those seven, five of them are usually dispersed as gas, while two usually appear as a chemical spray. But it’s possible for almost any chemical to be dispersed by almost any means, and we have seen quite a bit of crossover.
The five tear gasses, in brief, are:
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