[ceejayoz]

> Tear gas and sponge-tipped bullets are used by police everywhere, including New Zealand of all places.

This is odd though, right? Using tear gas in war is a war crime, for almost a hundred years now. It's very strange that we permit its use on civilian populations.

[bluefirebrand]

If the Geneva convention wasn't a blanket ban on chemical weapons, tear gas wouldn't likely be covered by it.

Guessing at intent, because obviously I wasn't involved in writing it, It was written to be as blanket as possible to avoid future uses of mustard gas or anything remotely like it, and to avoid quibbles of "Well it's not Exactly mustard gas which is the only thing explicitly banned".

Not saying that using tear gas on civilians is awesome and we should tolerate it, but tear gas isn't really at that level.

Now I'm actually wondering if pepper spray would be considered a war crime too

[coredog64]

There’s an escalation risk in using tear gas and that’s why it’s a war crime.

[mechanical_bear]

It isn’t odd, you just don’t understand the motivation for inclusion on the banned list. It was outlawed due to the threat of miscalculation. Scenario: You see me launch tear gas, but think it’s mustard gas, you launch mustard gas in return.