[mhartl]

The military analogy is broken. The hack isn't to use the superiority of "light infantry" over "heavy infantry", etc. The reason the protestors can "take a park" even when the police oppose them is because they operate in a political system where the police can't fire on crowds. You probably think this is always a good thing. That's the hack.

[quinndupont]

They can't fire live rounds, but they sure can (and do) fire rubber bullets, flash grenades, tear gas, sound cannons, and tear gas.

[ms4720]

Completely different situations:

1: worse case in current situation, I may break a bone or get a concussion followed with medical attention and bragging rights with my peers

2: fire bullets into crowd, lots of people die. Or think about using flame throwers for crowd control

[WanderingEnder]

As far as the less lethal situation, using impact rounds can result in death. Fluidity of the crowd, improper use of the launcher, pure dumb luck can all play a role in where rounds land.

People can, and have, died from direct fire with less lethals including the FN-303 Paint Marking launcher, various 12 gauge skip fire and direct fire munitions, 37mm gas munitions, and 40mm direct fire less lethal and gas munitions.

While some rounds are designed for close quarters direct fire, many are not, and having a 40mm CS grenade hit you upside the head can be lethal.

[nosse]

As some kind of thumb rule, less than lethal usually means that about 2% die and 5% don't get affected. You can make it more effective so that everybody is affected, but then the percentage of dead people rises. Or other way around. Usually police should use "less than lethal" weaponry only in situations where casualties are acceptable.

[ms4720]

All right there is some risk but in general it is not perceived/judged to be a risk by the people making the decisions to protest.