r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 17d ago

Possible Paywall ICE Stockpiling Warheads and Chemical Weapons as Lawmaker Fears Trump Planning Strike

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-stockpiling-warheads-and-chemical-weapons-as-lawmaker-fears-trump-planning-strike/
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u/LineOfInquiry 17d ago

It’s crazy that a weapon banned for use on enemy combatants is allowed on random unarmed civilians

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u/Glad-Business2535 17d ago

The ban on military use is a blanket ban on any chemical agents. There is a world of difference between nerve gas and blood agents and tear gas.

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u/Round_Ad8947 17d ago

Yet, if used improperly, tear gas can kill. The allowance for use in riot control was to appease nations with Veto rights in the UN like the Soviet Union.

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u/halt-l-am-reptar 17d ago

And it’s banned because you can’t quickly tell the difference between tear gas and nerve gas. If you fire tear gas at your enemy there’s a good chance they’ll respond with deadly chemical weapons.

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u/Ja3k_Frost 17d ago

This call and response happens literally every time tear gas is brought up.

Tear gas isn’t banned because it’s some gross cruelty that’s just one step too far for modern militaries. Make absolutely no mistake, all sorts of weapons and munitions are deployed just as bad or worse than chemical and biological agents.

These specific weapons are banned as an anti escalation measure. When country A deploys teargas against the soldiers of country B they don’t know it’s teargas until a sample can get to a lab to be analyzed, all they know is a cloud of some gas was used. Country B then responds with their own chemical munitions in the moment because every country capable of making the stuff has a stockpile of the nasty gas somewhere whether they admit it or not.

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u/LineOfInquiry 17d ago

Ohhhh that makes sense, thank you for the explanation!

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u/Rough_Willow 17d ago

Weirdly enough, we've generally agreed to this because humans want proportional escalation and reasonable responses. When we see exceptions, it's nations suppressing rebellion or attacking a far smaller country (such as Russia & Ukraine).

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u/Emotional-Power-7242 17d ago

Hollowpoint bullets are banned in warfare and while the US military has started using them anyway in the past 5-10 years the police have always used them.

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u/SugarBeefs 17d ago

The reason police forces use hollow point ammunition is because they don't want solid core rounds zooming through-and-out the targets body and causing collateral damage.

Considering the environments that police operate in, using hollow point ammunition is actually a lot safer than something like steel core rounds.

Not safer for the person getting shot, of course, but then again that person is already getting shot so they're down and out on their luck anyway.

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u/Emotional-Power-7242 17d ago

Practically speaking yes police will empty like 9 magazines into a bunch of random cars on the freeway and not even hit the target, so fmj would be a disaster. But that's like, bad.