Crowd-control weaponry like rubber bullets and tear gas evolved through colonial policing

Evidence

It was in Hong Kong that key elements of the global repressive repertoire were born; in the 1950s, British police began to fire wooden bullets at the ground with the aim of wounding protesters’ legs, rather than killing them. Experimenting more in Northern Ireland, this approach evolved into rubber bullets. (Tear gas was developed by the French who used it in World War I, and then to control uprisings in North Africa.) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 564

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the book’s recurring theme that protest tactics and state responses travel between cities — rubber bullets invented in one colony, refined in another. — connects to: Colonial policing and prisons replaced older forms of violence in Egypt

Broader Connections

• Colonial policing and prisons replaced older forms of violence in Egypt #expands (0.82)