Why in the world? You'll have no trouble finding videos of police blatantly misusing them in broad daylight. There are no consequences because... there are no consequences. Why would serializing rubber bullets help? Are we going to collect handfuls of them off the ground and then conjecture as to which officer fired which bullet?

You’re right, much to my continued sadness and rage. Just trying to come up with some idea to help, but clearly legislative change is required.

? The serial numbers would prevent conjecture. Unless officers are just trading guns with each other in the middle of the event.

They're not penetration rounds, so will likely ricochet off the individual. After which, they'll co-mingle with the rounds scattered around by all of the officers. Except in isolated cases that don't involve multiple officers, but then the serial number is a moot point.

So while a serial number can prove that a particular round came from a specific officer, proving a direct connection between any specific damage and a specific round would be an area of uncertainty and conjecture.

And even if you do keep track of an individual round, the above argument itself would allow for officers/lawyers to argue that case anyway, introducing enough reasonable doubt to weasel out of repercussions.

Why would it matter who fired it? Police are not holding police accountable for violent assaults.

Even if you were to ID the attacker, qualified immunity prevents you from suing them personally for violating your rights. You sue the police department, and then the taxpayer pays the settlement, and the cop suffers no negative consequences.

One step at a time man, one step at a time.

yes but qualified immunity is only one part of the story.

even if you can't sue them personally, they can be held accountable to their supervisors.

> A white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck opened fire on two people during his 19-year career and had nearly 20 complaints and two letters of reprimand filed against him.

“Held accountable”

As long as cops have immunity from prosecution, what purpose would tracing the bullets serve?

How would you find a specific bullet, though? It doesn't usually get lodged.

Lots of rubber bullets are big, roughly the size of a soda can. They aren’t too hard to locate and keep.

It’s only the less effective shot shells that are more likely to bounce around and be hard to track.

Oh, huh, I thought they were paintball-sized.

Yep they come in a handful of sizes. The more common size for these protests seem to be around 2 inches in diameter.

To put that in perspective, try to make the largest circle you can make with your index and thumb (think OK symbol shape). That's more or less the shape of these things and they are effectively a thin layer of rubber with a solid steel core. The inside of your finger circle is the steel and the thickness of your fingers is the rubber.

Hope this helps.

It does help, thanks, and it's also terrible, because it sounds like the police would think "oh it's fine, these things aren't lethal" and then shoot people willy-nilly with what are basically big steel cylinders.

> The more common size for these protests seem to be around 2 inches in diameter.

40mm, about 1.5"

Some are, usually they’re packed into 12ga shot shells, but those are limited in their velocity due to their tendency to penetrate rather than bounce off the victims. The bigger ones are able to strike further and harder with a reduced risk of penetration.

At the paintball size it’s now more common to see CS filled paintballs. Those don’t require a huge amount of kinetic energy to work, although exposure to CS gas has its own long term side effects.

Those paintballs are filled with oleoresin capsicum (OC) which is a far more persistent and "persuasive" substance. Getting hit with a CS paintball would be ineffectual due to the small amount and the fact that it wears off quickly.

What "long term side effects" does CS have? The US Army (at least) routinely puts all soldiers through a CS filled gas chamber as part of chemical warfare training and has done so for decades.

There are no longitudinal studies, because it is very difficult to find a sample of repeatedly tear-gassed subjects over relatively long timeframes. Hong Kong is a good example though, where estimates are that ~90% of the population have been exposed. In Hong Kong, long-term exposure has been connected with rashes, respiratory problems and chloracne.

I see from another reply from him that herewulf that you reply to has been repeatedly exposed to concentrates cs over multiple years.

eitland has been exposed to concentrated cs at least once, Anigbrowl multiple times including more than just once just this last week and it seems to be common in military training from what I read so I guess it is in fact well studied and reasonably harmless compared to many alternatives.

That said I agree with a number of people here that in most cases the best alternative might be to talk to people instead, and to not kill suspects in custody, obviously, and also to not handcuff and throw people on the ground when all that should be necessary was to ask simple questions.

That's extremely optimistic and I admire you for thinking of it.

Surely though simply requiring all police officers to have their cameras on 24/7, with instant firing for switching them off while on-duty, or taping them. I've seen both during the protests. When the cops killed the BBQ guy, it was like 50 officers on site. All had their cameras off.

That's an interesting idea, but I think the police are too powerful for that to happen at this point.

"Oops, looks like our records have been destroyed. What a shame."

I don't think that would help as the bullets would eventually end up on the group with no accountability of who it hit or was aimed at.

I think it would be better to have a camera that takes a picture every-time a trigger is pulled. Then again nothing stops them from finding a way to disable it like the body cameras.

It seems like the last point is sadly becoming less and less true.

In theory, cops aren’t supposed to use a lot of lethal ammunition either, but here we are.

I agree, although I have a feeling police unions would be adamantly opposed to this. Similar to their opposition to body cameras.

Given the behavior of the police this week, we can no longer afford to tailor our reforms to the whims of the police unions.

Great. All you need to do is disentangle one of the most powerful labor unions in the country.

Maybe our glorious leader should declare them a "domestic terrorist organization"...

Alas, I am not under the impression it will be easy.

I think it would be relatively easy to build a facial recognition database of cops using publicly available data. A touch of irony to it.

Cops faces are covered during these events, for anonymity, for intimidation, and nominally for protection.

That's a good point. You do however have height, width, maybe skin tone, voice, etc.