As I've written to mdorazio I've actually had the full tear gas experience: locked in a cramped bunker, unable to escape, forced to try to talk in a thick fog of it until officers were happy.
I'd rather take that again than a good number of other unpleasant experiences.
Mentioned it in the same sentence as the use of actual guns seems to indicate that you either talk about a different kind of tear gas or that you don't know what you are talking about at all.
Experiencing tear gas doesn't come without long term effects on health. There are also many varieties available, but CS is pretty rough and the most common form used in the US.
FWIW I've tried to do my research and CS seems to be the one we were exposed to (it was also called that at the time but I didn't want to say it as I wouldn't state that as a fact based on what I heard informally 20 years ago.)
We were a few hundred recruits who were exposed to it at that week and everyone seemed to be fine next day.
I'm fourty now and I've never experienced any problem that I would guess comes from my experience with tear gas.
(FWIW, I was exposed to it in a closed room but only briefly, not more than a minute or so I'd guess, possibly less.)
Maybe commonly, but a) we have a pandemic right now and making people cough feels like an absolutely stupid idea and b) what about people with respiratory illnesses, e.g. asthma? You don't think that could play out badly?
I've been in CS gas chambers multiple times over the past 20 years. No big deal. Should be even less of a problem for people sucking a bit of gas in the open air, not deliberately breathing it.
I'd rather take that again than a good number of other unpleasant experiences.
Mentioned it in the same sentence as the use of actual guns seems to indicate that you either talk about a different kind of tear gas or that you don't know what you are talking about at all.