John,
Tear gas has been banned on the world’s battlefields for the last one hundred years -- first under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, and later reaffirmed in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. The reason? It’s a form of torture. Laid down like a blanket on an enemy, tear gas is relentless and devastating. It inflicts immediate searing pain, causes chemical burns, blindness, and even death by suffocation.
Yet here at home, tear gas remains legal for use by law enforcement against civilians exercising their constitutional right to peaceably assemble.
And disturbingly, its use is selective. No tear gas was deployed against the January 6 insurrectionists -- an armed mob that stormed the Capitol, assaulted police officers, and openly threatened to execute Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But it was deployed against anti-ICE protesters, where even local elected officials like Evanston, Illinois Mayor Daniel Bass were left gasping for air, unable to breathe or see.
Send a direct message to your Senators and Representative to demand a nationwide ban on any domestic use of tear gas by law enforcement.
If tear gas wasn’t deemed “necessary” against an armed insurrection that invaded the chambers of Congress seeking to overthrow the United States government, then what possible justification could there be for turning it on unarmed protesters demanding human rights?
The truth is clear: tear gas isn’t about keeping the peace. It’s about intimidation.
Tear gas punishes dissent. It escalates conflict rather than dispersing it. It can leave Americans physically harmed simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Some cities -- like Denver, Portland, and Seattle -- have moved to ban it. But this can’t be left to local patchwork solutions. Congress must act now to ban the use of tear gas nationwide, so that no American risks chemical burns, blindness, or asphyxiation simply for standing up and speaking out, expressing our constitutional right.
Tell Congress to establish a nationwide ban on the domestic use of tear gas for crowd control, including stifling dissent in peaceful protests.
Thank you for insisting that tear gas has no place in our streets
-DFA AF Team
