– Why civilians cannot use rubber bullets?
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Depends on country. In Ukraine the only kind of hand gun available to civilian is the one which can use only rubber bulletss.
They can, but it would serve no purpose. You don’t pull out guns if the issue can be solved with non-violence. More importantly, guns are usually pulled to scare away rapscallions, and if they know you aren’t going to cause them too much harm, the fear factor might not be as strong. And once shots start firing, you better make sure your first shot will be the last, or the intruder will make so for you.
depends on where you are on the world but generally the issue is because allowing civillians to use non lethal ammo creates ambiguity:
now if you see someone pulling a gun on you if there is doubt that they got live ammo, youi might be braver than you should….and this is how you actually end up increasing gun fatalities.
it may seem nonsensical, but disallowing non lethal round for civvie use might actually end up saving more lives as it forces everyone to respect the guns.
In the United States, the reason is that nobody wants that option. The government, i.e., the police, wants a monopoly on force. The manufacturers of less lethal munitions don’t want the liability associated with public access. The self-defense folks don’t want a less lethal option because it makes claims of lethal self-defense less tenable. I definitely don’t want my neighbor shooting me with a rubber bullet at 600 feet per second every time I forget to bring in the garbage can.
Rubber bullets are called non lethal but still do cause deaths and permanent injuries ([source](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/global-dozens-killed-and-thousands-maimed-by-police-misuse-of-rubber-bullets/)). And that’s mostly in the hands of trained police and soldiers, who know what not to do (albeit sometimes in a nudge nudge wink wink it’d be just beastly if you accidentally shot someone in the eye).
If you had a weapon that you thought was guaranteed non lethal, you’d be inclined to use it more – we’ve seen that with the deployment of tasers. As they’re not non-lethal, people end up dead when the confrontation could’ve been solved nonviolently.
A peaceful protestor in Dallas [lost an eye and 7 teeth](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2020/06/03/a-dallas-man-says-he-lost-his-eye-in-a-protest-now-he-wants-chief-hall-to-find-those-responsible/) from a rubber bullet (or possibly a “sponge bullet”). My impression is that tasers have somewhat predictable results and real bullets have somewhat predictable results but that rubber bullets and sponge bullets and beanbags are relatively less predictable.
The goal of an encounter should never be to permanently maim someone and it seems like rubber bullets (and other similar projectiles) result in [accidental permanent injuries](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/global-dozens-killed-and-thousands-maimed-by-police-misuse-of-rubber-bullets/) too often.
Civilians certainly can use rubber bullets but there is largely no benefit to doing so. You would only (legally) discharge a firearm at someone (rubber or otherwise) if you need to stop that person from doing what they are doing as quickly as possible. This is done so in cases where you are at risk of immediate and severe bodily harm and have no other options (assault, rape, arson, etc). Unfortunately, rubber bullets that are effective at stopping someone immediately have a large overlap with “real” bullets. If you dialed back the weight or velocity to make them even less lethal they would be largely ineffective at stopping the person meaning to do you harm.
If there was any other option such as a magical stun ray that could safely stop someone instantly it would take over as the preference for civilians and law enforcement. Unfortunately we don’t currently have anything like this.
Because they are still considered lethal,less lethal. A lot of the time the rubber bullets have a metal core and are encased in rubber and they still hurt and cause serious damage to be hit by them. But the changes of dying,assuming center mass shot, is significantly lower than a bullet but there is still a risk. And you as a civilian should not be using less lethal anyway, it is not your job to be a peacekeeper. This may be bringing out my inner American, I have never shot/held a gun before and I would say I am more for gun control, but if you need to be bringing out some sort of fire arm to deescalate a situation than the situation would most likely call for deadly force. I am also talking about an actual situation and not someone knocked on my door or came up my driveway like these stories coming out now
Rubber bullets are both too dangerous and not dangerous enough. In a situation that calls for someone getting shot and stopped immediately, rubbers aren’t reliably effective. They usually just hurt a lot, and pain is not a sure way to stop someone.
In a situation that doesn’t justify shooting someone, you ought not to have a gun out at all. Rubber bullets can maim or kill. By using them, you can escalate a situation into one where you’re the Bad Guy.
They can kill and maim people. They pop eyes like grapes and a direct hit to the chest can stop a person’s heart. They are also specifically designed to be used on people. This is true of many if not most guns but it makes people uncomfortable because rubber bullets aren’t for target shooting or self defense.
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