

What It Feels Like To Be Hit With Turkish Tear Gas - anjalimullany
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682321/what-it-feels-like-to-be-hit-with-turkish-tear-gas

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ajmarsh
Yeah CS gas is no joke. They used to hit us with it all the time in the
Marines for training purposes. If you have ever been hit with pepper spay, CS
is about twice as bad.

To combat the effects carry a bottle of solution made up from water and sodium
metabisulphate (sold as Campden tablets used in home brewing) as this
combination neutralises the effects of CS. If you cannot get this use clean
water to rinse the eyes and skin affected.

~~~
bruo
NEVER USE CLEAN WATER.

That was the first thing my mom told us when as kids went to protests against
Pinochet. CS reacts with water, even if you are not feeling the effects water
can make the chemical react again.

The CS gas effects are just temporal, no longer than 5 minutes... try to
survive them.

I've been documenting social movements in chile since 10 years ago, i've been
exposed to CS directly more than a hundred times. I know you will panic, but
never try to use clean water on an affected area.

salud

ps. I don'know if sodium metabisulphate works, but cops use a chemical when
they got hit by CS, if this is the thing they use ill give you a pizza when
you come around here.

~~~
gee_totes
To add on to tips for dealing with tear gas, I would also suggest carrying
half an onion or something else strong smelling with you in protest
situations.

when the gas comes, remain calm. When you feel yourself panicking from the
gas, breath through the onion. For some reason, the smell of the onion (in
Turkey I've also seen people using lemons) seems to re-center you and mitigate
some of the instant psychological effects of the gas (i.e. suddenly you're in
a poison cloud).

------
rolleiflex
Tangentially relevant, but I was thinking of the European / American context
switch happening somewhere about constitutional rights and specifically the
right to bear arms. (I am an European, Turkish specifically) The idea behind
the second amendment seems to be to stop the Government from turning against
its own constituents. Nowhere in Europe such a reasoning exists, including
Turkey. On one hand, it prevents this conflict—no, police attacking
civilians—from escalating as people are not armed, but on the other hand as I
see police violence like this [1][2] I'm starting to think we need an
equivalent law that allows people to protect themselves.

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/rwRPV](http://imgur.com/a/rwRPV)

[2] [http://sublunarorb.it/post/52144010490/liveblog-of-the-
turki...](http://sublunarorb.it/post/52144010490/liveblog-of-the-turkish-
protests)

~~~
keiferski
Maybe, but that's not really how gun ownership works in America. The people
protesting things typically aren't gun owners, and even if they are, they
don't bring guns with them. I've been at a G20 Riot (in America) where the
police shot gas canisters at people; if any protesters had guns, it would have
not gone down well.

The reasoning behind gun ownership is more like this: if the government
institutes martial law / comes to take my guns or property / commits some huge
atrocity against me or my family, gun owners will be able to defend
themselves. This isn't a completely accurate view, obviously, but it's the
general feeling I get from growing up in the US.

~~~
shpxnvz
As it happens many, if not most, protests are held in locations where carry is
heavily restricted if not banned entirely. For example, Washington D.C.
effectively has a blanket ban on citizens carrying weapons in public. New York
City is only slightly less restrictive.

Even in other areas, there are myriad restrictions on where a person may
carry. For instance, nearly all federal buildings, many "sensitive" locations
identified by the state (such as within a quarter mile of a school), national
parks, etc...

And those who carry legally are well aware of how fragile their rights are -
one run-in with a policeman having a bad day can cost you your right to ever
touch a gun again.

 _The reasoning behind gun ownership is more like this: if the government
institutes martial law / comes to take my guns or property / commits some huge
atrocity against me or my family, gun owners will be able to defend
themselves. This isn't a completely accurate view, obviously, but it's the
general feeling I get from growing up in the US._

One thing to add to this - the point of the second ammendment is not only to
ensure the rights of individuals to protect themselves and their property from
both other citizens and the government. It's presense is also intended to act
as a reminder to those who wield the power of the government that they are the
servant rather than the master.

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they
try to take it."

~~~
vacri
The second amendment is about ensuring you have a body of men that know how to
use weapons, that you can call up in defense of the country. That's what it's
for, all right there in the first half of the text, up to the comma.

"being necessary for the security of a free state" isn't high-minded
idealistic philosophy on the nature of the individual human, it's meaning "to
keep our country safe from those Europeans over there, should they come
a-knocking". Instead of "it's there so our government will fear us", it's
"it's there so our government can call on us, and we will have the right
skills to serve".

------
IgorPartola
What the hell does this have to do with hackers?

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.
> [[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)]

There are so many categories that this story (and most other stories currently
on the front page) fits. While it is an interesting article, what is it doing
here with 49 upvotes?

~~~
gee_totes
Maybe if we start protesting en masse against the NSA (or whomever), we will
also be tear gassed.

Then you'll be glad you read this article on Hacker News!

~~~
IgorPartola
Good point. In fact, forget all this stuff with compilers and operating
systems. Let's just post articles about basic combat training here. It seems
much more practical.

~~~
gee_totes
Actually, I would love to see articles about using computer vision from drones
to reverse engineer police crowd-control tactics. Or running live simulations
during protests of what the police are going to do next.

Besides, we'll need all those compilers and operating systems when we re-
program the robots to fight the system! /snark

------
ck2
Another ugly truth is it probably says "made in usa" on the canister.

~~~
ayi
Actually getting hit by a turkish tear gas is no different then getting hit by
any other tear gas. the only difference is our police (i'm from turkey) aims
the canister at your face.

~~~
wavefunction
We have sadistic cops over here as well. They will actually put it on q-tips
and swab underneath the protestor's eyelids:

[http://www.nopepperspray.org/](http://www.nopepperspray.org/)

------
tomjen3
One of the things I wonder about is that you can straight out buy gas masks in
military surplus stores, yet I have never seen protesters use them. Don't they
work with tear gas?

~~~
steveklabnik
Undercovers tend to target the individuals in the mass who are more well-
prepared. Plus, it can be used as evidence of intent.

------
steveklabnik
Actually, it's American tear gas; all the photos of canisters I've seen so far
say 'Made in the USA.'

That said, getting hit with tear gas sucks. If you're wearing contacts, really
bad things can happen...

[http://www.blackcrosscollective.org/attachments/File/textzin...](http://www.blackcrosscollective.org/attachments/File/textzine.txt)

~~~
gokhan
Actually, it appears that it's from all over the world.

[https://twitter.com/paulocoelho/status/341991902704459776](https://twitter.com/paulocoelho/status/341991902704459776)

------
squozzer
I'm thinking of ways I can help.

Gas masks? I own an old Israeli Civil Defense mask with some sealed canisters
that expired in the 90s. Might work, but not sure if anyone in Turkey would
wear it -- the filters have Hebrew printing on them.

My Army-Navy store has some M17s but I think they're out of filters.

------
notdrunkatall
I had to go through the gas chamber in basic training, and we were essentially
made to remove our masks and breathe some of the tear gas in. Let me tell you:
it's not fun. There is no resisting the urge to cough and choke, your eyes
water up, and all you can think about is getting out of the cloud.

It does have one positive side effect, however: it cleans out your sinuses
like nothing else I've seen. :)

~~~
gjulianm
May I ask what kind of training was that?

~~~
ef4
US military recruits are typically exposed to tear gas as part of their
training on "NBC" threats (nuclear/biological/chemical).

A major point of the exercise is to instill trust in your gas mask and your
ability to use it correctly.

When I did it, we put on our gas masks, entered a little building full of gas,
stood around a bit feeling the tingle on our exposed skin, then one-by-one
were told to take off the mask and try to say something (I think it was our
name and rank), then run out.

