Less-Lethal Weapons are Big Business
The video of George Floyd’s killing is shocking, but the fact police killed George Floyd is not surprising. White people have been murdering Black people with impunity since the country’s founding.
What has surprised many is the sight of protestors confronting an arsenal of ‘less-lethal’ weapons that police departments have accumulated, and the eagerness of officers to deploy those weapons. The footage of this abuse – police beating protestors with batons, gassing protestors with tear gas, shooting protestors with rubber bullets and pepper balls – is seemingly endless and grows by the day.
Reporters have documented the role of police unions and police culture in obstructing accountability of law-breaking officers, but less has been said about the companies and investors helping police agencies build caches of less-lethal weapons to, in Trump’s words, “dominate” the streets.
Meet the multi-billion dollar industry that loves Trump’s police state
Less-lethal weapons companies are enjoying an expansionary period. The global industry is projected to grow from $5.65 billion in 2015 to $8.37 billion by 2020, according to an industry report from research firm Markets and Markets, which identifies “[the] polarization of civilians, the militarization of law enforcement agencies and driving maximum efficacy and minimum liability” as the main drivers of yearly growth. It can hardly be overstated: the less-lethal weapons industry not only profits from civil unrest and militarized police; it depends on those factors for continued growth.
The businesses that manufacture and sell less-lethal weapons take a variety of forms.
Take Combined Systems and Safariland, two leaders in the tear gas category. These U.S. companies, like so many others (including prisons services businesses), are financed by private equity firms. Point Lookout Capital, an investor in Combined Systems, has a portfolio that is “dominated by law enforcement-related investments,” reports Axios – no wonder the firm’s website has gone dark. Carlyle Group, the second largest private equity firm with over $200 billion in managed assets, is also an investor in Combined Systems.
Safariland, which is owned by a private-equity led investment consortium, is also a leading manufacturer of rubber bullets. This form of ammunition – along with so-called “pepper balls” – have become notorious for blinding and maiming protestors and journalists. Pepperball Technologies, which is contracted by over 5,000 law enforcement agencies, describes its product as “a game-changer when it comes to versatility and economy of force.” Like the industry as a whole, global spending in the less-lethal ammunition market is expected to continue growing: by 6% annually into 2023, according to the same Markets and Markets report.
Armament Systems & Procedures, or “ASP”, a privately owned company headquartered in Wisconsin, is a market leader in the baton category (as well as handcuffs and police-grade flashlights). For Kevin Parsons, CEO of ASP, building batons is simply a business issue, one to be addressed technocratically and with the exclusive goal of satisfying the end user: uniformed police.
“When designing an ASP product, there is only one concern: performance,” says Parsons in a recent interview. “Once we have developed a design that an officer can absolutely depend upon we develop a production process that assures uncompromising performance.” When asked a question about how ASP trains officers to use their equipment, Parsons reveals, “We believe that training is the most effective means of improving the safety of officers and professionalizing the law-enforcement community.” Nowhere does Parsons mention providing guidance on restraint or judicious use of force.
And no wonder, considering that ASP’s professional trainers are all ex-cops: “The people who represent ASP and explain how our equipment is utilized have experience,” says Parsons proudly. “They are skilled and knowledgeable operators from major agencies with many years of street experience. The people who train with our products and show others how to use it do so based upon long years of very intensive experience.”
That former police teach current police how to use their weapons speaks to the insular, entrenched world of U.S. law enforcement. It also shines a light on the ugly revolving door between public law enforcement and private weapons manufacturing.
On the other end of the spectrum, less-lethal weapons manufacturers like Rheinmetall and ST Engineering are large, publicly traded conglomerates that “sell primarily to law enforcement,” reports Fortune. Raytheon, the $27 billion defense contractor of the U.S. military, also has a substantial foot in the less-lethal weapons trade. Investment funds like Vanguard, Blackrock, and Fidelity are invested in these companies. This means many people with 401ks and IRAs are unwittingly invested in the less-lethal weapons trade.
The growth of less-lethal weaponry is seeping into mainstream consumer culture, as more people buy less-lethal weapons for themselves. Byrna, a company that sells tear gas guns to consumers, recently boasted of “record online sales as civil unrest and widescale looting in cities large and small across the United States drove demand.” Many companies that sell less-lethal weapons to law enforcement also make consumer products; an atmosphere of fear and paranoia is doubly good business.
Simply put, police abuses do not occur in an economic vacuum. Just as centuries of institutionalized racism created a policing institution that terrorizes and murders Black Americans, so does the less-lethal weapons industry equip police officers with weapons to attack peaceful protestors. Lethal firearms may be doing the lion’s share of police murdering, but tear gas, batons, rubber bullets, pepper balls, and other less-lethal weapons provide the bedrock of Trump’s desired police state.
Of course, the less-lethal weapons industry is one cog in the larger police industrial complex, a web of businesses, workforces, and supply chains committed to maintaining and expanding U.S. policing as it currently exists: well-armed, confrontational, heavy on surveillance, and systemically prone to racist abuses of power. If we’re going to reform policing around non-violence and community participation, we must also disrupt the system’s economics and rethink the private sector’s role.
John Hyatt, the author of What’s the Deal, is a writer and public relations professional. You may connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter.
Police officers in Santa Monica watch as tear gas is deployed (courtesy of KTLA 5).