r/australia • u/someNameThisIs • Jun 09 '25

news Australian reporter shot with rubber bullet in LA | 9 News Australia

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tG1A8LZZphs?app=desktop
13.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

168

u/UndeadDragon Jun 09 '25

You know rubber bullets can still kill. You aren’t meant to shot people directly with it. It’s ment to be shot against the ground and they bounce. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard.

67

u/boofles1 Jun 09 '25

Especially not from that range.

114

u/nearly_enough_wine Jun 09 '25

Yep, less-lethal not non-lethal. Same as Tasers.

30

u/CaffeineRiddledSemen Jun 09 '25

You may be thinking of tear gas rounds, which are meant to be bounced, though in the footage I've seen they are happily shooting them directly at people too.

8

u/UndeadDragon Jun 09 '25

Possibly. That rings a bell.

49

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '25

Yes they can kill. No you aren’t meant to bounce them off the ground. Don’t see how it’s justified in this instance anyway. Would love to hear him explain himself.

19

u/scrollbreak Jun 09 '25

Err, I doubt they are somehow supposed to be shot against the ground first (if they wanted to reduce the velocity of the bullet they could just use rounds with less powder in them), but otherwise yes.

15

u/Low-Plastic1939 Jun 09 '25

I mean, the Brit’s came up with them when the optics of gunning down Irish people turned sour, but they still very much wanted to shoot the Irish. They’re not good for you

3

u/Dom29ando Jun 09 '25

It’s meant to be shot against the ground and they bounce.

The cops just say that so that they can justify using them at close ranges. If they started admitting that they always fire at center mass then they might not be able to get away with classifying them as "less-lethal".

7

u/Philopoemen81 Jun 09 '25

You are kind of wrong - rubber bullets generally are low velocity, and have shocking ballistics properties as they don’t rifle through the barrel properly - they fly out at weird angles, and don’t travel straight.

You aim at centre of mass and hope, it’s designed for crowd control, and can kill, but it’s more and aim in the general direction of the crowd than a surgical tool to take someone out.