At the same time, you will feel your skin prickling like a bad case of sunburn. You will choke and cough as the tear gas attacks your mucous membranes, and you will be gripped with the sense that you cannot breathe. Next, you will feel the burning in your nose and throat. You will reflexively close your eyes as they begin to stream with tears. If you get caught in a cloud of tear gas, the first thing you feel is a stinging in your eyes - a feeling akin to handling raw chilli peppers and then touching your eyes. As the tear gas canister burns, which it does for around one minute, it spreads smoke containing tiny particles of CS that spread and stick: to clothes, to skin, to surfaces. That powder is 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile - known as ‘CS’ - a compound developed and tested at the United Kingdom’s notorious Porton Down military facility. It is a substance, a sort of powder, delivered in the form of smoke from a burning tear gas shell. The most important thing to understand about tear gas is that it is not a gas. As they roll to a stop, the shells hiss like an angry snake, dense smoke pouring out of the top of the small aluminium canister, and soon the street is enveloped in clouds of smoke. The shells hit the road with a ping, and sparks fly as they skip gaily along the asphalt. Tear gas rounds describe a graceful arc as they drop down out of the blue sky, trailing feathery tails of smoke like streamers.
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