“The idea is you’d hit someone, the container would break apart, and the powder would get on your body,” says Burbank. Wind won’t spread the powder inside pepper bullets as far as it will tear gas emitting from a canister, which is typically used on large crowds, but it still can be picked up by a breeze and affect the person next to you. Officers are trained to aim for the “low center of mass,” i.e., the middle of the chest or the legs, says John Hodgson, head of the Center for Military Education and Training at Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory and the interim associate director of its Center for Security Research and Education, to avoid hitting someone directly in the face.