Pepper balls and other irritants are used to disperse or move a crowd in a case of civil disturbance, and authorities might use pepper balls as compared to tear gas canisters for a few different reasons, says Hodgson. Theoretically, he says, they can more accurately target a specific person in the back of a crowd as compared to a tear gas canister, which would just blanket the whole group. He says it’s also more controllable than a tear gas canister, which can get picked up by the wind or catch something like a building or shrubbery on fire.