The new civil rights movement is happening right now sparked by the murder of George Floyd. In response, the police have met these protesters with aggression, tear gas, and military grade force. The world has watched these responses to protesters and have come to realize that America isn’t the country they were led to believe it was.
Responses to the violence have been from one extreme to the other. Just this week, as of a couple days ago, a new company cropped up to advertise a protester sign that converts to a shield. The new company, “MirrorMask”, is using crowdfunding on Kickstarter to get its sign and shield known, and is starting to see some frustrated backers. With all the people who have lost eyes, had their skin split open due to the “less lethal” munitions, it makes one wonder if this sort of thing was a long time in the making.
The Kickstarter features a video of the creator standing with his sign, and then converts it into a shield (not a very involved process). The conversion is less of a transformation and more of a storage of the sign handle, so nothing truly dramatic. What is dramatic is that he then stands behind the sign as a masked individual with a shotgun then shoots a bean bag round at his head, and the shield stops it cold. The creator then walks up to hold the round to show the type of munition fired at him.
Reporters themselves have not been exempt from the police violence, and have even found themselves the very targets of aggression for simply trying to record the actions that the police have been perpetrating in this past month. Wearing press credentials can simply mark you as a target, and a CNN reporter has even been arrested on live TV.
The damage and scars that have been created are horrible, but the hospital bills are always something that people tend to forget about from these injuries, right up until they get the bill. These protest signs certainly helped the shield creator prevent an injury, and if more people had them, we are quite sure everyone out protesting would feel significantly safer.
Here is a link to the Kickstarter and this new shield design: www.kickstarter.com
We even found the email associated with this new company, so give them a ring: peacefulprotest@protonmail.com
