I liked “Every one’s a badass til the winged hussars arrive”. And I had to look up what a winged hussar was ;-)
I think some of the “gas” was in fact smoke. Nobody’s going to hang around to see if their eye start melting out of their heads, they just skee-dadle.
Seems to me a water drop could be effective, like those things they dump water onto forest fires with? Rain on a few parades.
I think back to Basic Training day. CS gas causes everything to leak from the neck up. Not pleasant. But you survive.