"Lox, how close were they to the protesters?
I ask because the hand held launchers have no sights and short, unrifled barrels.
To aim at a face sized target you would have to be close enough to punch them anyway."

This is all irrelevant.

Firstly, the whole idea of a tear gas canister launcher is that you point it in a particular direction and it fires tha canister there and not anywhere else.

So thats what they did.

But thats just nit picking.

The evidence is the videos in which you hear the soldiers saying "aim at the face" and this is then supported by the numerous facial injuries that have been sustained from tear gas canisters fired with malicious intent.