why not just issue them billy clubs ?
The Michigan NG did just that after Kent State. Not billy clubs, but riot batons. Even in simulated "skins vs shirts" practice out of sight behind the armory, the brass saw how friendly skirmishing could quickly turn deadly with guys who were inspired to get the best performance out of their sticks.
The brass went with smaller and smaller sticks, which just brought the skirmishers closer to the punks, where it was easier to conceal a low blow to help convince punks it was time to go somewhere else.
As "designated marksman", I either carried the radio for the OIC in the center of the formation, along with a "hot" shotgun with bayonet if I had to intervene at some point in the line where my buddies were in a spot of trouble. As sniper, I had my sniper rifle, some "off the books" match-grade ammo, and my spotter and his spotter scope. We were nice and comfy in some strategic position, where we watched for bad guys equipped with more than just 2x4s and football helmets. An incendiary or explosive device, which the bad guys were already warned about, either got it detonated in their hand, or dropped with a round somewhere along their arm.
Actual firearms not only got the original punk dropped, but the same for anybody that tried to pick it up.
It's always fun and games until you run into someone who is much more skilled, and serous about things than you are.
Part of the safety training I had as a Department of the Navy Civilian small arms ordnance worker included the amusing anecdote regarding the most expensive non-injury unauthorized discharge of a handgun in military history, the *cure* for the problem, and the consequences thereof.
A USAF weather reconnaissance unit stationed WAY up north was protected by armed USAF sentries; since the unit had the wartime job of target damage assessment following nuclear strikes, some of their photographic and electronic equipment was stratospherically costly. The guards were warned that if they were caught reading on duty, the fine was $100 for the first offense, doubling on the second, and so forth. They could enter the hanger buildings [and had to, to check water lines from freezing in the subzero conditions] a good thing when the temps hit -15 degrees and the wind 45-50 knots. Accordingly one lad scrounged up a magazine's worth of dummy ammunition and practiced drawing his .45 M1911A1 handgun, chambering a round, and firing from the hip. The first week he was a little jerky at it; by the second he was better, and after two months of 4 hours of every-other-evening practice sessions, he was actually pretty good at it. And of course one night it happened: he got a live round mixed into his magazine full of dummy training ammo, and with a lightning-fast sudden draw, there was a sudden *BANG*. Followed by...nothing much. There was a plane parked on the service ramp outside his maintenance hanger, but any crew or mechanics tinkering with it had headed for the mess hall once the sun had gone down, and with it, the temperature.
There was no one else in the big lonely building, and the gate guards were far enough away and the wind sufficiently noisy that maybe he could get away with it. He took his flashlight and began to check to see where his .45 round had gone, and he found it pretty quickly- he'd been using a white safety warning poster as his *bad guy* target, and the slug had passed through the sheet metal door just to the side of it. He found a ballpein hammer in an unlocked toolbox and neatly rebent the torn petals of the hole he had made in the door, slapped a piece of repair [duct] tape over the hole on the outside and hit it with a shot of paint from a spray can. On the inside he simply moved the tape holding the poster over six inches or so, and the evidence was covered up. And just to make sure all was okay, he went outside to make sure none of the crew or mechanics had returned or had stayed behind, but happily, he was indeed alone.
The funny thing was, even with the wind whistling, he could hear a hissing sound. The closer he got to the plane the louder the hiss, until he got close to the landing gear under one wing, and saw the snow and sleet being blown by the air coming out of the .45-caliber hole in one of the main landing gear tires. With which he still might have gotten away, since planes pick up *FOD* junk, nuts and bolts and dropped tools all the time, and the in-and-out through bullet hole might have been overlooked as a slow leak. He hoped.
Until the tire lost enough air that it and its twin brother were no longer sufficient to support the weight of the electronics and photo-recon pod mounted under the wing on that side, and as it slowly dipped, so too did it slowly crush the 28-million-dollar pod full of highly classified, highly sensitive, highly now-worthless junk. I think the fine he got was more than $100.
That's not yet the end of the story. They took the .45 pistols away from the guards and gave them nightsticks instead. A few months afterward, one of the mechanics got the chance to chat with one of the pilots about the nasty weather he must of encountered on his way in....but no, he was told it had been surprisingly uneventful and decent that particular flight, whereupon the mechanic pointed out a line of dents and dings on the leading edge of the wing of the sort made when hitting hail at near-supersonic speeds with a 20-ton aircraft.
Nope, no hail on the weather charts, and they were still scratching their heads trying to figure it out when one of the ramp guards passed by along the front wing edge of the next plane parked nearby, tapping out the rhythm of a popular song with the hardwood stick on the soft aluminum, thumk-thunk-thunkety-thunk thunk.
They took the sticks away from the guards after that. The whistles that replaced the pistols and clubs may not have been able to be heard over the wind, but at least they wouldn't tear up any more of the taxpayers airplanes. Probably.
Just when you think something is idiot-proof, along comes an improved model idiot.