Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Cops Don't Get It...Tasers Kill People

I wonder what they did for the past hundreds of years with prisoners in custody. There was life before tasers.

4 comments:

Kai_Wolf said...

I wonder what they did for the past hundreds of years with prisoners in custody. There was life before tasers.

Batons, fists, and boots. Which are so much safer.

Jason Hickman said...

Kai: To say nothing of guns.

James, I'm not suggesting a tase-at-will policy. But to simply toss a comment out there saying "Cops don't get it, Tasers Kill" is small-minded thinking.

I'm all for proper training & rules when it comes to tasers, and for revising those rules & training when needed. But the cop on the beat needs something between a billy club and a pistol, doesn't he?

JimBobby said...

But the cop on the beat needs something between a billy club and a pistol, doesn't he?

Whooee! They can use a number of alternatives to tasers. Bean bag guns, pepper spray, pepperball guns, sticky glue guns, giant net guns, rubber bullets. All of these types of non-lethal weapons are currently in use by police forces, mostly local or state forces in the US.

Tasers are lightweight, compact and apparently easy to use. That's probably why they are so popular.

JB

Jason Hickman said...

Agreed, JB. Of course, some of those weapons/devices aren't always practical (net guns), and/or they've caused serious injuries or fatalities themselves (pepper spray, bean-bag guns).

Also, and I stand to be proven wrong, I think tasers have a longer effective range than pepper spray, which is the most common of the alternatives you've listed.

For that reason + the reasons you've set out, I'd be more inclined to have the police stick with tasers, perhaps with better training.