From BB Gadgets:The first electrode hooks on to the target, the second electrode falls and makes contact elsewhere on the body, completing the circuit and activating the shock. It can blast someone as far as 30 metres away, and, unlike the current stun guns, whose shock lasts five seconds, the XREP lasts 20 seconds, enough time to "take the offender into custody without risking injury to officers."
I missed the part where five seconds has proven to be insufficient.
What if someone has an adverse reaction to being tasered? Like an abnormally adverse reaction... like, say, their heart stopping? Does it really make sense to be required to tase someone for a full 20 seconds?
I guess if the point is to inflict pain, then yeah. The more the merrier.
This is repulsive.
The future is now. I'm just waiting for the handcuffs with built-in taser feature, or the shock collar. It's where we're going.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Tasers are Bad; This is a Taser; Therefore It Is Bad
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3 comments:
Well, it would seem that this particular taser would have to last longer than 5 seconds since the officer would be shooting it from a good distance away. The offender would have to be immobilized long enough to get over to him and cuff him.
Do I think tasers are good things though? I'm still uncertain. Talking to some officers it has been the best thing that's happened to their stations. Makes them feel much safer (and numbers of altercations between officers and people being jailed have actually gone down) and most have never had to actually use them. I know in one local station at least, the officers have to be tasered before they are allowed to carry one.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but people who have recently been Tasered, as a rule, do not jump up and run off the second the current stops. They lie on the ground and spasm because they can't control their own body.
It seems like such a person would be easy to apprehend (that being the point of a Taser and all).
Also, if the Taser-shotgun only works from 30 ft. away or less, an officer should have plenty of time to get there even if the shock lasts for only five seconds.
All of that isn't really the point, though. The point, at least for me, is that Tasers kill people - and that officers are starting to use them more and more against people whose "crime" is talking back.
That this is incredibly wrong should be obvious.
That it's not obvious kind of scares me.
I agree that it is wrong to use them when people are not posing a true danger to an officer. I think the outright ban of them is not called for though.
Asking that our officers use them responsibly is not too much to ask. Officers could be held accountable when they are used in non-threatening situations.
They are not as life threatening as guns- that's for sure.
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