I wonder how many lives were saved because of the Taser Gun.

[trumad]

Is the device used to much... perhaps. Is it used for inappropriate reasons? Perhaps.

Has it saved the lives of Police Officers and the victims. You bet.

[michreject]

1. Yep!!!

Either that or a gun.

[valerief]

2. I think it was created to save money not lives. You know, control

dissenters, enslave the populace, steal money, hide information.

[AnotherGreenWorld]

37. Exactly.

[truebrit71]

3. Bollox...it's just another tool the man uses to beat us down...

...I prefer it when the pudgy bastards actually had to break a sweat beating you to the ground with their billie-clubs rather than just zapping my nads with a jillion volts because I looked at them funny...

But hey, maybe that's just me...

[trumad]

5. beat us down

Ahhh... you need a little hug.

What a whooss.

[truebrit71]

10. Excellent news!! When shall I come over and "save your life" by tasering you?

I'll videotape it so everyone can see what a lifesaving device it is...

[trumad]

16. That was a pretty stupid reply

But say they came over and they couldn't subdue me... Say I was about to break away to get a gun... Say they then tasered me.... Did that save my life and theirs?

[truebrit71]

22. Referring to the Kerry tasering if you could beat off 8 cops...

...then you get a free pass...

At NO time were those pigs in ANY danger but they zapped his ass anyway..

Who's life was at stake there?

How about no-one...

The Taser is just another bullshit excuse for the jackbooted thugs in uniform to inflict pain and harm on the general population at the drop of a hat...

[Warren Stupidity]

35. If you could beat off 8 cops in a men's room...

oh never mind.

[niyad]

4. care to provide cites and stats for your assertion?

[trumad]

6. No I don't.

you care to use some common sense?

[niyad]

7. I am using common sense. YOU made a claim, I simply asked for citations, proof, of that

claim. you don't like it, don't try turning it around on ME--this isn't freeperville, my dear.

[trumad]

9. Common sense...

meaning that you don't think this weapon saved lives?

[Occulus]

43. Not really, no.

Prove it has. Show us the stats. Give us links to situations in which an armed gunman was taken out by a taser.

Prove your assertions. PROVE it has been used in more cases in which the assailant/suspect/whatever was armed with a firearm than it has in cases in which the tased person was NOT armed.

Back yourself up. You HAVE to. YOU started this thread.

Prove what you say. You're putting your own credibility on the line. SHOW US you are right.

[Retired AF Dem]

8. Common sense?

You are kidding right? :)

[trumad]

13. No I'm not.

Honestly--- do you really think that the taser never helped save a life in a police encounter with a bad guy?

[niyad]

18. believing something and proving it are two entirely different things--some people believe the earth

is flat, and some people believe bush is a hero.

so, since you believe that lives have been saved, you should be able to find proof of it in public records. you aren't doing much of anything else today, so you should be able to easily do this.

[trumad]

21. But you don't...

Like never?

[murloc]

26. Common sense doesn't apply in non-common situations

Its a frequent mistake.

For instance I've seen use the word common sense when describing how a building should collapse. Theres nothing common about it and very very few people understand the dynamics and physics involved.

Same thing with police shootings and tazering. Its hardly a common occurrence amongst the general population. 99.99% of all people have never subdued an assailant, even fewer have had to make a choice between lethal and non-lethal force against another human being.

[Solon]

28. If I were to use common sense, then I would say that Tasers are torture devices...

used by police officers to control the black population, that's probably closer to the truth than what you asserted.

[Occulus]

33. Thought you wouldn't.

Fucking typical.

[NightWatcher]

11. thank you sir for zapping me instead of shooting me

are you fucking kidding?

How many people have been saved by being shot in the ass instead of in the head?

[datasuspect]

39. i'm so grateful to get electrocuted! thank goodness for tasers!

oh, little secret, it's still open season on black men, other minorities, and the poor with live ammo.

[RufusTFirefly]

12. Do police have to file a report when they discharge their Taser?

If they don't, they should.
Although I applaud anything that is used as an alternative to a lethal weapon, it seems that Tasers have morphed way too easily into a tool of repression, dominance, and spite.

Perhaps the prospect of additional paperwork will discourage some officers from shooting first and asking questions later.

[trumad]

14. I agree with that.....

[Swede]

15. They should have used the choke hold.

That would've ended it.

[trumad]

17. I agree with that to...

but you do know that choke holds have killed victims?

[Bluebear]

19. Let's find a nurse and ask them!

[murloc]

20. Very few I imagine.

Maybe none or even cost lives.

When a cop needs to absolutely without fail stop someone who poses a lethal threat, they still pull out their guns and shoot. That has not changed.

The taser has however, provided cops with a tool to subdue someone with the push a button, who isn't quite a lethal threat, but needs to be subdued for other reasons. In the past when a forceful shout or strong arm was required, now the same can be accomplished by shocking them.

Of course tazers are not as reliable as guns. Tazers are foiled by certain clothing and the opportunity for only one shot. If you miss your shot with a tazer, you are out of luck. Thats why they never replace a gun.

Tazers only provide an additional means to subdue a subject..they didnt replace lethal force in anyway way.

[H2O Man]

23. The answer, my friend

is blowing in the wind.

I do hope you'll make this into a new verse for Blowin' in the Wind.

Please?

[trumad]

24. Here's one good one...

<Snip>Police officers are not the only ones who see and endorse the advantages of Taser technology. A report presented on June 30 at the annual conference of the National Alliance on Mental Illness shows that in a significant number of law enforcement contacts with mentally ill people, escalation to lethal force or suicide was prevented by a Taser device. Of the reported 2,452 reports of a Taser device used on mentally ill people during the 72-month study period, 1,111 (45.3 percent) were in situations where lethal force would have been justified by the reporting officer or where the subject posed an imminent lethal danger to himself. That is 1,111 lives saved in one of the most vulnerable groups of our population.
http://starbulletin.com/2006/07/11/editorial/commentary.html

[H2O Man]

25. It doesn't

fit the song.

[Solon]

27. You are assuming that the taser is used every time a firearm would have been appropriate...

the problem is that it isn't. We have people being tased for being simply disobeying officers, which, as far as I can tell, is NOT a situation where the officer pulls a gun and shoots them.

They are handing out these things, telling officers its "non-lethal", which isn't true, its less lethal, and then those same cops are using them in all sorts of ways that are questionable at best.

[fishnfla]

29. Our local Cheif of Police on the radio claiming

once criminals been tazed, they never wanna go back. Telling stories to the effect of: criminals who have been zapped once, just wither at the thought of a second round in another crime. He claims that when cops know they are dealing with habitual criminals, just a threat of the tazer stops them in their tracks

[backscatter712]

32. That's very telling.

It's a roundabout way of saying that a taser is actually a torture device.

That's what it is, fundamentally - it uses electricity to inflict pain.

[Warren Stupidity]

36. the miracle is that the jails are crammed with repeat offenders.

Why is that? Why not just taser them each once and be done with it? How STUPID can this conversation get?

[KoKo]

30. Exactly! There's NOTHING more important than saving our Police and Fire Fighters.

They need to use whatever means are available against the lawless hooligans they have to deal with Night and Day on the Streets and in places most of us wouldn't want to go into.

:toast: to our Police and Firefighters making America Save against those who Question Bush.

:patriot:

I'm with YOU, TRUMAD! Gotta keep folks SAFE! It's the American Way!

[Occulus]

41. .

:spray:

[spanone]

31. seems like lots of these folks get tasered laying on the ground....

[Warren Stupidity]

34. Endless posts supporting police brutality.

Good show!

[datasuspect]

38. you know i think miranda probably wasn't all that important anyway

doing away with it in non-investigatory procedural arrests means less paperwork for the police. the poor dears! they have a hard enough job as it is.

oh and that pesky 4th amendment: if it means that an officer is safer by barely proving probable cause, what use do we really have for being safe and secure in our persons and effects? i mean, the cops are safer right?

and those retrofitted commuter trains. i heard they take people to camps, but who doesn't want to take a free ride? i mean, have you seen how much it costs to take amtrak?

[rucky]

40. Tasers have killed SEVERAL people

kids, elderly, people with heart conditions. There's pleny caught on video, too. Google around.

[Critters2]

42. I have a congenital heart condition

and often wonder what the effect of a taser would be. Guess I'd better not ask questions too loudly, or I might find out!

[DefenseLawyer]

44. A taser is used at close range

to subdue someone. There are few if any situations where an officer would use a taser in place of deadly force. I'm not sure how many lives it saves, although used appropriately it can help an officer subdue someone. Just a quick war story about a taser: I once had a client who was in a car accident and began to have an epileptic seizure as they loaded him in an ambulance. A police office at the scene noticed what appeared to be a struggle and immediately rushed over and tasered the young man repeatedly. He of course charged the boy with resisting to justify the use of force. Fortunately the EMTs wouldn't back him up and the young man was acquitted in a bench trial.