Have stun guns made police more violent?

[leftyladyfrommo]

Has anyone else noticed this? Before stun guns police had to work things out by talking people down. You sure couldn't just pull out your gun and just shoot a 72 year old grandmother who was giving you a bad time. Seems like I read about someone getting stunned recklessly almost every day now.

Course before stun guns they used to just beat the shit out of young trouble makers - now seems like they can beat the shit out of them and stun them

What is wrong with me? I don't when I got so that I absolutely do not trust the police like I do not trust them now. When did that happen?

[KittyWampus]

1. do you have hard statistics that prove police did, in fact, "talk people down" rather than use other

forceful means like billy club, choke holds, guns?

it does seem tasers are being used improperly all too often.

But I'd need to see real figures about what was used before tasers and how often they really are used now.

Mostly, we only see incidents where tasers seem unwarranted or lead to cardiac arrest or some such.

But sometimes, because certain incidents get attention, it seems they happen more than they actually are.

Surely there is a citizen's group that has tracked taser use?

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Well there is that.

I think I may have just assumed that they talked people down when they really didn't at all.

[vadawg]

3. anecdotally, no......

[MADem]

4. Sometimes they shot people and threw down a spare gun beside them, though.

Cops are less inclined to want to get wounded nowadays--even if it's a busted knuckle or a skinned kneww.

I think the cameras in the cars help a LOT. I wish they'd get the technology to the point where it was in the officer's hat or something.

[nichomachus]

5. Well, people have become more violent too

I don't argue that a cop will draw his "non-lethal" weapon more readily than he would a gun. If you use a gun, you are relieved of duty until there's an investigation, whatever. So, police are reluctant to do it unless necessary. That doesn't happen when you taser someone.

But, in defense of cops, the general citizenry has become more violent and is more and more likely to be carrying guns -- for "self-protection" of course.

I was talking to a cop a few years ago and he was in the process of leaving the force. He said that in the past it was a rarity when a cop got into a violent situation while arresting someone. "Now," he said, "the minute you tell someone they're under arrest, you're on the ground rolling around." He had a finger broken and part of an ear bitten off. He had had enough.

[benEzra]

6. Not the case. The murder rate today is roughly half what it was in the 1980's,

and fewer police officers were shot in the line of duty last year than any other year since *1956*, June Cleaver and all.





The MSM would certainly like you (and the police) to believe that Americans are more violent now than in the past, because fear sells. But the sky is not, in fact, falling.

More *law-abiding* Americans are carrying firearms due to carry license reform, yes (and my wife and I have been in that subset for many years), but CHL licensure self-selects for rule-followers with squeaky clean records. Gun carrying by criminals is not a recent invention, either, and that has probably not changed a whole lot.

To the question in the OP, I don't think Tasers themselves make police violent. I think the perception of the Taser as a compliance/discipline tool rather than as an alternative to the firearm is the root of the problem, and that's a training issue, not a technology issue.

[Indy Lurker]

7. Everything is on video these days

So it's easy to believe there is more trouble when you see more trouble.


I don't know that a taser is necessary to arrest a 72 year old grandmother, but no matter what you do to cuff a resisting 72 year old grandmother, it is not going to look pretty.

Push her up against the car using an arm lock? That could easily break her arm, and at that age, you don't heal as fast or well.

[rustydog]

9. So you taze her let her smash head against ground...

people can argue back and forth on this and everyone will be right as some point in the argument.

I read where an off-duty officer in uniform moonlighting as a hospital security officer tazed the father of an infant.
The father was abducting the infant. The problem is the father was still holding the infant and he dropped the baby on it's head when tazed.

police have tazed non-violent passive resistors who just stay still And ignore officers orders to get on the ground, hands to the side, etc. rather than risk possibly-maybe having the person get violent, they taze the individual.

I witnessed police taze one of the largest, nakedest craziest people I had seen in years and it was justified. he was threatening to kill anyone who touched him and barricaded himself in a room.

Each incident must be judged on the circumstances of each incident. It is too easy to say cops are too quick on the tazer trigger.

I do believe too many people have died after being tazed. this needs to be seriously addressed. killing people with what is supposed to be a first choice non-lethal option is wrong.

[Indy Lurker]

10. You need to compare apples to apples

How many asthmatics have died from pepper spray?

How many have died as a result of nightstick or flashlight trauma?

I'm not saying tazering is always the answer, but you have to consider the alternatives, and not decide in a vacuum.

Personally, I'd rather be tasered that beat with a flashlight, or pepper sprayed.

[zagging]

8. TJ

Paraphrasing. A government strong enough to grant your every wish is strong enough to take every thing you have. There's is absolutely no reason in the world to trust a cop.