Don't tase yourself, bro!

[W2NAP]

tazer was a horrible idea for the most part

[w2amr]

tazer was a horrible idea for the most part

Depends on what end of it you're on.
They can even be fun!

[kf0rt]

tazer was a horrible idea for the most part

Needs more training. IMO, the LEO's are trained in thinking that this is a "pure as the driven snow" non-lethal alternative to firearms. In most cases, I think it works out that way, and IS a safer alternative. But the LEO's can't know if their target might have a heart problem.

Some don't survive it and I'm pretty sure I'd be a non-survivor. It's all in the judgment call of he whut holds the weapon, and that's the problem. Overall, I think the taser is good technology that's usually well employed.

All in all, I'd rather be tased than shot, but I don't like the idea that LEO's might think that the result is universally non-lethal. It isn't.

[W3MIV]

Needs more training. IMO, the LEO's are trained in thinking that this is a "pure as the driven snow" non-lethal alternative to firearms. In most cases, I think it works out that way, and IS a safer alternative. But the LEO's can't know if their target might have a heart problem.

Some don't survive it and I'm pretty sure I'd be a non-survivor. It's all in the judgment call of he whut holds the weapon, and that's the problem. Overall, I think the taser is good technology that's usually well employed.

All in all, I'd rather be tased than shot, but I don't like the idea that LEO's might think that the result is universally non-lethal. It isn't.

All true, but incomplete. The problem, as I see it, is that the tazer is seen as an easy resort rather than as the real "weapon" that it is. A cop, or LEO as you prefer, knows instinctively that the gun is the last resort, and that he'd better have a damn solid case for using it. The taser has become today's nightstick (or, as we used to say in old Baltimore, "espantoon") which in the hands of an excited and unthinking (or very frightened) LEO can be just as damaging or deadly as the gun.

You are correct in asserting that the problem is largely one of training, but many -- probably most, in my experience -- large police departments are very seriously deficient in training. Small departments and podunk depot sheriff departments are even worse. They cannot train their men and women properly in the use of deadly force with firearms -- more and more departments are being equipped with select-fire assault weapons (a popular argot that I use advisedly), flash grenades, CS canisters and other radical force-projection systems they are ill-suited to managing skillfully and discretely.

The tazer is far too easy, and the potential damage it can cause too little understood or taken into account by the average, minimally trained cop. Far too many of our LEOs are arrogant usurpers of imagined authority to begin with. Delusions of grandeur and an evening with Miss Kitty at the Long Branch fuel far too many imaginations behind the badge. The tazer is merely the latest gadget to fuel the problem.