Don't Tase Me, Bro: Get Used to It

With "Don't tase me, bro" having spread as only a meme can, tasers are once again a hot topic of debate. Just how safe are they? And should regular folks be able to buy one?

The New Scientist reports that tasers have been tested far more on animals than humans – no surprise there. Research on tasered people suggests that they don't suffer serious harm, though critics say the studies are flawed because the subjects were healthy volunteers at rest, not people who are mentally ill or hopped up on drugs.

This objection probably can't be answered without retrospective analysis of tasered suspects – one such study will be released in a couple weeks – though researchers are trying. Jeffrey Ho, a physician whose research is partly funded by Taser International,

has been trying to address these questions in new studies designed to reflect the typical circumstances of an arrest. He has monitored the response to tasering in volunteers who have exercised to exhaustion, or who have got drunk in a controlled environment. Many of his recent studies include doses of three times the length of the standard
5-second shock to look for any risks of repeated tasering. None shows adverse effects.

But even if Tasers turn out to be non-debilitating, does that mean they should be available to the public? The company, reports New
Scientist, has sold 170,000 in the US alone; the consumer model comes in a variety of colors, including pink, and can deliver a 30-second jolt. The police model, by contrast, delivers a five-second shock.

Yes, I'd rather have policemen outfitted with tasers than guns;
better to be shocked than shot. (Though there do need to be far stricter guidelines on using them – tasers should be a next-to-last resort, not a routine tool. Even if you're not a bleeding-heart liberal like me, the regular use of tasers by cops should bother you: it's plain old incompetent policework. See YouTube video above.) But I'm not sure this volts-beat-bullet logic works for criminals, too. Would a would-be gun-wielding robber really user a taser instead? Eight states have already banned them. Only 42 to go.

Concerns raised over Taser safety [New Scientist]

See Also:

• Wired: Video Fix: Taser vs. Beer