It's nothing, they just need a good polish

Whoa whoa whoa!

Hold on there buddy! People might start getting the impression that these things are dangerous.

"Don't taze me, bro" is way over played.
/nice headline though subby

came here for the posting of the "taser to the nuts video"

/leaving w/o a charge.

The proposed ban on Tasers outlines that police officers should only use Tasers in situations which are life-threatening and where "the only alternative is the use of deadly force or a gun."

So the only time non-lethal weapons will be allowed are situations where lethal force is warranted. Cool.

Good plan, guys. Now your are going to get shot seven or eight times in the chest. Life-threatening situations do not warrant a response less than full-force. Only in the world of unicorn farts and rainbows is an officer going to risk their own ass on the chance some single-shot air-powered dart-gun doesn't actually stop the target before they have a chance to maim them. You're going to get your ass killed. And they're still going to get away with it.



/queue the army of drooling media-fed farkwits who still don't understand that "non-lethal weapon" does not mean "perfectly harmless weapon that uses nothing but marshmallows and puppy dog kisses"

The Alberta government announced in December it would be joining other provinces and the RCMP in having an independent company test model X26 Tasers acquired prior to Jan. 1, 2006, over concerns their voltage could be exceeding the manufacturer's specifications.

*facepalm*

The feed on your drier or stove is a much safer option at only a mere 220v. Mostly harmless. It's like a tickle, really. Try it!

All I can see here is that Tasers have killed more people than marijuana, and yet Tasers are legal as a 'non-lethal' approach to confrontations.

/I'll just smoke my non-lethal weed, thank you

You know, I've heard that sending large amounts of voltage into your body isn't a good thing, especially for those with pre-existing heart conditions. I'd say mother nature just make your ticker wimpier than everyone else. Tough luck.

/kiddin' of course

It's not the voltage, it's the amperage. Sort of... something about current...

So 12% didn't work according to manufacturer's specifications...

What was the failure mode? Did they just not turn on? Did they provide too much voltage? Too little? Were they magenta instead of cherry red?

This article looks like the kind of reporting we get in the US. I expected more of Canada.

so you mean 1 in 10 is a killer or what?


/still don't want cops to have them.
//great for personal defense imo.

tedbundee: All I can see here is that Tasers have killed more people than marijuana, and yet Tasers are legal as a 'non-lethal' approach to confrontations.

/I'll just smoke my non-lethal weed, thank you

And what do you call it when someone is jacked up on weed and falls out of their balcony window? Or gets in a car and kills a family due to impaired driving? Or decided to pick a fight with the biggest, baddest mofo on the street because he's hallucinating and thinks he's the Buddha and was once told something alone the lines of, "If you meet the Buddha on the road of life, kill him." Damn hippies.

I am Canadian and am getting a kick out of these replies.

Tazers are their own thing. And except for a couple of milspec ones, I'll pass. Tazer shotgun and tazer claymore are kind of nice though.

They ought to outlaw these farking things. Giving a pain-inducing but mostly non-lethal device to cops and overeager mall security twats just encourages them to hurt people unnecessarily. Don't give them another toy to use on their power trips.

TheSpaceAdmiral: But, regardless, an officer getting "shot sever or eight times in the chest" has nothing to do with this policy: It's not like the Taser is the only option in a "life-threatening" situation. If a suspect pulls a gun, the police are going to pull guns too, not Tasers.

Yeah.
And if the suspect pulls a knife, the police are also going to pull their guns. Or an axe. Or a board with a nail in it.

The idea is to use non-lethal weapons before you are actually put in a position where you'll need to defend yourself from harm. That means when the jackass is standing there with his weapon drawn. "...the only alternative is the use of deadly force..." They are otherwise not a threat, and under the wording these twats want to use it would not be considered an acceptable scenario to take them down, as a passive-but-armed suspect is NOT a valid target for lethal force.

So you can't use the taser. You have to wait till you are put in immediate physical danger first? Yeah, no... you've just eliminated the taser as an option. You go from asking nicely to a bullet in the chest as soon as the target takes two steps towards you.

I do not trust cops. I hate the corrupt ones. I hate the so-called "good" cops that protect the corrupt even more. But taking away a highly effective tool from the hands of the good ones because the farktards in the media and the morons who eat up their propaganda can't understand what the fark a "non-lethal weapon" is is idiotic.

It. Does. Not. Mean. Fatalities. Are. An. Impossibility.

You probably understand this, but a good many don't. They need to learn it. Understand it. Read it back to themselves slowly if need be. Then deal with it.

A lethal weapon is one intended to cause serious or fatal injury. (Lethal Weapon 2-4 are the legal classification for lethal weapons which also include a Joe Pesci.) Just because every person who gets shot doesn't die doesn't change this. If I shoot you and you live, that doesn't magically make my gun a "non-lethal weapon." The weapon was intended to cause a killing wound.

A non-lethal weapon is one not intended to cause serious or fatal injury. It can... rubber bullets, sand bags, pepper sprays, bare fists, flashlights, batons, paintballs, dogs that shoot bees out of their mouth, and goddamn pillow fights have all caused fatalities. But this was too confusing, so it had to be re-classified in public documents as "less-lethal." Same goddamn thing. Just slightly easier for the media and the mouth-breathers to understand.

Sometimes, just sometimes, when you have an animal pinned to the ground, wired out of their mind on adrenaline, and struggling against restraint with their limbs pulled behind their back, their face pressed against the asphalt and a knee pressed into their back for 20 minutes hearts tend to explode. Doesn't matter if you've merely got them in a headlock, are beating them with a MagLite, or running a few miliamps of current through them.

A good tranquilizer might help... just a nice air-gun and a dart in their thigh before you need to wrestle them to the ground and beat them into submission, but you're still going to kill people when they have a bad reaction to the drug. People would still die. It happens sometimes when you try to stop someone from resisting by use of force.

Space_Fetus: tedbundee: All I can see here is that Tasers have killed more people than marijuana, and yet Tasers are legal as a 'non-lethal' approach to confrontations.

/I'll just smoke my non-lethal weed, thank you

And what do you call it when someone is jacked up on weed and falls out of their balcony window? Or gets in a car and kills a family due to impaired driving? Or decided to pick a fight with the biggest, baddest mofo on the street because he's hallucinating and thinks he's the Buddha and was once told something alone the lines of, "If you meet the Buddha on the road of life, kill him." Damn hippies.

I am Canadian and am getting a kick out of these replies.

Natural selection?

12%?? Fire the farking EE, the entire QA department and taser them while they're marching their box out the door.

i laughed heartily while being tazed. one girl pissed herself.