Unsafe In Any Use

When even the manufacturer admits a product is lethal, it's time to stop using the product.

Well lookie here. It seems that Taser International might be just a teensy bit afraid that their "product" might be killing people:

The maker of Taser stun guns is advising police officers to avoid shooting suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose an extremely low risk of an "adverse cardiac event."

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This would be what is known as CYA. They are telling police agencies that if they get sued Taser cannot be held liable since it issued this disclaimer. This is the first time they've ever admitted that their weapon can be lethal.(They have admitted in the past that it can be dangerous since people often can't break their falls when the electricity incapacitates them.)

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The truth is that tasers are not benign, they are torture devices that are being used indiscriminately in the false belief that police have a discretionary right to subdue anyone they choose using this form of violence. And now even the manufacturer admits they can kill people:

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It's a very nice convenience for police to be able to subdue citizens with either the threat or delivery of terrible pain that will knock them to the ground. It saves time and energy and makes their jobs easier, no doubt. I'm sure they were more efficient in the days when they could take their billy club to people's heads with impunity too. But in a free society, police aren't at liberty to mete out punishment or demand instant compliance, particularly in a nation that has a constitution that guarantees all people certain rights to due process --- even if it makes their job easier. Police work is, by definition, an unsafe profession and one simply can't tear up the constitution and allow police to use violence in the name of efficiency and social control. The temptation to do that is one of the reasons we have a constitution in the first place.

At this point citizens are being told that they can be tasered for any reason the police choose, and have no recourse, because tasers are harmless (except for the searing pain they cause, which is evidently something we as citizens just have to put up with.) But they aren't safe and they shouldn't be legal, at least not the way they are used today.

Read the whole thing.

One of the secondary consequences of Smirky/Darth's everything's-a-nail worldview is that local police departments see overwhelming, unconstitutional force as the answer to every problem, no matter how non-violent.

From "school resource officers" shooting disabled kids dead to military weapons being used on peaceful demonstrators, law enforcement has lost its ability to enforce the law with anything short of violence.

Violence breeds violence. If your local sheriff is claiming he needs more and bigger weapons to deal with rising crime, you should ask how many handcuffed, helpless suspects he's tortured in the last year.