Via Ken at Crimlaw, our friends at Taser International have expanded their line of less-lethal weaponry.
The problem with tasers isn’t that they offer a less than less-lethal alternative to bullets, itself not an entirely bad thing. The problem is that tasers, both by marketing and inclination, have become a substitute for minimal intelligence. It’s just too easy to pull out the taser when there is no justification for the use of any force whatsoever. It’s become the “great persuader” for lazy and stupid cops. Why spend the 10 minutes to talk someone off the ledge when you can taze ’em and be back before the donuts come out of the oven?
Of course, there is a risk involved with getting too close to someone armed with a knife or club in order to use a hand-held taser to subdue them. They can still be shot from a bit of distance, but not 100 feet away. I can foresee circumstances where the distance makes sense, and would protect police from unnecessary risk.
I can also see the circumstance where some cop stands next to his RMP and plugs the recalcitrant but harmless citizen with his taser enabled shotgun rather than exert the effort to resolve the situation without need to resort to force at all. I see a whole lot more of this happening than the alternative. It’s just too easy to do.
Just as we can debate whether it’s the gun that kills people or people who kill people, the taser is only as good as the person holding it or, now, pulling the trigger. The problem is that experience has shown that too many cops aren’t good enough. And now it’s even easier, safer and, frankly, requires less effort. Just what we need, an easier way to get stupid.
[Taser] has released a new shotgun-ready projectile similar to its other stun-gun products, but with twice the range and the first with wireless capabilities.Because it was too darn hard for the officers to walk the 20 paces from their cruiser to the 72 year old woman who refused to sign her speeding ticket, we needed this.
The wireless device has the same effect as Taser’s other products, but can be fired from up to 100 feet away. It also can be used by other 12-gauge, smooth-bore shotguns, although the Taser-produced shotgun is designed only for the less-lethal projectiles.
The problem with tasers isn’t that they offer a less than less-lethal alternative to bullets, itself not an entirely bad thing. The problem is that tasers, both by marketing and inclination, have become a substitute for minimal intelligence. It’s just too easy to pull out the taser when there is no justification for the use of any force whatsoever. It’s become the “great persuader” for lazy and stupid cops. Why spend the 10 minutes to talk someone off the ledge when you can taze ’em and be back before the donuts come out of the oven?
Of course, there is a risk involved with getting too close to someone armed with a knife or club in order to use a hand-held taser to subdue them. They can still be shot from a bit of distance, but not 100 feet away. I can foresee circumstances where the distance makes sense, and would protect police from unnecessary risk.
I can also see the circumstance where some cop stands next to his RMP and plugs the recalcitrant but harmless citizen with his taser enabled shotgun rather than exert the effort to resolve the situation without need to resort to force at all. I see a whole lot more of this happening than the alternative. It’s just too easy to do.
Just as we can debate whether it’s the gun that kills people or people who kill people, the taser is only as good as the person holding it or, now, pulling the trigger. The problem is that experience has shown that too many cops aren’t good enough. And now it’s even easier, safer and, frankly, requires less effort. Just what we need, an easier way to get stupid.
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Maybe the Taser people already have this figured out, but I read the brochure, and I have a couple design questions. First, if the XREP is designed to reach out to 100 feet, its got to have a pretty good muzzle velocity. What happens when some loudmouth in a traffic stop gets hit in the head from only 7 feet? Rubber bullets have killed and maimed people this way.
Second, there’ve already been a few incidents of cops trying to taser someone but reflexively grabbing their duty firearm, including one incident of a fatal shooting caught on video. Since the XREP round can be fired from a conventional shotgun, how long before some cop kills someone accidentally because he thought his shotgun had an XREP load but it had buckshot instead?
One would hope that TASER provides the shotgun in a brightly painted orange. I’m only half joking. I can foresee circumstances under which people will sustain serious injuries (heart attacks? disc hernations or broken limbs from attempting to escape?) when an actual shotgun is pointed at them.
For that matter, I can foresee cases in which officers are shot or killed, where they might not be otherwise, because they brandished a shotgun at someone.
I don’t encounter the police in criminal cases, but I do occasionally defend them in civil cases under 42 USC 1983 and the like. Based on my limited experience, this product has the potential to be a disaster.
A musket at a range of 100 feet was a very lethal weapon with an acceptable probability of hitting a man sized target. To reduce lethality the projectile will have to weigh far less than a lead ball and the air drag and windage will greatly reduce the probability of hitting the target. At that range they would be better off with a sling-shot.
Which came first? The “minimal intelligence,” or the Taser? More likely, it was the attitude; the Taser just enables those in power to ignore that point — probably until it’s too late.
I don’t think Tasers have caused the problem. Law enforcement officers these days really do seem to believe that they are THE final authority. In any encounter with an “ordinary” submitizen who refuses that position, the police are going to automatically resort to force. The force may be a raised voice, a smack to the face, a zap or two (or three) from a Taser, or a real bullet.
As they say, Tasers don’t zap people; people — well, at least former people — do.
The Taser folks do provide a shotgun with bright yellow parts that only fires this Taser XREP ammunition. However, a department that didn’t want to buy a lot of special-purpose guns could also fire the XREP cartridge from a regular 12-guage shotgun, which is what worries me.
We had an incident near us yesterday where a policeman tasered the pastor of a small church, arrested him for interfering with a police officer and pepper sprayed the congregation. All because the policeman was ticketing someone at the church and the pastor tried to assist. It is a mostly hispanic church. 30 witnesses say the policeman was trying to kick in the door to the church and there are shoe marks there. The people were at an early morning prayer meeting. The police department has now said the church didn’t have the proper certificate of occupancy, so they had no right to be there. Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t religious gatherings supposed to have some kind of protection from this sort of thing? Last month a rabbi in Houston got arrested for ‘interfering’ because he tried to help a 16 year old student of the school he worked at deal with a traffic ticket at a confusing intersection.
Here is more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/02/texas.taser.pastor/?iref=mpstoryview
http://www.click2houston.com/news/19650075/detail.html