Taser

For the company, see TASER International. For controversies related to the use of Tasers, see Taser controversy.

The M-26 TASER, the United States military version of a commercial TASER.

A Taser is an electroshock weapon meant to stun a targeted subject from a distance. Currently there are two main police models, the M26 and X26. Both come with various accessories, including a laser sight and mounted digital video camera that can record in low light situations. Taser International is also marketing a civilian model called the C2.

Tasers were introduced as a less-lethal weapon with the intention to be used by police to subdue fleeing, belligerent, or potentially dangerous suspects, often when a lethal weapon would have otherwise been used. Tasers have not proven unequivocally to reduce gun usage and there are a number of growing controversies surrounding them.

Name

The trademarked name Taser is an acronym for "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle". Arizona inventor Jack Cover designed it in 1969 and named it after the science fiction teenage inventor and adventurer character Tom Swift.

Function

A Taser fires two small dart-like electrodes, connected to the main unit by conductive wire and propelled by small compressed nitrogen charges similar to some air gun or paintball marker propellants. The air cartridge contains a pair of electrodes and propellant for a single shot and is replaced after each use. There are a number of cartridges designated by range, with the maximum at 35 feet (10.6 meters). Cartridges available to non-law enforcement consumers are limited to 15 feet (4.5 meters). The electrodes are pointed to penetrate clothing and barbed to prevent removal once in place. Earlier Taser models required the electrodes' barbs to penetrate the skin, but newer versions (X26, C2) use a "shaped pulse" that increases effectiveness in the presence of barriers. Early models had difficulty in penetrating thick clothing, but the 'pulse' models are designed to bring down a subject wearing up to a Level III body armor vest.

Drive Stun

A Taser, with cartridge removed, making an electric arc between its two electrodes

Some Taser models, particularly those used by police departments, also have a "Drive Stun" capability, where the Taser is held against the target without firing the projectiles, and is intended to cause pain without incapacitating the target. Taser defines "Drive Stun" as "the process of using the EMD weapon [Taser] as a pain compliance technique. This is done by activating the EMD and placing it against an individual’s body. This can be done without an air cartridge in place or after an air cartridge has been deployed."

A Las Vegas police document says "The Drive Stun causes significant localized pain in the area touched by the Taser, but does not have a significant effect on the central nervous system. The Drive Stun does not incapacitate a subject but may assist in taking a subject into custody." "Drive Stun" was used in the UCLA Taser incident and the University of Florida Taser incident.

It is also known as "dry tasing", "contact tasing", or "drive tasing".

Users

Tasers are currently in use by a number of police forces worldwide to try to reduce firearms-related deaths. The Phoenix Police Department reported that officer shootings had dropped due to the use of Taser technology as an alternative to deadly force. Taser use in this department increased from 71 in the year 2002 to 164 in the year 2003. In addition, the number of officer-involved shootings decreased by seven during this time period. In Houston, however, police shootings did not decline after the deployment of thousands of tasers.

According to the analysis of the first 900 police Taser incidents by the Houston Chronicle, no crime was being committed and no person was charged in 350 of those cases. In addition, it has been reported that the Houston Police Department has "shot, wounded, and killed as many people as before the widespread use of the stun guns" and has used tasers in situations that would not warrant lethal or violent force, such as "traffic stops, disturbance and nuisance complaints, and reports of suspicious people." Template:Electroshock In Portland, Ore., meanwhile, police found that 25 to 30 percent of the situations in which a Taser was employed met the criteria for the use of deadly force.

Although tasers were originally proposed as alternatives to lethal force, they have entered routine use as a method to gain compliance at times when the use of firearms would not be considered.

Safety concerns

While they are not technically considered lethal, some authorities and non-governmental organizations question both the degree of safety presented by the weapon and the ethical implications of using a weapon that some, such as Amnesty International, allege is inhumane. As a consequence, Amnesty and other civil liberties organizations have argued that a moratorium should be placed on taser use until research can determine a way for them to be safely used. Amnesty International has documented over 245 deaths that occurred after the use of tasers. Police sources question whether the taser was the actual cause of death in those cases, as many of the deaths occurred in people with serious medical conditions and/or severe drug intoxication, often to the point of excited delirium. Critics of taser use, however, argue that "excited delirium" is not a valid medical term and is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Tasers are often used as an alternative to striking the suspect with a baton or shooting him with firearms, both of which have a much higher chance of serious injury and death than the taser, even using the highest estimates of possible taser-related deaths. The term "less-lethal" is being used more frequently when referring to weapons such as tasers because many experts feel that no device meant to subdue a person can be completely safe. The less-lethal category also includes devices such as pepper spray, tear gas, and batons. There has been one case report in the medical literature of a person suffering spinal fractures after being shocked by a taser. The US National Institute of Justice has begun a two-year study into taser-related deaths in custody. The U.N. has declared: "TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill"

However, a study by the Potomac Institute concluded; "Based on the available evidence, and on accepted criteria for defining product risk vs. efficacy, we believe that when stun technology is appropriately applied, it is relatively safe and clearly effective. The only known field data that are available suggest that the odds are, at worst, one in one thousand that a stun device would contribute to (and this does not imply “cause”) death. This figure is likely not different than the odds of death when stun devices are not used, but when other multiple force measures are. A more defensible figure is one in one hundred thousand."

An additional study conducted by the Cleveland Clinic in 2007 determined that, "A standard five-second TASER X26 application does not affect the functional integrity of pacemakers and defibrillators."

Tests

On Tuesday, 5 July 2005 Michael Todd, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, England, let himself be shot in the back with a taser, to demonstrate his confidence that tasers can be used safely. This was videoed, and the video was released to the BBC on 17 May 2007. He was wearing a shirt and no jacket. When tased, he fell forward onto his chest on the ground, and (he said afterwards) the shock made him helpless; but, soon after, he recovered completely.

Although tests on police and military volunteers have shown tasers to function appropriately on a healthy, calm individual in a relaxed and controlled environmnent, the real-life target of a taser is, if not mentally or physically unsound, in a state of high stress and in the midst of a confrontation. According to the UK’s Defence Scientific Advisory Council’s subcommittee on the Medical Implications of Less-lethal Weapons (DoMILL), "The possibility that other factors such as illicit drug intoxication, alcohol abuse, pre-existing heart disease, and cardioactive therapeutic drugs may modify the threshold for generation of cardiac arrhythmias cannot be excluded.” In addition, taser experiments “do not take into account real life use of tasers by law enforcement agencies, such as repeated or prolonged shocks and the use of restraints".

Criticism

While their intended purpose is to circumvent the use of lethal force such as guns, the actual deployment of Tasers by police in the years since Tasers came into widespread use has resulted in more than 180 deaths already as of 2006. It is still unclear whether the Taser was directly responsible for the cause of death, but several legislators in the U.S. to file several bills clamping down on them and requesting more studies on their effects. Despite the growing controversy, study funded by the U.S. Justice Department asserted that majority of people tasered from July 2005 to June 2007 suffered no injury, including a study led by William Bozeman of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center of nearly 1,000 persons subjected to Taser use. It revealed that 99.7% had either minor injuries, such as scrapes and bruises, or none at all, while three persons suffered injuries severe enough to need hospital admission, and two other subjects died. Their autopsy reports indicated neither death was related to the use of a Taser. Nevertheless, the head of the U.S. southern regional office of Amnesty International, Jared Feuer, reported that 277 people in the United States have died after being shocked by a Taser between June 2001 and October 2007, which has already been documented. He also noted that about 80 percent of those on whom Taser was used by U.S. police were unarmed. "Tasers interfere with a basic equation, which is that force must always be proportional to the threat," Feuer said. "They are being used in a situation where a firearm or even a baton would never be justified." A spokesperson for Taser International asserted that if a person dies from a "tasering" it is instantaneous and not days later. TASER announced that it is "transmitting over 60 legal demand letters requiring correction of... false and misleading headlines."

External links

• TASER International homepage
• Louisville, Ky., police Taser incident database