Horizon

On the other hand, feel free to make millions of dollars selling instruments of torture.

Serious question: why is a taser an instrument of torture? Given that the older options for non-lethal weapons were either the (often decidedly lethal) plastic bullet or some variation on the truncheon, I would have thought the devices like the taser - which as I understand it produce pain but no lasting harm - are a step forward. I mean, you accept that police forces etc. are always going to need the means to subdue violent suspects, etc.?

Tasers are dangerous, at least to the heart, and they at least seem to have been used in a lot of circumstances where brutality was afterwards alleged. Perhaps it's that the idea of administering electric shocks to a human being is something that people are only willing to contemplate when they're feeling exceptionally angry/scared/aggressive, or when they've managed to keep the possibility of empathy for the victim at an unusual distance. Don't know if you saw the recent Tennesseean article on my own blog, but anyway it's at . A Taser was also used in the Rodney King beating.

Sorry, that link is to the Tennesseean story. For an account of the Rodney King beating see Koon v. U.S..

Tasers are dangerous, at least to the heart, and they at least seem to have been used in a lot of circumstances where brutality was afterwards alleged.

Surely the benchmark is not whether tasers are potentially dangerous, though, but rather how dangerous they are compared to the alternatives available. As for the allegations: since (presumably) they're used in situations where people have been resisting arrest, and people who resist arrest are (presumably) more likely to make subsquent complaints about police action, this is a foregone conclusion?

Again, a serious question: what would you propose the police use in place of them? (I think even the most Pelagian of us can accept that there are going to be occasions when policemen need mechanical assistance to subdue offenders).

I have discussed the topic of tasers with a law enforcement acquaintance at length. He's not an expert but a decent example of the thinking person's cop on the street. You wouldn't think we'd have many instances of Vermont police having to subdue suspects but it's common. His personal rule is: gun in the holster and nightstick in the car. He favors tasers as another piece of equipment in the cop's kit, equipment that stays in the car. The idea is, if it's in the car you get a little more thinking time. Most people can be physically overpowered without injury. Generally, immediately resorting to weapons is where cops go wrong.

But he thinks tasers might be better than pistols and clubs in the hands of well trained officers. The key is that a well trained cop is one who understands that they are in control of a situation by virture of their uniform and authority, not the possession of deadlier weapons. Except in rare occasions, the wielding of weapons is a demonstration of surrending that control.

In 2001 Brattleboro police fatally shot a man after he had brandished a knife in church. The state exonerated the police and most Vermonters accept that decision, yet there remains, three years later, an unease about what happened that morning. Martha might rightly point out that cops unwisely pulling guns might just as easily have unwisely employed tasers. Still, many here feel with tasers, a troubled man might still be alive.

As Bobby notes, it's partly about training. But it's dangerous for there to be a "less lethal" way of doing something genuinely dangerous to a person. On one hand a taser (or sandbag or pellet or baton) might be, well, yes, less lethal -- but on the other hand most "less lethal" weapons can have pretty vicious consequences, e.g. the wounds sustained by a woman in an antiwar protest last year when Oakland police rather gratuitously fired wooden batons. The trouble is, the availability of these alternative weapons lowers the threshold at which an officer becomes prepared to fire a dangerous-though-"nonlethal" missile. I'd rather a Taser wasn't used at a point where an old-fashioned mind game -- or an old-fashioned hammerlock -- might end a conflict with less harm done.

It's dangerous for there to be a "less lethal" way of doing something genuinely dangerous to a person.

with respect, that's really dancing around the question. You might as easily say that cops should only have the option of shooting to kill - or blowing up half the neighborhood - because that way they'll be less inclined to do it. And the comparison with the wooden baton is really unfair because it's precisely that kind of weapon that the taser is meant to replace: no-one would dispute that a baton can do lasting harm, whereas IIRC there's no evidence that a taser has ever done so. Ultimately there's always going to come a point at which mind games etc. aren't enough, and then the cop is left with the same dilemma: what do I do now?

Tasers have been linked to quite a few deaths, actually. That's the problem with these things: they're promoted as more harmless than they are, and so officers may feel free to use them in circumstances where they'd be shocked at the idea of drawing a "real" weapon.

"Amnesty International said Tasers couldn't be ruled out as a factor in seven of 74 deaths in the United States and Canada ". That's not exactly a compelling statistic, is it? And even if it turns out that tasers are more dangerous than first believed, that's a question of education and training, surely - because the alternatives to tasers are almost certainly a good deal more dangerous. You cited a portion of Bobby's post with approval but passed over his more troublesome conclusion. Incidents like the one that happened in Brattleboro are going to continue to happen, all the wishful thinking in the world aside. And police officers are going to continue to have to make choices about how to deal with violent offenders. What would you rather they used, a taser or a .45?