Lord Anthony, an obvious arms race would ensue. Result: Corporations 1 : Society 0 (perhaps -4).

There's a huge hole in this discussion.

If Taser is happy to retail its products to civilians, will they become commonplace like cellphones?

So what happens when police are trying to manage an angry crowd when many of the demonstrators also have Tasers?
Police officers who have been tasered will surely have a different opinion from their gung-ho colleagues, non?

Would it have been any different if the cops nailed the student in the head with a baton instead?

No.

The initial problem is police protocol and the application of force appropriate to the situation.

The tasering of two university students--- one at UCLA in the library, in which he had done absolutely nothing--- and the other tasering of a student asking probing questions of Mr. Kerry when he spoke at the University of Florida--- are both examples
of people mentally unqualified for a bonafide police force, in the "security" business-- tasering their mental, educational, social, and ethical superiors.

The problem of sadistic and arrogant people in offices affording power of any degree over other individuals, is seen from the lowest-rung local government functionary up to the presidency. Tasers--- to intimidate citizens in order to chill dissent and free expression. Allowing the use or possession of tasers in the hands of people whose communication and thinking skills are around the 5th grade level--- and this includes many in the police force---- is an act worthy of Stalin and Putin.

RedRaider forgot so I shall correct.

People are complaining about poorly *disciplined* police officers, who are usually poorly trained and poorly paid resulting in jobs performed abysmally.

Until discipline, in all senses of the word, is enforced, all protocols are worthless pieces of paper with holes shot through them.

Shorter RedRaider: tasers don't kill, people do. ;)

I don't think the issue is the actual taser. A taser is a valuable tool for police officers if used properly. Their are many situations where a tasering is warranted, it is a great way to instantly de-escalate a situation. Protocols for use are the real issue, just as they are for handguns. If tasers are so horrible as many seem to think, police having handguns are twice as bad, or even billy clubs for that matter. If the police aren't properly trained in the use of any of these they become nothing more than weapons. The article says that 310 people have died since 2001 from tasers, however it doesn't tell how many have been saved. How times was a tasered used as an alternative to lethal force? I am sure there are incidents of this, I have no idea how many however.
Tasers have become a good focal point for people to complain about, when what they are really complaining about are poorly trained police officers doing their jobs poorly. The taser is not the problem at all, and neither are most police officers to tell the truth. However, their are police officers who use poor judgement whether with a taser, gun, or billy club.

Google about all the folks shocked by near miss lightning, and other forms of electrical trauma that do not have political or commercial implications. There is a laundry list of mental and physical symptoms that cannot help but be duplicated in a Tasering.

A lawyer can always twist facts to say that there are other possibilities, particularly if the person had a drug (legal or otherwise), or medical issue, but the fact that a torture victim had other issues should never absolve the damage without proof that it was a life or death situation.

If an officer would routinely shoot people as casually as they Taser them, there would be huge outrage, there can be no less for the Taser use.

This deadly weapon is being used too frequently because the propaganda from the company that it is safe is being taken as gospel by police. Consequently, it will be used much more often than necessary because of this misinformation.

Police work will be dangerous at times but that is no reason to use a weapon that inflicts torture leading to death in too many instances to people who could be handled by other means.

GIVE A CHILD A HAMMER AND SUDDENLY EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE A NAIL!

"Does the pitiful little issue of tasers have any significance whatsoever, except as a platform for Naomi Klein to shill her book? Five million people get killed in on-going civil war in the Congo,"

Yes, because tasers are used to silence the people who might, possibly might, be able to do something about the MIC. The authorities torture a few ordinary people (and yes, tasering, being thrown to the animals in prison, and waterboarding all qualify) and publicise the fact in order to keep the bulk of the people in terror.

It works. I even paused before writing this.

Does the pitiful little issue of tasers have any significance whatsoever, except as a platform for Naomi Klein to shill her book? Five million people get killed in on-going civil war in the Congo, and so-called "progressives' just keep whining about a couple of owies doled out by the police.

Okay, Naomi, you made a book out of three questionable ideas... every opposition party in the history of the world has exploited "shocks" to the system to promote its own ideas, and your identification of this process with the right wing is ludicrously one-sided... but you somehow squeezed a book out of it, and now you just keep flogging it and flogging it...

Maybe you should think up a new scam before you totally kill that poor old horse!

I hate to change the subject buuutttt...

has anyone noticed that it seems they are about to do a hurry up quik group prosecution and put to death the evidence at GITMO

shouldn't maybe we keep these detainees alive for a while just in case they are needed to testify about the torture tactics used on them, since the CIA destroyed the tapes?

My uncle still remembers the cop in his little
West Virginia town back around the late 1920s. If you were causing any trouble, he'd just walk up and hit you over the head with his billy-club, then drag you, unconscious, down the street to his jail.

Steven V. Riley,

Thank you for your comment...

"This time civil dissobediance is even more important. Unfortunately there is no leader like MLK to lead us on. Maybe it will be the by way of the Internet. May be it could be Obama if he does not become president, or the passionate social activist Martin Sheen who played president and has been actually arrested almost 80 times."

Perhaps what we need is less a charismatic leader than to create a multitude of communities of resistance. Have you considered the movements in South America from the last few decades?

Check out the final section of "The Revolution Will not Be Funded," or the model of the Zapatistas or the horizontal communities in Argentina, or the Landless People's Movements in Brazil.

There are many models from our compener@s in the South, but we in the US have to create our own. We have to work to build a non-centralized movement to transform our society to one in which we don't have to be reduced to debate tazer vs. billy club...

Can you picture 28 million people in the streets? I don't think there's enough tazers.

Tasers are used far too frequently in the US -- and we are none safer for it.

"Love her? Protect her," goes the slogan...

Between Taser and, far more, the NRA, we Americans must be the best protected people on the planet. Funny about our violent crime rates compared to Europe.

Of course the solution is to arm more of us - just ask the NRA or Taser. That way when the bad guys start shooting, all the good guys will fire back. It's clearly a sane and serious-minded way to conflict resolution. There are deep thinkers on that Right to Bear Arms amendment, which, of course, they interpret correctly to begin with.

Because what exactly is a bunch of random armed people other than a "well regulated militia??"

Paul - originalfaith.com

Martial Law is not being televised.

Billy clubs do not kill people unless you strike someone on the head and police are trained not to do so.

Naomis point is that people are being tasered in applications where billy clubs would not be used under the assumption that they do not cause much damage, just a whole lot of hurting, when in fact people are being killed.

Anyone not seeing this has a conflict of interest or some other agenda.

The Police are not the enemy. My grandfather was a Boston Cop during the late 20's-60's and I actually have his old billy club which is meant to be a primarily a jabbing weapon (little damage caused) and only a striking weapon (bones can break) as last resort. However, those who are training and conditioning the current generation of law enforcement officers on tasers have a different agenda. They want to create a division between good citizens and law enforcement, it fits into their strategy of divide and rule.

The fact that MSM gleefuly covers each taser event, with tapes coming from law enforcement in most cases, proves there is a hidden agenda of conditioning people into acceptance of being abused by law enforcement and to encourage conflict between law enforcement and the population at large.
This is preconditioning for the upcoming martial law.

Tasers for all?
So they will be available for "civilians" and "law enforcement?" Do they have to be registered?
Sounds like a(nother) recipe for disaster.
I remember when mace came out as a keychain accessory. I thought it might be a good idea as a woman in this insane society, but just carrying it scared the hell out of me. And who could guarantee which way the wind would blow?

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal." Albert Einstein

Policemen are not sufficiently intelligent or physically expert to the job. In Quebec people of high IQ are refused because they wouldn't fit in. Policemen like to think they are professionals, yet their inability to handle even unarmed individuals is pathetic. Even in groups, they can't subdue one guy without choking him to death or crushing his ribs. That's a good performance. They are so pathetic they now need a taser. Imagine 4 martial arts experts having trouble with one guy or needing a taser. Why aren't these cops experts? It takes seconds to tie up a calf if you know what you're doing. They lack expertise, they are no professionals.

No, no, no, Tasers for all is intended to be more like those "disablers" they put in cars now. You know, where if you or your car's thief pose a threat, the police can de-activate the car safely using the secure internet connection inside the cruiser.

In order to effectively fight crime, and terrorism, and dissent, and sarcasm, every person will receive, with their "real" id, a taser implant, that can be easily and safely activated using your social insurance number or drivers license number or credit card number - from any secure undisclosed location. Why should you be afraid of this, if you're not going to say anything sarcastic?

"Taser International is racing to get its devices in the hands of civilians,"

I can see it now. The Wild West all over again. But how are cops going to protect themselves when everybody has one?

My only disappointment with Naomi Klein's article was that she wonered why Toronto would rush out to buy 3000 Tasers right on the heels of the fatal tasering in Vancouver, but then she didn't even attempt an answer her own question.

That's what I want to know. Why would a supposedly progressive city like Toronto begin slouching toward fascism like this? The taser is an invitation to abuse and dominate people. If these get to the general public, I can see them used in robberies, neighborhood disputes, pranks, even for fishing.

Authorities have been running things, including the Tornto Police Department, for a long time. We have to ask ourselves, do we have more freedom, do we feel safer and are we happier? If Toronto authorities spend millions on Tasers, at almost $3000 each, then we will know how they think things will get better.

Rivers of blood. More blood than Americans have seen since the Civil War. Coming here soon.

These days are like visiting my friend when she was dying of cancer. Each day no matter how bad was the best she was gonna have, until there were no more days. The last two weeks I don't think about very much. When morphine doesn't touch the pain.....

Morphine won't touch the pain here either. This ugliness is manifesting in America now because of all that it has done, and hasn't done, and won't ever do...

Tasers are just another symptom of the disease. Nothing more. The psychotic violence necessary to maintain a Slave society based on exclusion cannot be quarantined within the individual or in the society at large. Dress up on Sunday all we want, still an abottoir on Monday.

RIP.

In medical circles, it has long been noted that a well-timed, precisely measured and accurately delivered jolt of electricity to a fibrillating heart can restore it to it's normal rhythmic patterns.

Since the mid-eighties, collaborating researchers of mathematics, physiology and physics have discovered to much surprise, that the reverse is also possible.

They discovered a dynamical heart whose perturbations and rhythms could be mapped using the tools of a new science named "Chaos".

[Read: "Chaos" James Gleick. Chapter 10. "Inner Rhythms".]

A notable research predecessor, George Mines, used himself as a guinea pig during experiments to test this electrical shock hypothesis. It was proved quite correct. And terminally so. His machines were later noticed to have recorded the last trace of his faltering heart.

(I wonder if he had considered testing upon pigs?)

What bothers me the most is the frequency that the populace is being subjected to either videos or other media coverage about taserings. This in itself serves to shock the masses into some sense of compliance. Is it a matter of more media coverage, of more use of the tools, or of both? Hmmm...

Yeah, some of us are pissed that tasers appear to be overused, but the bigger issue is the cumulative effect on our psychology of seeing them used by the authorities on more citizens is exactly what a government bent on control (read, fascist) would want - shock!

Positively shocking, isn't it?

Oh too bad Naomi.
You should have left the vivisection out of it.
The research on pigs revealed NOTHING new.

Once you say it does--then you are justifying torture. And it becomes hypocritical.

The torture of innocents is either right or wrong. If its ok to torture pigs then its ok to torture humans. That's the only fair system.

Speaking of electric shock and cattle
how about this article courtesy of Counterpunch

http://counterpunch.org/rosenberg02112008.html
Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
School Lessons in a Lunchbox

By MARTHA ROSENBERG

Like Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin carrying a rucksack in the rain protesting "I joined the army with the swimming pools and sunsets," people eat food from happy animals in shady pastures not the godforsaken ones shown in undercover videos.

Until now.

Now that people realize their children have been eating beef from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Company through the National School Lunch, Program Ed Schafer, the new Agriculture Secretary, has the perfect storm on his hands.

School districts in 50 states have put a hold on the meat after workers at Hallmark/Westland, a beef supplier to USDA in California, were videotaped tormenting crippled cows presumably to get around "downer" rules that say cows must walk from one pen to the next and back to prove they are not too sick to slaughter.

USDA may order the meat thrown out.

Schafer can't blame the conditions leading to the impounded meat -- which is considered dangerous because downers can carry mad cow disease -- on iffy overseas regulation. The videotaped mistreatment "occurred under the noses of eight on-site USDA inspectors," says the Los Angeles Times.

And, according to one activist it was a cakewalk.

"It would take two or three of us to get the cow to stand in front of the inspector, on wobbly legs, and he would say 'That's fine,' " says the activist who videotaped the slaughterhouse conditions during his six-week presence at the plant.

Hallmark/Westland was cited for excessive electric prodding of animals in 2005 and e Coli risks in 2002, USDA officials admitted when questioned by reporters.

Farm Sanctuary, a separate animal welfare group, says it videotaped Hallmark/Westland using forklifts to move animals a full fifteen years ago.

***edit
Then there are the humane questions that dwell in a system that makes a sick or dying animal get up and walk to slaughter so no one loses forty dollars on its carcass.

Who's that hungry?

With his predecessor Mike Johanns running for the Senate in Nebraska and ex Secretary Ann Veneman safely at UNICEF, Schafer, former North Dakota Governor, no doubt resents the mess he's inherited and has resorted to swiftboating.

"The Humane Society, since late October, has been willing to let animals suffer out there," rather than notify USDA he said in front of a cattle group in Reno last week, ignoring the fact that eight inspectors were on-site.

But the Los Angeles Times isn't buying it.

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has 7,800 pairs of eyes scrutinizing 6,200 slaughterhouses and food processors across the nation. But in the end, it took an undercover operation by an animal rights group to reveal that beef from ill and abused cattle had entered the human food supply," it wrote.

edit

Brute force has become the American way, it is in our culture, it is our "kick ass" society, it is on our TV, it is in our movies, it is in our high school sports and professional sports, it is in all forms of economic oppression, it is in our military, kill a flea with a sledge hammer, and it is now in the "jack booted" armed to the teeth SWAT teams of our local police forces. America has become a fascist nation, my way or the highway, my country right or wrong, Blackwater all the way.

This is the powerful truth of our times: The sting of tasers was introduced to make the power of capitalism right.

What America needs is transformational movement by way of more people getting tasered, day after day on the evening news. More tasers, more people, more non-violent civil dissobedience, more people, more tasers, even more arrests. Fill the jails. It is the only way to bring this greedy capitalistic nation to its' knees.

The pain of the brave few in the streets is necessary to gain the support of the many in the suites. Tasers are no different than the vicious attack dogs in the civil rights movement. It was the public witnessing of the attack dogs on courageous non-violent black and white activists that turned the nation around. Really, this was the only way our nation became a more conscious and compassionate nation.

This time civil dissobediance is even more important. Unfortunately there is no leader like MLK to lead us on. Maybe it will be the by way of the Internet. May be it could be Obama if he does not become president, or the passionate social activist Martin Sheen who played president and has been actually arrested almost 80 times.

At 73, I am ready to hit the streets.

Plenty of sadists among the police. Police agencies screen for latent sadism. They don't so much get paid for what they do, as for what they're willing to do. It takes a certain sort of personality to do the work of subduing resistance to the System.

As soon as tasers were invented and developed into a handy tool, they were bound to be deployed to cops. That's just how it is.

Will this launch another NRA, more fittingly called National Tasers Association? Tasers, although advertised as "fun," are sold to the public for self-defense, exploiting peoples' mortal fear of living in an increasingly dangerous world. I personally don't endorse it, but here are some points that can hamper our argument against it: 1) the Second Amendment (right to bear arms) 2) Individual Rights. I believe current debate on gun control provides a pretext for limiting or terminating the active sale of tasers. Also, this is Taser INTERNATIONAL. Keep this in mind in the context of America's history of providing American weaponry to support dictatorial regimes (El Salvador, the Phillipines, Iran, etc.) for its own political and economic benefits. Am I stretching this issue too far? Maybe. But it's a precaution we need to take especially in light of America's current domestic and foreign policies. There will be an increase in homicides, suicides, school violence, accidents--death rates will be climbing in our fact sheets.

Humans, in trying to control their own kind, have progressed from using the club, the sword, the gun, then pepper spray, the water cannon and now to the taser. This is evolution in action and clearly demonstrates our superior intelligence.

It's little wonder that we teeter on the edge of a nuclear precipice.

www.dangerouscreation.com

dmitri,

I agree that their primary purpose is to justify the protection of property. The more property you own, then more the police work in your favor. This much is demonstrable. It's not even "state", though. As someone pointed out in another CD article, foreign banks (European in that case) were about to foreclose on a home and, of course, it's the sheriff's duty to evict. So they don't even serve the State any more. They apparently increasingly serve international bankers at this point?

But the way to change is with a majority of Americans, the police and a good chunk of the military on our side. The way is by appeals to reason.

The provacateurs who'd have protesters battling cops are reducing an extremely complicated, cultural and structural problem to a situational problem -- where it cannot possibly be solved, only exacerbated.

Moooo for cattleprods.

Tasers have been used in the US on 'uncooperative' civilians in the throes of epileptic seizures - with an occasional unintended fibrillation.

Great fun!

They can be used on the mute for not answering, on the deaf for not listening, on the blind for not looking, on the hallucinations of the psychotics and on the psychotics too, on Saints for their visons, on Prophets for their warnings and they will certainly be used on Christ for his unsolicited compassion...

The merry re-marriage of technology and fascism. This is where our taxes go.

hewmon,

There are two issues and Klein absolutely refuses to separate them.

1. Protocol of application of force. When are police justified in resorting to non-lethal force -- or to lethal force? This is an issue separate from technology: whether baton, tear gas, mace, taser, etc.

2. Tasers and their physiological effects vs. other non-lethal mechanisms for those situations in which police have accurately judged that the use of non-lethal force is necessary.

Klein has some sort of script she's reading from, and it's unclear why she won't separate these issues.

Mankind can't even handle the lure and power of the taser...

Tazers are just cattle prods for human livestock....mooooo!

Another point: if a cop shoots you (very rare) or beats you, doctors will treat your wounds. When you're electrocuted, however, the damage is not fixable.

And the real reason cops are using juice instead of the other tools in their boxes is because more and more police forces have had to lower their hiring standards (a la the military) and, hence, have higher rates of uneducated "tough guys" who lack the ability to handle situations with anything other than brute force. Talk is for pussies, as they say...

If we can get back to a discussion of the subject at hand. Regardless of the weapon in use it all comes down, in my opinion, to the training and circumspection of the police officer. It would be hard to argue that a taser is not an improvement upon the use of a firearm, though, as has been pointed out talking and baton or club were also previous alternatives to this newish addition to a peace officers arsenal.

It may very well be possible that having such a taser in and of itself encourages its use, leading to such an increase in usage as opposed to the use of alternative methods in subduing a subject. This would seem to be again a matter of training rather than unsuitability of such a device.

I am uncertain as to the reasons for the obvious hostility this author shows the company in this article aas it appears that they are simply protecting their interests. That Ms. Klein thinks these interests run counter to the welfare of the citizenry may very well be true, or may be a bit more complicated.

Paul,

With all due respect, I think you missed the point, which is that tasers are being used in all kinds of circumstances that don't warrant ANY force. Tasers may or may not be preferable to clubs, but that's not the problem. The problem is that they are replacing ALL non-lethal confrontation techniques.

Anybody remember "Brother from Another Planet"? Sayles pretty much predicted tasers, and it's not pretty.

No Paul Bramscher, your constant excusing of taser use is increasingly reading like propaganda. The non-lethal precursor to a taser is talking. Police are far less likely to use a baton than a taser, because the chance of bodily harm to the police officer(s) using the baton is significantly greater. Paul Bramscher, you are constantly excusing taser use when there clearly are problems with it, particularly with its abuse in the hands of police, security personal, and now with the iTaser, with future use in the hands of civilians. Do you hold stock in the company or something?

Articles in this vein are starting to read like propaganda.

"Few would argue with an officer's right to use an electroshock weapon when lives are in danger and the only alternative is a gun."

Hello? While taser use can be dangerous, the non-lethal precursor to a taser was a baton/billy-club -- not a gun.

The Bush Administration has never once resorted to talking or other peaceful means when violence was available. Since the White House has always been a role model, why wouldn't the other authoritarian agencies, like the police, follow the prominent Bush lead?

Tasers are so much more fun to use. With a gun, the victim is usually dead as the cops usually aim to kill, not disable. With use of the billieclub, only a few bruises or broken bones result. With tasering, the victim is writhing on the ground, screaming as he or she gets it again and again. Don`t expect the cops to give up their new toy easily. Also, the taser-tupperware type parties must be so much fun for the women to choose their colorful weapons to shock hell out of someone.
Just think,"What would Jesus Do" ?

We all need to pay attention to the tazers. There is a new tazer that is wireless, leaner and meaner.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7536

"With the new "extended range electronic projectile," or XREP, the Taser has been turned into a kind of self-contained shotgun shell and can be fired, wire-free, from a standard shotgun, which police typically have in their arsenal already.

The first electrode hooks on to the target, the second electrode falls and makes contact elsewhere on the body, completing the circuit and activating the shock. It can blast someone as far as 30 metres away, and, unlike the current stun guns, whose shock lasts five seconds, the XREP lasts 20 seconds, enough time to "take the offender into custody without risking injury to officers."

People pass this info on. This is not good for the public.

I know what you're saying, ROBINEA.

In these times, tasers will be used to silence free speech hence the story of the university student who was tazed for asking John Kerry a question a few months ago.

If Police don't like someone, they can just taze and claim they were approached in an aggressive way.