Unlike a gun, the taser is not designed specifically for the purpose of causing death or critical injury. Tasers have caused deaths, but only in cases of a drastic level of overuse, or when the person hit was under the effect of strong drugs, or had some health condition, so he was already made unusually susceptible to the effects of a shock.
There is just about nothing known to man which can be used in a struggle and which cannot accidentally cause death. A headlock can kill if applied sloppily or for too long. Simply punching a man in the nose can kill if it causes him to fall and smash his skull on something. If the police can’t use a gun, and they can’t use a taser, and they have to subdue someone, then they have to fall back on old, even more brutal practices which have an even higher probability than a taser does of causing crippling or accidental death. You want the police to go back to using saps and nightsticks?
The taser is not perfect (nothing is), but it is an attempt to take a step in the right direction.
Unquestionably. The issue is that it gives the cops an option that the public thinks is entirely benign. They resort to the taser in situations where, in the bad old days, they’d use words instead of truncheons. The public says, “what’s the problem? It’s just a taser,” because it doesn’t leave marks.
Is it proportionate to use violence of any sort to subdue someone who’s guilty of a minor administrative violation? We’ve lurched so far into authoritarianism that I think the public believes that it is indeed appropriate.
When Tasers were first introduced in Australia, there was much objection by civil liberties advocates.
The police response at the time was “we recognise that these are potentially deadly weapons, but they will only ever be used as a less-lethal alternative in situations that would have previously involved firearms”.
Of course, the cops started using them as intimidation/compliance/torture devices (particularly on racialised victims) within moments of getting them.
Now, like the USA (albeit to a less extreme degree), it is increasingly accepted that the cops are free to use Tasers to punish any proles who fail to “respect mah authoritah”.
