Re: Don\'t taze me drone!
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Would you rather the cops in those situations used bullets instead?
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So a cop only has two options to choose from? Shooting someone or zapping him with 50,000 volts?
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Well, not in every situation, but violent situations where the criminal is also armed with a weapon, be it knife, bat, etc. What do you suggest the cops do? I don't disagree there are situations in where the taser is overused, and certainly the application needs to be looked at. They shouldn't use it at their convenience but in dangerous situations.
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The alternative is to let criminals do what they want.
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No, it isn't. What did cops do before the invention of the taser? Were they running around shooting everyone who looked sidewise at them?
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They shot more criminals than they should've. They just have a now less lethal option that still carries lethal force when it's applied to the wrong individual. They'd use nightsticks and their own bodies to force a criminal to submit, and when that didn't work, they would be forced to shoot them.
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You can't give the cops wiffle bats and manuals on how to stop a criminal by talking to him.
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Why not?
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Violent and psychotic criminals do not react well to a gentle tone of voice and perusasion. When well into a course of action, they're notoriously difficult to stop. The degree of difficulty goes up quite a bit when they're armed.
It's a distasteful alternative, tasering, and probably benefits officers more than it does the criminal, since tasering is not a gentle alternative, but it is less lethal than beating the criminal to death or shooting him. Bear in mind I'm considering situations where violence is guaranteed to happen.
I don't agree with causal use of tasering just because the option is open to the officers. I'm also not sure what to make of the fact they'd use it to stop hostile crowds, and probably would lean towards not using it in those situations.
But cops do need non-lethal alternatives when in situations with violent offenders and until something better comes up, tasering is basically better than using bullets.
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