Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda

Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.



Friday, August 8, 2008

Taser Touch-Torture mode is still 'torture'

[Note: The Touch-Torture mode, where the darts are not used, is also sometimes called the Push-Pain mode. Taser sometimes calls it Drive-Stun mode, but that name is misleading because 'Stun' has nothing to do with it. The most accurate name for this deployment mode is Touch-Torture mode.]

Australia's decision to sign the Protocol to the UN's Convention Against Torture has the potential to put Australia's police in a difficult position. [LINK]

Actually the police probably won't be overly concerned with this issue (type-A brains are often wired with fairly heavy-gauge neural conductors). It'll probably be the more-thoughtful politicians that might feel the full weight of the issue.


Keep in mind that when the taser (M26, X26) is used for pain compliance, it oversteps the already-high mark by a huge ratio. The taser's one-and-only waveform current was never designed for pain compliance. It was designed to go above and beyond pain to reach incapacitation (and some might claim that they've even overshot that target). The ratio of the taser's waveform current as compared to the level required to cause 'intolerable pain' is TWO THOUSAND to one. [LINK] [LINK]

Yes - using the taser for pain compliance is clearly 'torture'. And torture is illegal. Which makes most taser deployments illegal. But the legal system is way behind on this issue.


A non-stupid taser designer could have made the waveform current in touch-torture mode much less than dart deployment mode. The taser waveform current could have been a variable controlled by a logical discrete invoked by cartridge installation (or not). But Taser design staff, being as clever as tree stumps, never incorporated such a simple feature.

And so they've designed a weapon that clearly violates fundamental human rights when used in the touch-torture mode.


And if the taser can be used for pain compliance, then why not a Bic lighter? If a police officer uses a Bic lighter to force someone to let go of a hand rail, is that legal? What's the difference?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)