Yeah quick !! - before the news gets out that tasers are already being misused, abused and overused all over Australia. Little 16-year-old girls being held down and tasered. Police Ministers threatening to taser people at meetings.
They claim that, "They're effective." Yeah, so are flame-throwers. Do you want flame-throwers too? Electric fences around government buildings? You don't want unruly crowds bothering government officials.
Mr Carroll said the [police] association wanted 24-hour access to tasers for front-line police so they were equipped with a non-lethal alternative to handguns, particularly when more offenders are presenting with drug and mental health issues. [LINK]
Oh, so you've been shooting dead (with your lethal handguns) a large number of offenders with drug and heath issues, have we? What a load of crap.
This damp-trousers desire for tasers is really all about being able to exercise total control over not just 'offenders', but also over generally law-abiding citizens too. Back-talk an officer and you'll risk being tortured as an on-the-spot punishment. Just like the good old days of being a British penal colony.
There's a line that defines the boundary between a Police State and The Rule of Law. The clearest possible example of this boundary is the question: Who meets out the punishment - police or courts? Tasers are most often used to meet out on-the-spot pain which is far beyond what might be required to induce compliance. Tasers = an instrument of the Police State.
At this point the ill-informed pro-taser fan boys start wheezing about "Oh, Just obey the police and you won't get tasered", thereby revealing that they've not been paying the slightest attention and have missed the several incidents where persons in diabetic comas, or stone-cold drunk, or zonked-out asleep, etc., have been tasered.
In theory, tasers might do some good (if they were as safe as claimed) once in a while.
In practice, tasers are used about one-hundred times as often (roughly) as police ever used their lethal handguns. This reveals the police association statement about being a replacement for handguns to be an example of a misinformation campaign. And they know it - which makes it a lie.
In practice, tasers are misused, overused and abused so much that they are a negative force in society. When the overuse is combined with the risks, it isn't even clear that they save lives. When people die after being tasered, would they have died anyway? In many cases - not likely. Even the mainstream media has noticed that.
The Solicitor General in the Canadian province of Alberta recently claimed that tasers had saved "thousands" of lives - which is a clearly preposterous claim.
Australia seems to be about one year behind Canada in the progress of the taser issue.
Attention Aussies - Welcome to late-2007. Keep your mobile phone cameras at the ready. Especially if you see any sort of minor disturbance at an airport...
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