Repost - AMA report on tasers "directly" (18 June 2009 )

"An AMA report finds that tasers, when used appropriately, can save lives during interventions that would have otherwise involved the use of deadly force."

Okay. Now engage brain and think. What about the other 99% of the time? ...When tasers are used to replace lower and less violent forms of force?

For those that just crawled out of their cave and aren't aware, tasers are deployed approximately one hundred times as often as police have historically and generally-acceptably fired their guns. This 100X ratio varies widely, but it's a reasonable approximate number.

So that leaves the vast majority of actual taser deployments, which most often occur when lethal gun-fire would have never been used, without this purported moral justification.


There were some bright spots in the AMA report:

The AMA’s report detailed concerns about the use of Tasers in three general areas:
1) They are used too frequently and at lower levels on the use-of-force continuum than indicated.
2) Appropriate training and supervision of Taser use is lacking in some [most] jurisdictions.
3) And they may contribute to the death of suspects [or victims], either directly or indirectly. [LINK]


So this AMA taser report is hardly the ringing endorsement that Taser International will pretend it is.

AMA left open, intentionally and explicitly (!), the possibility that tasers can "directly" (a word that will inflame Taser lawyers) "contribute to" a death.

"DIRECTLY"


By the way, if tasers were only used during incidents that would have otherwise involved the use of deadly force, then I would not have bothered starting this blog.

That's the oldest taser lie.

It's the original taser lie.

...that "tasers replace guns".