Tentative Taser Quote of the Year

There's still a few days left, but this one is set to be a top contender for taser Quote of the Year (due to the potential impact on the liability of Taser International).

"Training materials provided by the manufacturer of these devices and early law enforcement training tended to significantly understate the risks associated with ECW use." [LINK - MD AG Taser Report, Executive Summary, page 2, paragraph 3]

In other words:

Taser International has significantly understated the risks associated with taser use.

Read that again and let it slowly and deliciously permeate into your consciousness.

Don't miss the word "significantly".

This isn't some random blogger making this statement. It's the ECW Report from the Office of the Attorney General of the state of Maryland.


Taser International has a total market capitalization of about $273M. I don't think that even if every penny of that was converted into available cash that it would be enough to deal with the enhanced liability provided by this sort of formal (state government) conclusion. But worse still is that the stock price will plummet when the full impact of this significant understatement of the risks is addressed through the courts.

And this formal conclusion points the finger of the "junk science" label in the correct direction.

And this two-step logic (their junk science concludes that tasers-R-safe - now shown to be wrong)  might help to put an end to those junk Daubert motions [LINK] so loved by Taser International. The possibility of such motions should be proactively raised by the plaintiffs and dealt with at the outset. Given this MD AG report, it should be a simple matter to have such insane Daubert motions excluded by the court before the hearing even gets underway.