OTTAWA - Gaps in the research on how Taser stun guns affect people will be one focus of a federal program aimed at better understanding the powerful weapons used for years by Canadian police. Other studies will look at test procedures to ensure Tasers operate properly and ways to evaluate new weapons police might adopt, records obtained under the Access to Information Act show. The $1.8-million Taser research program is overseen by the federal Centre for Security Science, a joint initiative of the Public Safety Department and Defence Research and Development Canada. The effort is slated to run through 2012-13. ... [LINK]
Here, I'll save you $1.8M...
In dart-deployment mode, tasers are ineffective about 10% to 30% (reports vary) of the time. Such ineffective deployments often make a bad situation much worse.
In touch-torture (drive-stun, dry-stun) mode, tasers are too-frequently used to apply electroshock torture as part of civil and human rights violation. Officers are typically confused by the subtle distinction between lawful force-the-noun and force-the-verb (often torture).
Tasers are usually non-lethal, but every now and then someone is tasered and immediately begins to die. This is most often related to taser darts on chest, but other taser-death mechanisms exist. When darts hit chest, the risk becomes measurable (low end of single digits). Even Taser International has slowly shifted to the position (May 2010) that avoiding the chest reduces the risk of cardiac effects, something they had previously denied. Given that the X26 taser can kill, and given that it is essentially random, using the word "safe" is a lie.
Taser International will continue to deny these truths, while burying legal disclaimers deep within their published information. The bald-faced contradictions within their own positions make them a sitting duck for any lawyer that bothers to prepare.
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