"Tasers save lives" - So how many?

In Canada, police have historically shot-dead relatively few people each year. Some reports indicates it's about 12 people killed per year. Others reports indicates it might even be about 20 people killed per year. Perhaps it's a bit higher these days.

Other news reports have mentioned that they're not even tracking this data. I've not yet found a database or list (if you have a link, please send it in).

But it's clear that the police in Canada have never been encumbered with a reputation for being trigger-happy with guns.


So when police officials claim that tasers save lives, then we need to ask a series of perfectly logical questions:

1) How many per year are you claiming?
2) What are your criteria for claiming a 'save'?
3) How many supposed "gun-replacement" 'saves' are you claiming?
4) Does this number exceed the historical rate of lethal police gun-play in Canada?
5) Has the rate of lethal police gun-play gone down correspondingly?
6) What about the taser-associated deaths - do they count against?
7) What about the cases where the taser "contributed to death"?

I can't see any combination of the raw data available to me that would support the claim that "tasers save lives" in Canada, let alone in Chief Kaye's little city of Owen Sound.


At best, depending on the particular shade of rose-coloured lenses in their glasses and the thickness of the smoke curling off the stuff that they must be smoking, they'd be just barely breaking into the plural.

Even then you'd be left with the totally-unresolved Karma issue [LINK].


'Tasers save lives'? Puh! Show me the numbers.

See also [LINK]