Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda

Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...

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The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.



Friday, July 10, 2009

Taser's biggest technical mistake

I've mentioned this issue many times before on this blog.

The short version is that Taser International changed the characteristics of 'the taser' waveform in 2003 with the introduction of the X26 taser. They added a DC pulse after the arc phase. This pulse is low frequency at the pulse rate of 19 Hz and associated harmonics.

So all the old claims about the safety of tasers BECAUSE the waveform is "high frequency" are rendered obsolete.

It seems very clear that the so-called experts at Taser International failed to notice the logical results of the change that was made to the waveform. Even recently, Kroll referred to "short pulses" and he apparently still fails to acknowledge that the X26 emits a significant percentage of its energy at very low frequencies.

I do not think that the sharp upturn in the rate of taser-associated deaths is an unrelated coincidence.

Please browse and search the blog for previous references, charts, graphics, etc. There are too many previous posts to provide links.

This error, and I believe it is demonstrably an error, can be called "Taser's Billion Dollar Bungle".

It's because their market capitalization would perhaps have been about five times higher if they had not become embroiled in the controversies regarding the actual, real world, safety of their product.

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