Wired.com Danger Room
Court to Cops: Stop Tasing People into Compliance
Wired.com - "...the latest versions [of tasers, the M26 and X26] rely on muscular paralysis to incapacitate a target. The substantial pain is a side-effect. A Taser which paralyzes without causing (perceived) pain would be an obvious avenue of research. ..." [LINK]
Characterizing the taser-induced pain, estimated to be roughly 2000 times higher than 'intense' pain, as a mere "side-effect" is strange.
And then to introduce the newly-invented concept of "(perceived) pain" is perfectly bizarre.
The language is more than just a bit "1984-ish" (the book, not the year); the twisted language revealing the twisted logic.
The facts are simple.
On the scale of electrocution effects, the taser goes above and beyond pain to reach muscle lock-up. The pain isn't "a side-effect", it's a foundation upon which the incapacitation rests.
And the next effect up the scale is affecting the heart. Which implies disturbed heart rhythm, and easily-explained potential for a slightly-delayed death.
This goes back to the insane claim, repeatedly made by Taser International et al, that the Effective taser current is equal to the Average (as opposed to the RMS or any other measurement technique).
Taser International claims that the taser waveform is special in that it affects the muscles, but not the heart muscle. They base this claim on the short duty cycle. But they didn't notice that the X26 taser has significant low frequency spectral components that are continuous 100% duty cycle.
I think that they failed to 'perceive' the impact of Fourier.
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2 comments:
There was an interesting comment letter to the CMAJ discussion of "Excited Delirium":
"Those who manufacture and use Tasers claim no death has occurred solely due to their use and where no other cause such as drug and alcohol is involved fatal outcome is due solely to "excited delirium". In 1953 as a Research Fellow at the University of B.C. I built a defibrillator for clinical and experimental use with open chest. In anaesthetised dogs it was shown that a minute current applied directly to either atria or ventricles induced fibrillation which could be reversed with application of a larger current. When an infusion of epinephrine was given a much smaller shock would initiate fibrillation which required a very much larger current to reverse and frequently spontaneous refibrillation occurred.Under extreme stress endogenous levels of epinephrine are high and it is possible that a Taser shock could induce fatal ventricular fibrillation. At autopsy there would be no specific findings so that some other, possibly incorrect, cause would be suggested. Further research is necessary and I doubt we have seen the last death resulting from Taser torture."
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/eletters/178/6/669#18948
You might want to contact H. H. MacCartney at .... -"hhmacartney@shaw.ca"-
about his 1953 research on electrical stimulation and corresponding de-fibrillation levels. It clearly appears that small electrical charges can induce fibrillation, which requires far greater electrical impulses to restore regular heart function.
BTW, I figured out the "Hat Tip - h/t" contraction.
I saw that letter quite a while back. I don't recall if I've ever linked to it. Thanks.
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