Tasers are really not on topic here. A taser is compliance tool for law enforcement, and it is nota practical less lethal means fore civilian self defense.
Address that with the person who brought it up then.
Tasers are really not on topic here. A taser is compliance tool for law enforcement, and it is nota practical less lethal means fore civilian self defense.
I guess if you use a Taser to stop someone from shoplifting or vandalizing your home, it's a compliance tool, but it was designed to stop an attack. Police use them often (sometimes effectively, sometimes not) to stop attackers who are using deadly weapons to attack people.Tasers are really not on topic here. A taser is compliance tool for law enforcement, and it is nota practical less lethal means fore civilian self defense.
And to do so, they use them to immobilize persons who have not complied with orders to stop, before taking them into custody.it was designed to stop an attack. Police use them often (sometimes effectively, sometimes not) to stop attackers who are using deadly weapons to attack people.
A civilian acting alone would be poorly served by temporarily immobilizing an attacker before trying to safely keep him under control, which would likely be unlawful if not just highly imprudent."Not practical less lethal means for civilian self defense" is an opinion, but I think it might work for some people in some situations.
I guess if you use a Taser to stop someone from shoplifting or vandalizing your home, it's a compliance tool, but it was designed to stop an attack. Police use them often (sometimes effectively, sometimes not) to stop attackers who are using deadly weapons to attack people.
"Not practical less lethal means for civilian self defense" is an opinion, but I think it might work for some people in some situations.
Well, a captain, especially in a major metropolitan law enforcement agency, is an administrator, and in my experience, most folks who aspire to promote past sergeant don't have much in the way of recent patrol experience on the streets, so I take the opinions of anyone higher than a lieutenant with a grain of salt. Of course, I was an Axon-certified TASER instructor, and of any less-lethal devices in our inventory, I'd prefer a TASER over OC every day of the week (at least on anyone not wearing a puffy jacket, snowmobile suit or dressed for elk season. TASERs work quite well in Southern California, Florida, Arizona, for example... and in prisons.
The "documented failure rate of the TASER" is very misleading. TASERs do fail, regularly, but it's not the device itself, it's a failure of the application. Unless you've been out on the streets fighting, you don't know the effects of adrenaline, fear, extreme physical movements, rapidly evolving situations and fatigue, so getting the darts to deploy correctly (solved with the last couple versions with good laser) and hit the right muscle groups with good spacing is the challenge. Also, before going out on patrol/shift, you need to verify your device is charged -- I cannot tell you how many times I've seen officers fail to do this. Or that the cartridge(s) are probably loaded.
One of my old course books had this blurb: Analyzed 504 use-of-force incidents in large police agency wherein OC spray or TASER energy weapons were used, and found TASER energy weapons were substantially more effective than OC spray, with energy weapons effective 90.2% of the time and OC spray effective only 73.8% of the time.
Never had to use bear spray on an actual bear, but having used OC on multiple (maybe 30 or 40) occasions over the years, I've seen OC be quite effective on human subjects (especially on me).
My point is, there are probably no good ways to quantify the effectiveness of some of these devices because every situation is different and there are so many variables and external, environmental factors that come in to play. However, the new devices have nice, downloadable event logs and video, so the evidence should be building up.
The only thing we ever worried about is how we're gonna write up the use-of-force reports and whether we get to the end of watch and can go home with no one getting seriously injured or killed.
Tasers have a fairly poor track record that's well documented but for human interactions it's not an either/or between gun or taser. Both are very separate tools and not interchangeable. If the taser doesn't work you transition to another non lethal option.
I've lived in bear country most of my life and found spray very effective. Lead works too but I've met very few people who can shoot a big bore handgun fast enough and accurately enough to hit such a small moving target. Not an easy shot to practice for either.
OC, bear spray, TASERs... lots of conjecture by those who've never used these tools in the real world.