St Louis Post Dispatch Advocates Taser Over Handgun

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Jeff White

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I wonder how much Taser International paid for this ad?
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...5DAE78F98C2C0149862573B80000051B?OpenDocument
Christmas shocking

12/21/2007

It has the same stopping power as a .357 Magnum, costs less than half as much, comes in four designer colors (including "electric blue') and has the added benefit of not actually killing or permanently injuring your target. Probably.

Yes, power shoppers, it's the Taser C2 Personal Protector, an electric shaver-sized version of the (probably) non-lethal electric-shock weapon carried by police officers and security guards, not to mention the famous "Don't Tase me, bro!" campus cops at the University of Florida. For $299 ($50 more for the optional laser sights), someone on your holiday shopping list can stun and disable would-be attackers with up to 30 seconds of (probably) non-lethal 50,000 volts of electricity.

Why fool with messy pepper sprays or Mace? Why mess with a holster or fumble around in your waistband or purse for a heavy handgun? A Taser will do the job neatly and give you plenty of time to, um, escape. Sure, Amnesty International reports that since 2001, 290 people have died after being hit with Tasers, but that's a lot fewer than have died from bullet wounds. And Taser International Co. of Scottsdale, Ariz., boasts that it hasn't lost a wrongful-death lawsuit. Yet.

You have to pass a criminal background check before the company will activate your weapon, and when it's fired, it also sprays tiny pieces of plastic confetti engraved with a serial number so the weapon can be tracked to you. You can't recharge it yourself, but if you file a police report and prove you used it legally, the company will replace it free of charge.

Which leaves us only with this thought: What possibly could go wrong?
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Sadly,there are those that think this is a good thing.

A second or third goblin will sure think it's a good thing.Sadly
 
Is someone missing the whole concept of, well, "training"? You can't buy ammo for it? Police reports to reload it? That's not just stupid, it's dangerously stupid. How is someone supposed to be able to hit the right person in a high stress encounter when they've never fired the thing before?

I'd argue that selling such a dangerous (quite a few people have died from being tased) and survival-critical (if it's really a self defense weapon) product with no provisions for continous live-fire training, even though training is widely understood to be necessary with any self defense weapon, is... well, the Taser folks better hope someone doesn't screw up and then sue them saying the design prevented them from practicing sufficiently.
 
Tasers are great - when paired with a handgun. :D

Some situations call for force, even fewer call for lethal force. Know the difference and be prepared for both.
 
I just think it's funny that their editorial board, which is very antigun has apparently found the ideal self defense weapon. It is a step forward, a few years ago they would not have advocated any self weapon lethal or not.

Jeff
 
It has the same stopping power as a .357 Magnum
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Does this mean we'll have drive-by tasings soon? :uhoh:

Can't we just curl up in the fetal position and give bad guys whatever they ask for like the usual recommendation? :p
 
- limited range
- cannot penetrate heavy clothing
- single-shot
- cannot manage multiple perps
- does not free user from civil / criminal liability
- battery operated

FALSELY claims does not need a holster.
FALSELY claims half as expensive as a .357 - many tazers are very expensive.
FALSELY claims has same stopping power as a .357 - said round stops people either through blood loss or structural collapse - bullets do not "knock people down" though they might go down. Tazer stops people by completely different means.

+1 to Jeff White's comments, I'd rather people go with Tazer than to go "lay down, wet yourself, celebrate victimhood".
 
The tiny pieces of plastic confetti would be a nice touch if you had to taze someone at a New Years Eve party. :)
 
Tasers are fine for police officers - "first escalation of force" and all that.

Not so fine for Joe Citizen for all the reasons mentioned above. Plus a few more, I suppose.
 
If they start giving away a squad car full of backup with the Tazer, I might consider it effective. But I don't have a boy in blue to cover for me.
 
Some situations call for force, even fewer call for lethal force.
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I was thinking that a situation that doesn't require lethal force can be walked away from.... requiring no force at all.

Where the heck are they buying guns?
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I was thinking that too - I got my stainless gp100 for $300 (well, it was $67 if you count the trade-in). And I'm looking forward to shooting it until I give it to my 1-year-old daughter's kids, without police reports between shots.

Some people just can't handle freedom, I guess.
 
Which leaves us only with this thought: What possibly could go wrong?
Click to expand...
It sounds like they need some officers writing in to tell them why their belts have more than tasers on them. :D
 
Umm... I see this article as written tongue-in-cheek, a la The Onion. Am I missing something?
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Me too. They seem to be as anti Tasers as they are anti guns. "What could possibly go wrong" tends to be a question asked by people expecting something to go wrong.

And the whole "haven't been sucessfully sued...yet" thing?

Definitely dripping in sarcasm. The author of this article is a proponent of the "lay down, wet yourself, celebrate victimhood" school of thought.
 
I think I would consider one of these seriously once: 1) Taser packages it with a firearm of my choice and a 24/7 expert shooter as backup; or 2) Taser unveils the equivalent of Captain Kirk's Phaser set to "stun."

It's hard for me to envision having a one-shot weapon that can only be fired effectively once a BG gets really close to you. It's easy for me to me to envision being like the Bee who shot his stinger and subsequently gets devoured by the Wasp or whatever.

Of course, I might re-consider my position if they made it in my favorite color.

Seriously, what bothers me about advocates of the Taser who are otherwise anti-gun is this: They acknowledge the need for a self-defense tool, but their perceptions only allow them to advocate a limited subset that seems better suited for team-based law enforcement.
 
p.s. what ever became of the 'don't taze me bro!' incident?

IIRC it was senator Kerry speaking at a college campus, when an audience member tried to ask Kerry a series of questions, and was arrested for not stopping talking, and then as he was demanding to know why he was being arrested, they cuffed him and thew him down, then used the tazer, not to help them gain control of him, but to get him to do what they wanted.

even thinking about it now makes me pissed.
 
Personally I love my X26 that I carry on duty. That being said, there is no way in hell I would carry it off-duty as a self defense weapon. It does what it is intended to do, gain control of people that I would otherwise have to go hands-on with. It does not replace a gun and should not be advertised to do so.
 
I was thinking that a situation that doesn't require lethal force can be walked away from.... requiring no force at all.
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Ideally, yes. But when talking someone out of blackening your eye doesn't work and punches are thrown in your direction.... Force to stop an attack is justified. Lethal force would likely get you incarcerated if your assailant was not armed. Here's where a taser would come in handy. Or pepper spray. Something to give you time to walk away.
 
I live just outside of St Louis. Not only did the Post carry this, but there was a lot of buzz on one of the local talk radio stations too. I didn't pay much attention to what they were talking about though.... well simply because it was about tazers. :rolleyes:
 
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