TASER – “It’s Better Than Shooting Someone, Isn’t It?” User Rating: / 2 PoorBest  Written by Tiffany Sanders    Tuesday, 18 March 2008 04:40

Controversy abounds about whether TASER use by law enforcement reduces the use of deadly force and whether TASER use is in itself deadly force, but the debate—however well-intentioned—misses a more important issue. Law enforcement officers and other supporters of liberal use of TASERS often point out that it’s “better than having to shoot someone”. It is. Without question, it is. But is that really the decision that law enforcement officers are facing? News reports have been full of TASER stories over the past several months, and many of them have provoked outrage and controversy—bloggers and newspaper reporters across the country have taken issue with the reasonableness of “tasing” (among others) a student who declined to yield the microphone at a political event, an elderly woman, a woman in a wheelchair, and a six-year-old child. In nearly every case, law enforcement officers and others stepped up in forums and editorials to explain why the use of a TASER had been perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. So, the debate rages about whether or not the use of a TASER was right in a particular high-profile case, whether or not TASERS are safe for use at all, whether or not TASERS should be legal and on and on and on. Unfortunately, with emotions running high and victims of apparently extreme tasings taking the spotlight, one basic and absolutely critical fact is being overlooked: these aren’t cases in which police have used TASERS instead of guns. They’re cases in which an officer using his gun would not only have been likely to have been suspended, but might very well have faced murder charges. In other words, in many cases TASERs don’t decrease the level of violence, but introduce violence into a situation in which it would clearly have been unacceptable without them. Consider again these recent high-profile TASER cases, but asking a different question. Rather than thinking about whether or not the officer “should” have used his TASER, think about whether or not he COULD have used his gun. A student at a political speech refuses to yield the microphone and struggles when police intervene physically; he is lying on the ground physically restrained and surrounded by five police officers when the TASER is used. A man caught on video is tasered when he is too slow to produce his driver’s license and insurance and questions the officer’s actions. A young man who had already been tasered once and is lying on the floor of a college library is tased a second time when he fails to get up on command. A woman eight months pregnant is tasered in front of her child after refusing to sign a traffic ticket or get out of her car Police use a TASER to subdue a six-year-old boy who is wielding a piece of glass at school. Were all of those tasered behaving reasonably? Of course not. Should some of their actions carry legal penalties? Probably. But with law enforcement officers and others continually repeating, “It’s better than shooting them, isn’t it?”, it’s important to consider just how often that really is the issue. It seems unlikely that police in the circumstances above would, in the absence of TASERs, felt comfortable and justified in using their guns. It seems certain that if they had, successful lawsuits and possibly criminal prosecutions would have followed. Reasonable people may be able to argue about the relative dangers and merits of TASERS. Even the Australian Medical Association has stated that they can save lives. But if they’re going to save lives, it will be because they truly are used in place of deadly force rather than any time an officer feels he isn’t shown the proper respect.