Tasers can be USED to torture by torturers. But so can water, and sand, and bamboo, and car batteries, and wire cutters, and syringes. Calling all taser-owners torturers is as ignorant and idiotic as calling all gun-owners murderers, though I guess I shouldn't expect much more from the UN.
Gee, this is a no-brainer here... get shot by a real gun and need some type of surgery or get tazed and wake up in the back of the cruiser. Too bad gang-bangers don't use these devices instead of guns, that way there'd be less kids lying dead in the streets regardless of what country you live in.
Police need some type of weapon to fight crime with, a taser isn't any more of a torture device than a screwdriver. It's simply a humane method of bringing down someone who deserves it without actually wounding them with a bullet or nightstick. Maybe they need to take out the people complaining about Tasers and give them the option of bullet or taser? That would solve the discussion then and there.
"Tasers can be USED to torture by torturers. But so can water, and sand, and bamboo, and car batteries, and wire cutters, and syringes."
The problem with your analogy is that a Taser is designed for inflicting pain. It has no other uses. I don't disagree with your view point, I just think you analogy is flawed.
@wjousts: actually, tasers are not DESIGNED to inflict pain. they are designed to immobilize someone by taking away their motor skills via an electric shock. the pain is just a by-product.
"The problem with your analogy is that a Taser is designed for inflicting pain. It has no other uses. I don't disagree with your view point, I just think you analogy is flawed."
Are you serious? Do you honestly believe that the Taser is a weapon meant to harm people? The Taser is a device that is designed to disrupt muscle control in order to subdue a target. If you wanted to inflict pain, wouldn't you use something cheaper and more... painful, like a baton?
if we all had professional and honorable police officers there wouldn't be a problem, when you've got trigger happy thugs using them things get serious.
@shmengie: Okay, maybe designed isn't the right way to put it, but they inflict a lot of pain as part of their normal operation, which the others do not.
@Colorado: "Do you honestly believe that the Taser is a weapon meant to harm people?"
Did I say that? No I didn't. Inflicting pain and harming somebody are not the same thing. And for the record, most forms of torture are focused on causing pain, not necessarily harm. Because if you cause no lasting damage it's harder for the tortured to prove that it ever happened.
I think that wjousts is exactly right (i.e.: the analogy he commented on is somewhat flawed -- though I also agree with the intent of the original comment).
Anyway, @boing: you bring up what is essentially my view on the issue. They're great as another (usually) non-lethal tool to use for law enforcement, but I think that their overuse by cops who now have a cool toy to "take fools down" is becoming a problem.
Like the old Polish guy. I wasn't there, but it seems to me that there's no way that multiple relatively healthy, relatively young cops could have had so much of a problem subduing him that they absolutely needed to taser him.
I feel that the tensions are heightened because it's a relatively new thing for tasers' use to be so widespread. After a few years, it'll probably get better. Law enforcement agencies will get more used to them and implement stricter policies on when they can be used; the public will get used to them and won't get all sensationalist when seeing them used on people that actually need to be subdued in that fashion.
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Tasers arn't torture?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7116917.stm
"Tasers arn't torture?"
No. They aren't.
Tasers can be USED to torture by torturers. But so can water, and sand, and bamboo, and car batteries, and wire cutters, and syringes. Calling all taser-owners torturers is as ignorant and idiotic as calling all gun-owners murderers, though I guess I shouldn't expect much more from the UN.
Gee, this is a no-brainer here... get shot by a real gun and need some type of surgery or get tazed and wake up in the back of the cruiser. Too bad gang-bangers don't use these devices instead of guns, that way there'd be less kids lying dead in the streets regardless of what country you live in.
Police need some type of weapon to fight crime with, a taser isn't any more of a torture device than a screwdriver. It's simply a humane method of bringing down someone who deserves it without actually wounding them with a bullet or nightstick. Maybe they need to take out the people complaining about Tasers and give them the option of bullet or taser? That would solve the discussion then and there.
Tasers surely beat the alternative; a bullet in the head.
Taser > .45 Cal
@Josh L
"Tasers can be USED to torture by torturers. But so can water, and sand, and bamboo, and car batteries, and wire cutters, and syringes."
The problem with your analogy is that a Taser is designed for inflicting pain. It has no other uses. I don't disagree with your view point, I just think you analogy is flawed.
@wjousts: actually, tasers are not DESIGNED to inflict pain. they are designed to immobilize someone by taking away their motor skills via an electric shock. the pain is just a by-product.
@wjousts
"The problem with your analogy is that a Taser is designed for inflicting pain. It has no other uses. I don't disagree with your view point, I just think you analogy is flawed."
Are you serious? Do you honestly believe that the Taser is a weapon meant to harm people? The Taser is a device that is designed to disrupt muscle control in order to subdue a target. If you wanted to inflict pain, wouldn't you use something cheaper and more... painful, like a baton?
if we all had professional and honorable police officers there wouldn't be a problem, when you've got trigger happy thugs using them things get serious.
@shmengie: Okay, maybe designed isn't the right way to put it, but they inflict a lot of pain as part of their normal operation, which the others do not.
@Colorado: "Do you honestly believe that the Taser is a weapon meant to harm people?"
Did I say that? No I didn't. Inflicting pain and harming somebody are not the same thing. And for the record, most forms of torture are focused on causing pain, not necessarily harm. Because if you cause no lasting damage it's harder for the tortured to prove that it ever happened.
I think that wjousts is exactly right (i.e.: the analogy he commented on is somewhat flawed -- though I also agree with the intent of the original comment).
Anyway, @boing: you bring up what is essentially my view on the issue. They're great as another (usually) non-lethal tool to use for law enforcement, but I think that their overuse by cops who now have a cool toy to "take fools down" is becoming a problem.
Like the old Polish guy. I wasn't there, but it seems to me that there's no way that multiple relatively healthy, relatively young cops could have had so much of a problem subduing him that they absolutely needed to taser him.
I feel that the tensions are heightened because it's a relatively new thing for tasers' use to be so widespread. After a few years, it'll probably get better. Law enforcement agencies will get more used to them and implement stricter policies on when they can be used; the public will get used to them and won't get all sensationalist when seeing them used on people that actually need to be subdued in that fashion.