After talking it over with the company, it's clear they've put a lot of effort into making the X3 as safe as possible in the hands of officers or our ever-muggable-grandmas (civilians can purchase the X3, but are limited to a 15 foot range). Here were a few takeaways:
- As stated in the video, a large majority of suspects give up once they see the TASER, see the red dots on them, or the device is "arced," and the X3 has been designed to give the officer a maximum amount of intimidation without needing to deploy a tase.
- There's a sort of "guaranteed" delivery of 63 microcoulombs of energy to the subject, no matter if the target is shot three times, shot once, or if it takes multiple shots to complete a "circuit" with two concurrent darts. This will hopefully rectify earlier problems with faulty devices giving off too much electricity, and allay fears that three darts equals three times the tase. The shooter knows they're delivering the optimum charge to the target, for the optimum amount of time (there's a counter on the gun), and the target can't be given more than that optimum charge at any one time.
- Systems track when the gun is turned on, when the officer "arcs" the gun to intimidate a suspect, when the gun is fired, and serial-numbered confetti ejects with the dart to trace a specific incidence to a specific officer.
- The dart tips have been reworked so that the charge is most likely to be applied to the skin, greatly reducing the risk of the electricity passing through the heart.
- The laser sights are very accurate, self-adjusting based on which cartridge is selected (there are different cartridge distances available).
