Oh Taser, your house of cards is about to come crumbling down, blown apart by the winds of US litigation and the righteous fury of your mostly innocent victims. Last Friday, a federal jury in San Jose, California found the stun-gun-maker responsible for the death of Robert Heston Jr., a 40-year-old man, and has awarded his family more than $6 million in damages. Sure, Heston had an enlarged heart due to long-term methamphetamine abuse, but it was the Taser shocks that sent him to a better place. Despite a 12 percent drop in stock value after the ruling, the company continues to pump the devices into the marketplace, but at the very least this should make folks pause before they start juicing people full of electricity... those things aren't toys you know.

[Via Wired]

According to a recent report, the French head of stun-gun maker Taser has plans to create a "mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds." Antoine di Zazzo, fervent proselytizer of the electroshock weapon, is cutting through the is / isn't torture noise of recent UN reports with the news that the non-lethal device is about to make a serious splash in France, with president Nicolas Sarkozy promising to hand one to every policeman and gendarme. Of course, once di Zazzo's army of tiny, hovering stun machines take to the air -- sometime next year -- the police probably won't have to worry about brandishing their weapons.

[Thanks, Craig B.]

Not that you needed any kind of study to prove that your shiny new personal stun gun was safe to use, but Dr. William Bozeman and colleagues have just wrapped up an independent study that "suggests the devices are safe, causing a low occurrence of serious injuries." The research was conducted at Wake Forest University, and it showed that out of "nearly 1,000 cases, 99.7-percent of those subjected to a taser had mild injuries, such as scrapes and bruises, or none at all," while the remaining sliver received injuries severe enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Granted, Dr. Bozeman did admit that tasers could "clearly cause injuries and even deaths in some cases," but insinuated that the risk was quite low. Tase on, we guess.

[Via Physorg]

While we're not exactly sure whether to be pleased or concerned that Taser International recently posted record quarterly sales, the firm's C2 consumer stun gun is nevertheless hitting the market. As of this week, civilians who fear for their life or have severely rambunctious children can snap up the C2 at a number of retail locations, and those interested can look forward to wires that fire 15-feet and carry 50,000-volts in order to "temporarily incapacitate a person." Interestingly, Taser must know that there's quite a few proactive ladies that are pondering a purchase as well, as the consumer C2 will reportedly be available in a variety of colors -- including pink. Hurry it up, grab one before your friends do!

[Via Wired]

Sure, it'd be ideal if taser-equipped police bots could clean up our streets without any human interaction whatsoever, but since we're not quite there yet, a Louisiana sheriff is upgrading his staff's lineup of Taser X26 stun guns with integrated camcorders. All 681 of the branch's devices are receiving a diminutive camera installation, which starts rolling the moment an officer switches off the safety and gets ready for action. We've certainly heard the critics who proclaim that taser guns aren't as safe as we're led to believe, and in Jefferson Parish alone a number of individuals have died after getting jolted by one. The move is being made to help protect citizens from unnecessary enforcements and to safeguard the force from illegitimate "police brutality claims," and each camera is designed to record up to 1.5 hours of monochrome footage regardless of the lighting situation. While we hope you never have to encounter one of these tasercams yourself, we imagine that Cops is already offering up big bucks to get ahold of this up close and personal footage, so you've probably got a surefire way to grab your 15 minutes if you're really that desperate.

Nothing get us going in the morning like a good tasering to the torso, but sometimes when we're getting our crime on during the winter months, it takes the cops two or three shots to penetrate our bulky Starter jackets. Well Taser International is fully aware of this problem -- apparently it happens not only with layered clothing but furry animals as well -- and has been furiously conducting government-sponsored R&D so that even the most padded criminal or woolliest feral cat can be dropped with just one round. To accomplish this lofty goal, experts in "non-lethal" weaponry have developed a projectile that, unlike traditional models, contains electrodes on both ends; if the first shock isn't enough to make the target lose control of his/her muscles and bodily functions, he/she will instinctively grab (or in the case of a malicious squirrel, bite) the barbs and try to remove them -- resulting in a second, unprotected shock from the electrode at the other end. Very clever stuff, really; there's nothing like turning people's own instincts against them in order to ensure compliance. We'll report back on the effects after we get stunned with one of these new devices for the first time, although if you're the type who prefers to pull off your capers without getting electrocuted, we suggest that you start wearing some thick ski gloves on your heists as well.