TASER® clients, poker and Playboy parties

Via Vive le Canada, this comes from the legal firm of A. Cameron Ward & Company in Vancouver, British Columbia.

According to a study reported in the peer-reviewed journal NAFE entitled "Forensic Engineering Analysis of Electro-Shock Weapon Safety" (December 2005, p. 19), "we can conclude the Taser M18 M26 can be lethal when used in the drive-stun mode of operation and can kill when contrasted to the reference criteria contained in commercial consensus standards and in other scholarly publications".

So, despite claims by TASER International, there are studies out there, which they can access, that declare TASER® weapons lethal.

There is no way of knowing whether individual Taser weapons meet the manufacturer's specifications. As there are no Canadian safety testing standards of any kind for the devices, it is entirely possible that some weapons discharge much more electrical energy than they are supposed to, and that police officers are unwittingly killing people as a result.

Think about that for a moment. The operator has no way of knowing whether the weapon meets the manufacturer's specifications. In fact, because there are absolutely no independent safety tests on the weapon, there is no way of guaranteeing the safety of the operator.

But there's something more here.

Hypothetical Courtroom:

Counsel: Precisely how many volts did your electroshock disabling weapon discharge upon making contact with the suspect?

Witness: 50,000 volts at 18 amps in 10 microsecond pulses at 10 hertz.

Counsel: Very good. How do you know that?

Witness: It is provided during training and comes from the manufacturer's specifications.

Counsel: And those specifications are independently verified by whom?

Witness: Excuse me?

Counsel: What organizational body conducts independent tests on randomly selected electroshock weapons to verify that they meet the specifications stated by the manufacturer?

Witness: I don't know.

Counsel: So how do you know you're not discharging a lethal shock?

Witness: The manufacturer says so.

Counsel: This manufacturer?


Just day dreaming. (Click image to enlarge)