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Originally Posted by samcol
Remember the last "non-lethal" weapon? The taser has killed over 80 people in the past few years, and it wasn't even that common on officers. Now, it's everyday in the paper that I hear a new police station is being armed with them.
There is not a single positive outcome that I can imagine the use of this will bring.
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In the first place, until i see it on the wires I don't believe it.
In the second place, that 80 deaths statistic is BS. USA Today pulled that from an Arizona Republic article, only the Republic's article said 3 people were killed BY the taser, and were not ruled out three other times. The rest of the deaths occurred after the person was hit with th etaser, but were ruled to have other causes - drug overdoses, medical conditions, etc.
So now we have 3 deaths and 3 more possible deaths which for the sake of my argument I will put in the "killed by taser" column, to add up to 6.
That's 6 deaths after the 100,000 or so times per year that they're used by cops.
6/100,000.
That's not a very high kill ratio.
And what would you have them use as an alternative? Guns? They have a much higher kill ratio than 6 in every 100,000.
This mindless assault on tasers is insane. It's an attempt to give the cops a weapon to use that doesn't involve killing people. Why would you fight against that?