Article

2005-07-30 Britain

UK Taser Use "Could Have Set Off A Boomer"

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Posted by Captain America 2005-07-30 02:50|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Against non-bombers I can see the concern, but I don't see why the worry of setting off explosives by accident isn't a concern. (No, the would-be bomber's life does not concern me, except that you can't necessarily get intel out of a corpse.)

Posted by Edward Yee 2005-07-30 03:09|| http://edwardyee.fanworks.net]">[http://edwardyee.fanworks.net] 2005-07-30 03:09|| Front Page Top

#2 Tasers have never been held to be the sole cause of death, ever as far as I can determine, and in the amazingly few instances where they have received some share of the blame (110 total vs ~400 shooting deaths in Wash D.C. each year?) they have defended themselves and prevailed - every time. The MSM has had a woodie for "getting TASER" for awhile, now - and gets soundly bitch-slapped regularly for its bias and moronic inaccuracies. The Press Releases page at TASER demonstrates it rather clearly. USA Today is the latest moron outlet to step on its collect dick. A look will show just how inane the press can be - this one's a hoot, heh. The Medical and Stats info is here - they've been studied to death, pun intended. Hell, most people don't even realize TASER has made three different types of energy weapons: stun weapons (7-14W), EMD weapons (18-26W) and Shaped Pulseâ¢ (18-26W) weapons.

As for a TASER setting off explosives, you can find in that last link the actual electrical current delivered - 0.0021 to 0.0036 amperes. I leave it to any bona-fide munitions specialists, but I believe you would actually have to hit and penetrate an electrical blasting cap for there even to be a possibility of explosion.

Oooo, TASER's evil! Let's "get" em! Pfeh on all the fools.

Posted by .com 2005-07-30 03:47|| 2005-07-30 03:47|| Front Page Top

#3 So they showed 0.0036 amps as 3,600 amps? What's a couple of zeros? They got 'em in the article, just misplaced their location. Simple proofreading error! They do use proofreaders, don't they?

Posted by Bobby 2005-07-30 07:07|| 2005-07-30 07:07|| Front Page Top

#4 The Filth Column has been actively campaigning against Tasers for years. Here in Cincinnati, we had a riot because the activist community constantly lied about police actions; to take away one of their talking points, the police started using tasers.

Then, a massively overweight man with a heart condition and high quantities of crack in his system had a heart attack after he was hit with a Taser. The activist community has used that to go after Tasers.

They've also sued the police because a beanbag gun bruised someone.

Personally, I think we should issue the police automatic shotguns and put 50-cals on their cars. Screw this "less lethal" crap and dial the lethality up to 11. I bet we'd see a lot less crime in a week or so.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-07-30 08:07|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-07-30 08:07|| Front Page Top

#5 Taser, schmaser. The only antidote for a boomer is a single (or five-a-pop) .44 to the head while your partner has him pinned to the floor. If he turns out to be a stupid, chilled Brazilian electrician you can show it wasn't 'racial profiling' unlike the hippy-dippy journalist Whitby who called him "asian".

Posted by Harry Callahan 2005-07-30 09:35|| 2005-07-30 09:35|| Front Page Top

#6 .com-
FWIW, we always maintained the utmost in electrical safety when working with electrical caps during disposal ops. I vividly remember a demonstration during tech school of an electrical cap being set off by static electricity - but in all those cases, there were exposed leads involved. Now, given the level of Jihadi expertise we've seen so far, I would be pretty much expecting exposed leads. On the other hand, given how the Taser works, short of direct contact between the darts and the exposed leads I don't think it would be a risk.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2005-07-30 09:56|| 2005-07-30 09:56|| Front Page Top

#7 So the choices are:
1) Tase the suspect and take some risk of detonating a bomb (if he has one), and some risk of killing him (bad if he's innocent, bad if he's guilty & could have given information.)
2) Shoot the suspect in the head with certainty of killing him (with the associated bad consequences) and STILL some chance of detonating a bomb (dead man trigger, reflex action).
3) Talk to the suspect with a minimal risk of killing him, but a much higher risk of his detonating a possible bomb.
Evaluate the situation in 5 milliseconds, and come up with the correct answer.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2005-07-30 10:22|| 2005-07-30 10:22|| Front Page Top

#8 don't know what all the fuss is about. I've been near set off by many a teaser, sometimes one of them big hair gals make me feel like my spine is directly wired to a 240V outlet.

Posted by half 2005-07-30 10:25|| 2005-07-30 10:25|| Front Page Top

#9 half, you are a positive delight! :-)

Posted by trailing wife 2005-07-30 10:30|| 2005-07-30 10:30|| Front Page Top

#10 Glenmore---The presentation of your logical alternatives is absolutely Spockian. It should be part of an MSM article describing what a law enforcement officer is up against with a bombing suspect.
[/wishful thinking]

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2005-07-30 11:58|| 2005-07-30 11:58|| Front Page Top

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