I suggest that Steve, along with all others who tend to lean towards his perspective, spend an hour or so looking at some of the YouTube examples of police brutality. There are, to be sure, some examples that are falsely labeled, but there are more than enough which will shock and anger you. There ARE bullies and unstable men wearing police uniforms and pretending it isn’t so helps nothing and no one.

Get the facts. Unedited police station video and dash cams, which are abundant on YouTube, are quite telling. Police brutality is a shame to law enforcement and a crime.

Recognizing our need for police and law enforcement, it would be nice to think that police brutality is an aberration that can be attributed to a few bad cops who need to be fired. Unfortunately, even when the police video evidence proves it unquestionably, it is still denied most of the time by the authorities. That fact unfortunately demonstrates a mindset of “it’s us against them” rather than an aberration and shows a level of criminality, or “we’re above the law” that is the norm for police departments where this behavior is denied.

I grew up with respect for authority and considered a career in law enforcement. Learning that this behavior is accepted so frequently, justified by what is, in essence, a psychotic evaluation that “we’re the good guys,” I realized that my love for justice and equity would not allow success in law enforcement.

To the willingly naive, pretentious and yes, even psychotic, that sounds like disrespect for authority, but is, in fact and in truth, respect for authority but a contempt for those who abuse their authority and pretend that they are “above the law.”

It’s grievous to see how often this is and is why I’m thankful for tasers. Better an abusive cop use a taser than murder someone and lie that he was “forced to do so.” YouTube has one police cam where a police officer murders a man by firing three times into his back with his firearm. The man was wielding a knife but he was moving slowly and could have easily been shot in the leg(s). You might be one who says, “When a man wants to commit suicide_by_cop, then let the cop oblige him,” but that’s not the official police policy in any jurisdiction with which I’m familiar.

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The X12 would give a great advantage for law enforcement in those areas. Although in America $160 per round might sound cheap but in another country it could be too high of a cost.

Very interested in seeing what China version they are going to create to compete with this Hopefully Mossberg didnt paten the bullet design preventing anyone from making a cheaper round!

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I hope you people understand why an unloaded weapon is worse than no weapon at all, when the situation arrises to protect your home. Consider that I have a 4 year old son. That leaves me with policing my home defense weapon from my young child. This, by nature, adds nessecary delay if I need to use it. Now, consider that a curious child that plays with toy guns, gets a hold of your real shotgun, God forbid, and accidentally fires it, wouldn’t you feel a little more at ease if the first round out was not going to kill your child, your wife, yourself, or your neighbor? Geeze you people are kill crazy and blind to the advantages this has in the realm of home defense for those with small children. And I would never recomend any other load out for home defense than one of these following a string of very usefull deadly rounds.

I would gladly pay the $160 to load in my shotgun.

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I’m not blaming cops, I’m sticking up for cops. Several of my friends in Law Enforcement, including my father, all complain about having to be the nannies of civil society. Getting called out because junior won’t eat his vegetables, getting called out because someone locked their keys in the car, getting called out because the neighbor is playing his music too loud, but hasn’t been asked to turn the music down. Petty shit. Stupid shit. Some people deserve to be beaten, but just because the cops are there does not mean that a crime has been committed.

I am also resistant to the idea that cops HAVE to enforce EVERY LAW, especially unconstitutional laws. And when the choose to enforce a specific law, no matter how inane or illogical the law, no amount of force is considered excessive. Use of a Taser is not less force than the use of a baton, believe it. Yeah, it won’t dislocate a shoulder, but it can stop a heart or cause a stroke, or kill you in some other way. People have been killed by being tasered from the standing position and hitting their head when they fell over. Great danger lies in the notion that it’s okay to hurt people if they disagree with the authorities, and an even greater danger lies in the notion that when someone is killed by these things, it’s just an accident. It’s as intentional as emptying a magazine into a perp because he refused to leave an auditorium during a political event.

Remember the Spider Man thing? “With great power, comes great responsibility.” But with great responsibility comes DISCRETION. If they aren’t violent, take their picture, and let them walk. Being tasered is no different than being beaten, its just more politically acceptable, and that needs to change AND QUICK.

I agree the problem is politicians, but allowing Police culture to decay into “It’s not my fault, I don’t have a choice” is no better. Police officers are not automatons. Remember Robocop? The whole premise behind the movie was the creation of robot cops who didn’t complain, didn’t go on strike, and could be programed to ignore abuses by their corporate masters. And it didn’t work, because their best product still had a soul, even after his mind was erased. Real cops are real people, and they have real minds that can and should conflict with orders which are contrary to the good of society, regardless of the laws passed by a rogue political class.

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And tasers are useful for kidnapping people, so that is a plus.

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I am wondering if this is the real issue. That you disapprove of a “COMPLY-COMPLY” style police state. If that is the case then taser use is a non-issue. You should direct your efforts at the disease (the abusive politicians) and not at the symptoms (specific equipment).

You can ban tasers all you want, but unless you remove the underling problem, the result will simply be people getting nightstick beatings as a form of “pain compliance.” Hell people will be beating fro any reason whatsoever. But if you remove the cause (totalitarianism), then you have no reason the remove tasers.

Sound familiar?

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The guy in that case (and others) had locked his arms out in such a way where the cops COULD NOT handcuff him without a high risk of injury to the suspect. A taser shock beats a broken shoulder joint.

Matt, it sounds like your position is the cops should either let people walk or else be beaten profusely. Am I mistaken?

The cops don’t write the laws, but they have to enforce them. And being a nuisance is illegal. Take on the system but do not blame cops for doing their job. Especially when they have limited resources and often, too few cops for any given area.

Also, we are mostly pro-gun here, so we should know more than others that misbehavior should be blamed on the people misusing items and never on the objects themselves.

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Maybe if they built them significantly different than a firearm. Lose the pistol grip for starters.

A cop that fails at gun safety should get fired immediately, without exception. Retraining? Come on, they should know this stuff before they start working.

Mistaking one pistol-shaped object for another seems like a lot more honest mistake to me though.

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The Oakland BART cop saying he confused his sidearm for his taser is BS, and either himself or his department coaching him and trying to cover their asses for what was more likely inadequate training on simple trigger discipline. A Taser and Sig Sauer .40 feel nothing alike in the hand, simply put, it’s all but impossible to make that mistake. A cop who has trouble with trigger control can be retrained. One who can’t tell the difference between a sidearm and a taser needs to be fired and put in a job where he has much less responsibility.

Regardless, the suspect was under control at the time and even tasing at that point would not have been justified.

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If they are not a threat, they do not deserve forced pain compliance. If two police officers walk up, one with handcuffs, and the other with a baton, and they say: “You have two choices…” and he chooses to resist arrest with physical action, that’s a threat. Beat his ass with the stick. Too extreme? Stop arresting people for being nuisances. We live in a digital age. If the person is creating a disturbance, record their actions, and inform them that they will be fined and prosecuted for failure to comply with the rules of civility and restraint.

If after they are cuffed, they use passive resistance and have to be carried away, charge them with resisting arrest. If they have to be forced to comply after they’re handcuffed, trying to bite the officer or something, and have to be subdued with a baton because they wig out, charge them with resisting arrest.

If they’re refusing to walk, or too inebriated to walk, then either way, pain is not the answer to their resistance. Check their blood alcohol, etc., when the paramedics arrive. That way, if they have massive head trauma that occurred before the officers arrived that prevents them from walking, they don’t die in the back of the squad car. Sending 10,000 volts through and intoxicated, injured, or insurgent individual is not a good idea.

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The cops had few options. They either let the guy go, beat him, mace him, break his arms, or tase him.

Please explain how the police could have dealt with that case in a non-violent, non-taser AND effective manner.

If you have (legitimately) taken people into custody and they refuse to walk you cuff their hands and feet together and carry them away. Call for backup or a stretcher if needed. If attacked by bystanders then by all means defend yourself against them. If you are outnumbered leave and return later with backup.

But inflicting pain on people in your custody who aren’t aggressive or threatening is not cool.

Furthermore, a police officer is hardly qualified to determine whether a suspect is intentionally refusing to walk or actually incapacitated.

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While I really would LIKE to agree with you Matt, I can’t.

Remember “Don’t Tase me, Bro!”

The cops had few options. They either let the guy go, beat him, mace him, break his arms, or tase him.

Please explain how the police could have dealt with that case in a non-violent, non-taser AND effective manner.

Remember, if tasers did not exist, we would be discussing nightsticks and mace.

It comes down to either Handcuffs or Hurt. And that is the only way it can be because the dirtbags (and many decent people) would never allow themselves to be handcuffed. I wish I could live in a world where, IF I was arrested, I could tell the cops “No need for the shackles” and then politely walk to the squad car, calmly ride in the back as the cops drive to the station and then quietly wait for the lawyer. (of course, I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but that’s irrelevant.)

The point being people submit to handcuffs (and Arrest) only because of the threat of greater consequences.

It is much like mortgages. If you don’t pay your mortgage the bank forecloses. If they do not foreclose, then nobody else will pay they mortgage. If you resist arrest, you get hurt. If you wouldn’t get hurt, why not resist?

Yes there are abuses, but that does not mean we should take the opposite extreme and place tasers at, or near, the level of firearms. Guns are for threats, tasers are for compliance.

Saying “Please” does not always work .

I do NOT like it. But this is the world we live in.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrlSqDe-_-Q

Why not use net guns ? They are TRULY non lethal (well, unless you try to eat it or something), can even catch two criminals at once, and making one that could be fired in a 40mm “grenade” launcher (like the swiss LL06) would make them usable in riot control situations, along with teargas or rubber batons.

link related : http://world.guns.ru/grenade/gl35-e.htm it’s the LL06, it doesn’t look too big and could be easily slung over the shoulder.

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I predict the gun-like Tasers will eventually be abolished by the police when more people get killed because of mix-ups.

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There are people who deserve to die that need to remain alive until their usefulness is over.

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There are all kinds of stories of cops being attacked by drug crazed loonies, etc, but quite frankly, there are too many of cops tasing people who are not aggressive or violent, and end up being shot with a real gun instead of a taser.

Furthermore, a taser is more than the U.S. Government is allowed to use on terrorists, yet it is perfectly okay to use them on American Citizens.

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Do you believe that if you ingest mind-altering drugs that you are not responsible for your actions? “I only beat my wife when I drink. It’s a disease! I can’t help myself!”

People are responsible for their actions. If they take hallucinogenics and pose a threat to themselves or others and are unable, or unwilling, to take verbal commands after they pose a threat, they should be neutralized.

Clint,

If the perp isn’t a threat, they should not get tasered, ever. If they are a threat, then any action taken to make them comply should be considered reasonable, even if it results in extreme injury or death of the threat. Baton to the head, bullet to the chest, etc. Tasering does NOT seem to enter into the equation as a reasonable means of the execution of justifiable force. If the technology had existed, they would have used Tasers on Ghandi and MLK Jr., which is unacceptable. Peaceful protesters who passively refuse to comply with verbal commands given by law enforcement should NEVER be forced to comply with orders. The very existence of this technology strikes me as an affront to the first amendment.

If two citizens have an altercation, and it’s verbal, neither would be justified in using a Taser to achieve control over the situation. If it became a physical altercation, and the aggressor was shot and killed by the other citizen, then in a free state, that would be considered self-defense. The defending citizen would NOT be required to use an electronic submission device, then a blunt force instrument, then a firearm. The same standard which are applied to the reasonable use of deadly force for a normal citizen (you will note that I’m not calling them “Civilians”) should be applied to a member of law enforcement.

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Your force continuum argument shouldn’t really apply when someone refuses to sign for a speeding ticket or calls a cop a bad name.

The ‘torture thing’ is well documented on an international scale with many dubious foreign governments buying Tasers for just that purpose. In fact, the British Police who use Tasers have trouble getting them repaired in the US because the UK Government rules on the import / export of torture devices.

JKEverett’s post above summed it up succintly.

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