Pros & Cons of Police Taser Guns
Taser guns are used in law enforcement and correctional facilities worldwide as an alternative to guns or batons to control aggressive subjects.
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Benefits
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Taser guns are designed to inflict no lasting damage on people. Batons can break bones and cause bruising and guns can easily kill. Tasers incapacitate a person, allowing law enforcement to subdue them.
Training Limitations
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To use a Taser safely and appropriately, personnel must be trained. Human error and bad judgment occurs occasionally, such as in the case of the homeless man who was tased and caught fire because he had been sniffing solvents at the time. However, bad judgment also applies to people using guns and batons in a unsafe manner.
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Scientific Evidence
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Studies on the use of Tasers by law enforcement have shown conflicting results. For example, a study by Dr. Byron K Lee published in the "American Journal of Cardiology" in 2009 showed a 6.4-fold increase in sudden deaths in people in custody after Tasering. The same study found no lowering of injury risk to law enforcement personnel using Tasers instead of other methods.
On the other hand, an earlier study in 2006 by Wakefield Forest University School of Medicine of almost 1,000 Taser cases in the U.S. showed that 99.7 percent of cases resulted in only mild or no injuries at all. The 0.3 percent of serious injuries were mostly attributed to people falling over and hitting their head.
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References
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