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Since June 2001, more than 351 individuals in the United States have died after being shocked by police Tasers. Most of those individuals were not carrying a weapon. Amnesty International is concerned that Tasers are being used as tools of routine force -- rather than as an alternative to firearms.

Medical studies so far on the effects of Tasers have either been limited in scope or unduly influenced by the weapons' primary manufacturer. No study has adequately examined the impact of Tasers on potentially at-risk individuals -- people who have medical conditions, take prescription medications, are mentally ill or are under the influence of narcotics. Rigorous, independent, impartial study of their use and effects is urgently needed to determine what role Tasers may have played in the 351 deaths and to determine appropriate guidelines for future Taser use.

Given the unresolved safety concerns, Amnesty International recommends that police departments either suspend the use of Tasers and stun guns pending further safety research or limit their use to situations where officers would otherwise be justified in resorting to firearms.

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ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

BART tho runs all over the Bay Area. I mean Oakland where the incident happened. This is an area some would avoid? Or no?

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That doesn't make tazers perfect, or even safe for all people. But better the tazer than bullets.

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ORIGINAL: AquaticSub

~Fast Reply~

My basic view is that a cop is in the sad position of having to make split-second decisions that will affect the lives of everyone around them, including their own.

They are human. They will make mistakes. I'd rather them make it by using a tazer than a gun. That doesn't make tazers perfect, or even safe for all people. But better the tazer than bullets.

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This. People die from being tazed, no question but they're a lot less likely to die from a tazer than they are from being shot through the head.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

So we know that there was that cop that couldn't tell his gun from a tazer. I think this opens the discussion of the use of them, and whether or not we should be allowing these weapons to take the place of other law enforcement methods....

Now, I know a lot of people who post here have no use for Amnesty International, nonetheless, they are a reputable site for giving correct information, although their conclusions based upon the statistics is debatable, their information is reliable itself...

Here are some facts from their site...

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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This. People die from being tazed, no question but they're a lot less likely to die from a tazer than they are from being shot through the head.

So if you take the tazer from the cop, are they going to shoot unarmed people?

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1) is this excessive?

and if it is

2) is it better to be tasered than, say, beaten into unconsciousness with a baton?

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ncreased-risk targets
Critics argue that TASERs as well as other high-voltage stun devices can cause cardiac arrhythmia in susceptible subjects, possibly leading to heart attack or death in minutes by ventricular fibrillation, which leads to cardiac arrest and—if not treated immediately—to sudden death. People susceptible to this outcome are sometimes healthy and unaware of their susceptibility.[citation needed]
Although the medical conditions or use of illegal drugs among some of the casualties may have been the proximate cause of death, the electric blast of the TASER can significantly heighten such risk for subjects in an at-risk category.[1] This suggests that TASERs and other electroshock weapons would be dangerous to use on people with certain medical conditions and yet, since police officers will typically not know about a person's medical history or possible drug use, this entails a risk of death with virtually any suspect.

While their intended purpose is to circumvent the use of lethal force such as guns, the actual deployment of Tasers by police in the years since Tasers came into widespread use is claimed to have resulted in more than 180 deaths as of 2006.[23] It is still unclear whether the Taser was directly responsible for the cause of death, but several legislators in the U.S. have filed bills clamping down on them and requesting more studies on their effects.[24] Despite the growing controversy, a study funded by the U.S. Justice Department asserted that the majority of people tasered from July 2005 to June 2007 suffered no injury. A study led by William Bozeman, of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, of nearly 1,000 persons subjected to Taser use, concluded that 99.7% of the subjects had either minor injuries, such as scrapes and bruises, or none at all; while three persons suffered injuries severe enough to need hospital admission, and two other subjects died. Their autopsy reports indicated neither death was related to the use of a Taser.[25] [26]
The head of the U.S. southern regional office of Amnesty International, Jared Feuer, reported that 277 people in the United States have died after being shocked by a Taser between June 2001 and October 2007, which has already been documented. He also noted that about 80% of those on whom a Taser was used by U.S. police were unarmed. "Tasers interfere with a basic equation, which is that force must always be proportional to the threat," Feuer said. "They are being used in a situation where a firearm or even a baton would never be justified."[27] A spokesperson for Taser International asserted that if a person dies from a "tasering" it is instantaneous and not days later.[28] Taser International announced that it is "transmitting over 60 legal demand letters requiring correction of... false and misleading headlines."[29]

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

I just came across what my twisted sense of humor finds to be an excellent use of a taser, and thought I'd throw it into the mix.

Father denies Tasering man who sent explicit cellphone photo to teen daughter

I hope he gets off on the same sort of loophole the pervert wiggled through.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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That doesn't make tazers perfect, or even safe for all people. But better the tazer than bullets.

The problem, according to amnesty international, and the numbers they report, is that they don't use the tazer instead of bullets..... they use the tazer when they could use other methods of subduing someone.... I am just using this incident as an example of a mistake that caused another fatality

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
There is much more to argue against tazering.... I am disturbed that 80% of those tazered were unarmed....