Tuesday, October 02, 2007

TASER TALK



This is a TASER. The TASER seems to be showing up all over the place. Security guards, campus cops, real cops. As far as my research goes, it has yet to appear in the BDSM community, although other electric shock devices like cattle prods are becoming quite the rage, but all levels of quasi-law enforcement, including the security at political events, seem to think they are the equivalent of 21st electric billyclubs and are using them with gleeful abandon on anyone who does or says anything they don’t like. And the New Scientist is concerned.

4 comments:

A Strange Lad said...
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A Strange Lad said...

This is scary in it's implications... our society thinks that unless there's blood it's just not bad... that's even "cute" (shiver!) and when there is blood... it's manly or some shite. I mean they offer the damn thing in your choice of colors, including pink for God's sake. The embedded construct that it's cool to essentially electrocute people for whatever reason is indicative of something very wrong underlying our societal values. Designer weapons, indeed. Just the thing to match your ever so cute lil New Beetle convertible (an 'orrible piece o' crap, actually, but that's another thing, although possibly related). Jeezus. And yes, I've seen vids of cops using these things very inappropriately and multiple times, even on freakin' kids. It's repulsive. Tasers used like that can easily kill or cause serious damage, as confirmed in the article. 300 deaths it cited in that article. They said that that was a good number. I say it's an excessive number by oh, say, 300. I bet 298 of 'em didn't even do anything to deserve attention. How can we fix this? How?

Anonymous said...

Puhleeeeze...enough of every whiney candyass in America going on and on ad naseum about "the man" using the fucking Taser.

Back in the day, I was at a peaceful assembly that the police decided had gotten just a wee bit too rowdy. I was also one of the unlucky few who caught a big, steel police flashlight across my melon. I ended up in the emergency room with a concussion and 14 stitches across my head...then I got to spend three days in jail. Christ, do I ever wish the Taser had been around back then.

The kid who made headlines by getting Taz'd at the John Kerry Q&A recently would have REALLY had something to holler about if the Taser hadn't been adopted by law enforcement, something like "Owwww! Owwwwww! Don't bash my skull in, bro!"

Mick said...

Well, I've been clubbed, and I've been clipped by birdshot, and teargassed, but I ain't been Tazed, and am unwilling to go in for any comparison testing to prove relative macho and that I'm not a candyass.
But if a cop comes at me with a TASER, I will yell like a falsetto motherfucker, because it can be done to you without too many people noticing. Swinging a nightstick is, like, highly noticable.