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[Hammerskjold]

I believe I qualified my comment noting that there are some incidents where due to circumstances death may result (heart, freak accident, etc). But, when using a gun to subdue a suspect, the suspect rarely survives. That was my point. The tazer provides an alternative to lethal force.

That is imo, the proper way to use a less lethal weapon system. And that's certainly the way it's marketed. Unfortunately, looking at some of the real life incidents, that isn't how it's being used.

It seems in some cases, it's less a substitute for a gun, more a substitute for talking or verbal de-escalation. Why waste time yapping when you can be zapping?

Does that mean cops should never ever use a taser, of course not. There are definitely incidents where a taser use was fully justified.

The potential problems I see though, is an over-reliance on tasers and substituting it for verbal\communication techniques, and public focus on the taser as the problem. To me it's not the tool, it's the person (and the policy) and the context of it's use that merits the attention.