'Another Taser-less Death'
Last weekend, a 56-hour standoff with a homicide suspect ended without fatality or serious injury when police subdued the suspect with a stun gun. Hovering on a construction crane, the man reached for some water when police struck with a Taser (Nasdaq: TASR).
Taser may not immediately come to mind when you think of making the world a better place. The company has been attacked by the media, Amnesty International, and others who claim that stun guns can be unduly lethal. What these groups fail to recognize is that stunning an individual has a far less chance of ending fatally than shooting him with a bullet.
Data from police forces currently using Tasers confirms this fact. In 2003, The Arizona Republic reported that officer shootings in the Phoenix area dropped nearly 50% in the six months that Tasers were on the job. At the end of 2004, the Cape Coral, Fla., police department reported 83% fewer officer injuries and 40% fewer subject injuries following the widespread adoption of Tasers. Tasers also proved to be safer than batons, dogs, and pepper spray (based on Cape Coral's savings in injury-related costs).
I wrote the above headline to help us go beyond the headlines: "Another Taser-less Death." From now on, I want to see more articles about lives that could have been saved if every police officer in every city had a Taser on his or her belt.
Talk to police who use stun guns. Talk to the people in blue who resolve conflicts on a daily basis and sometimes put their own lives in jeopardy. An overwhelming number of them will tell you that this is the best development in the recent history of law enforcement. But in our litigious society, driven by lust for the lurid headline, Tasers have been given a bad name, while guns continue to take lives every day.
The market has punished Taser recently, but I think the company will be back. Its product is too good for society to ignore.