the pitiful bleatings of the impotent and incompetent.
a product of the paralysing gender confusion
created by the male hegemony of exclusively men's legislatures
and a sole men's jurisdiction at law.
crime is managed not prevented.
shoot people you've abandoned a duty of care, nicely.

provide a women's legislature alongside the men's,
and deviant behaviour
both male and female
is far more effectively understood
and eliminated
prevention not incomprehension
so you can put down your guns gentlemen

The problem is that the taser will be used as the first line of resort rather than assessing a situation and calming it down,you pull the taser and let rip.

The gun is always the last line of resort and everything else is tried beforehand.The taser if used prolifically,will further alienate the police from the public.

The police these days are inadaquate in both size and training,thus there is a huge scope for abuse.

Common and a sense of proportion dictate that not every attempted arrest is the product resulting in a tasering of a 'thug' or as a result of “bleeding heart “, “goody two shoes” and other over the top intolerance laden generalisations.
I can easily imagine circumstances where these emotional attitudes could potentially create a tasering.

As the son of cop and an ex long term crisis intervention counselor I know how perilous some situations can be. Yes, I've been bashed, cut and threatened with items like bars, knives, needles and guns....
NB my mum didn't raise any heroes nor am I excessively fool hardy.
My experience tells me that the issue isn't that clear or cut and dried.
I have seen a father who's daughter had been bashed and raped had gone out end bashed the boy HE thought was the perpetrator. When the police came he went ballistic and several people were injured including me. A later investigation found that the policeman involved (inexperienced, under-trained) caused the problem all because his ego his sense of authority. Might I add this is a common mind set see psychology 202.
Clearly there are many unique factors in every situation that makes hard generalisations unwise.
Also out that in a recent Tasering the (Aussie) person was Zaped 20 times and he died.

Tasers like guns are tools the problem is often the tool handling them.

IMHO Police in general are under vetted, under resourced, under trained, under respected and under paid.

We have a society that honours the takers rather than the givers. We are a selfish lot and resort to the extreme too often and unnecessarily.

It's a bit like taking an analgesic for a brain tumour. The problem will lurch from one crisis to the next until we address the key issues.
Idealistic? No simply realistic.

PS Max Mixing mythologies how journalistic tsk tsk :-)(joke?)

Interesting article.

http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=1&t=0&id=38129

I feel totally frustrated that the debate is always hotter when there is a shooting (tasering this time) by the police than when police is shot at by the criminals. Don’t forget the police force is there to protect law abiding citizens and they need support from the people they are protecting.

In deed there is chance for the taser to be abused. This is no different to guns or any other weapons. The police officers who abuse the weapon will be dealt with by law. I have absolute faith that there are less potential criminals in the police force than in the general public. Removing the weapons from then for fearing of misuse is not at all a logic option.

I, like all other law abiding Australian, would not need to worry about being tasered or shot at by police. For those offenders who dare to use force to resist police arrest, it is already a leniency for the police to use a taser, not a gun on them.

Maximillion,

OK. My answer is "I don't know", and I'm glad I don't have the responsiblity to work this out. I do believe, however, that the safety of police, or anyone dealing will unruly and lawless people must come first.

I think that Arjay has a good point when he says: "The police these days are inadaquate in both size and training,thus there is a huge scope for abuse."

We should also look at the role of female police officers. A woman police officer friend of my wife's says that they bring a different outlook to the job but, as valuable as that may be, I don't think they are up to dealing with violent makes twice their size and weight.

I'm a smallish, lightly built old bloke, but some of female police officers I see look like midgets alongside me. What hope they would have without weapons against many offenders is anyone's guess. Proper training is one thing; being attacked my a huge, angry male is another.