4 ms·

Originally, tasers were pitched as an alternative to shooting bullets at someone. That sounded very reasonable. In practice, tasers came to be used for situatio

by qgin 4y ago

Originally, tasers were pitched as an alternative to shooting bullets at someone. That sounded very reasonable. In practice, tasers came to be used for situations in which bullets would never be fired in. They became tools to force immediate compliance. Someone doesn’t listen to instructions? Out comes the taser. The non-lethality lowered the bar for use and enabled police to exert a level of control that didn’t exist before. Now let’s say you have a drone that fires a taser. For a mass shooting event, yes, that sounds very reasonable. But of course it will be used for many, many more situations. How long before it’s standard practice for police to send an autonomous taser of some sort to knock on doors to keep occupants at bay while they search the house? I don’t know which tradeoff are worth it, but less-lethal weapons don’t just replace the lethal ones, they end up being used in a much more expansive set of circumstances than the lethal ones they replace.

endisneigh 4y ago
Given that police already shoot unarmed people who literally are just standing around, or are sleeping, I’m not sure the bar can get any lower.
- qgin 4y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if tasers actually increase the impulse to “reach for a gun-like solution” and may have actually increased gun use in policing.
  - angelbar 4y ago
    That already happened, recently one officer shoot someone because she got the wrong weapon
    - runlevel1 4y ago
      USA Today found there were at least 16 instances of weapon confusion since 2001.[^1] The first high-profile case happened just 3 months after BART Police were supplied with them in 2009.[^2] [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/04/13/taser-confusion-errors-like-daunte-wright-shooting-rare-but-avoidable/7210538002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/04/1... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Oscar_Grant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Oscar_Grant
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Tasers displaced some beatings, not shootings. It’s harder to be held accountable because the taser company is partially accountable. When you crack Johnny Crackhead’s skull, the civil jury is more likely to be sympathetic. Back in the day, the cops would beat the crap out of people with nightsticks. Guns were less commonly used - that changed in the 80s.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  According to the WaPo tracker, police shot ~150 unarmed people last year. But this includes, per WaPo, people engaged in such activities as "gouging out the officer's eye." I think it's probably safe to assume an order of magnitude less people were literally just standing around or sleeping (is that a reference to Taylor? FWIW, that ended up being Twitter misinformation - she was awake standing next to her boyfriend, who was firing at the police through the door), for about 15. I would imagine it's a pretty good guess that police already tase at least 1000x that many people every year. I'm having trouble finding good national LEO statistics, but "Taser International" claims 900 Taser uses a day. I don't think we should do anything to encourage that.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Plus 95% of shootings in WaPo's police database were armed people. The bigger problem is no-knock warrants which created dangerous situations for legal firearm owners and the police themselves, with the only rationalization being flushing drugs.
    - drewcoo 4y ago
      So if someone has a weapon, it's ok to shoot them? I would hope that police could talk a situation down to the point the nobody (else) gets shot.
imglorp 4y ago
Maybe the line to draw is autonomy? If you're after a mass shooter, today anyway, that would be an ROV activity: a human pilot flying it could distinguish cops, perps, and vics and fire one taser. If you ask for autonomy, then you're leaping into Slaughterbot territory (see link below someone already posted) and you might have thousands of them in a theater of operations.
Teever 4y ago
They're playing with fire here. What happens when civilians make their own tazer drones and start randomly hitting cops?
- angelbar 4y ago
upsidesinclude 4y ago
Combine this with police militarization post 9/11 and we're on a terrible path. We have a trained military police force which views the public as an insurgency and is given ever increasing ability to subdue and subjugate the populace. The endless videos of people being tased into compliance is bizarre, no less the number of voices which condone the act.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Police can already keep occupants at bay with their fingers on the trigger of a gun while searching a house, if they want to. I see a taser-drone improving outcomes rather than a slippery slope kind of thing. A lot of times when police are dealing with an unstable/violent subject 1) they don't want to shoot them, and 2) have to get close to them to taser them. But getting close to them gives them the opportunity to be dangerous towards the cops. For example this guy, who was probably having a mental health crisis, just got killed because he threw molotov cocktails at cops: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/raleigh-police-body-cam-footage-man-molotov-cocktail-b2094304.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/rale... If they had some kind of long range taser, he might still be alive.
- qgin 4y ago
  That’s 100% true, but the tradeoff will likely be police not just using the taser in those instances, but a ton more that would have previously involved zero force involved or may not have even happened before the taser device made it so easy.

by qgin 4y ago

endisneigh 4y ago

Given that police already shoot unarmed people who literally are just standing around, or are sleeping, I’m not sure the bar can get any lower.

qgin 4y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if tasers actually increase the impulse to “reach for a gun-like solution” and may have actually increased gun use in policing.
- angelbar 4y ago
  That already happened, recently one officer shoot someone because she got the wrong weapon
  - runlevel1 4y ago
    USA Today found there were at least 16 instances of weapon confusion since 2001.[^1] The first high-profile case happened just 3 months after BART Police were supplied with them in 2009.[^2] [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/04/13/taser-confusion-errors-like-daunte-wright-shooting-rare-but-avoidable/7210538002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/04/1... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Oscar_Grant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Oscar_Grant
Spooky23 4y ago
Tasers displaced some beatings, not shootings. It’s harder to be held accountable because the taser company is partially accountable. When you crack Johnny Crackhead’s skull, the civil jury is more likely to be sympathetic. Back in the day, the cops would beat the crap out of people with nightsticks. Guns were less commonly used - that changed in the 80s.
Amezarak 4y ago
According to the WaPo tracker, police shot ~150 unarmed people last year. But this includes, per WaPo, people engaged in such activities as "gouging out the officer's eye." I think it's probably safe to assume an order of magnitude less people were literally just standing around or sleeping (is that a reference to Taylor? FWIW, that ended up being Twitter misinformation - she was awake standing next to her boyfriend, who was firing at the police through the door), for about 15. I would imagine it's a pretty good guess that police already tase at least 1000x that many people every year. I'm having trouble finding good national LEO statistics, but "Taser International" claims 900 Taser uses a day. I don't think we should do anything to encourage that.
- dmix 4y ago
  Plus 95% of shootings in WaPo's police database were armed people. The bigger problem is no-knock warrants which created dangerous situations for legal firearm owners and the police themselves, with the only rationalization being flushing drugs.
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    So if someone has a weapon, it's ok to shoot them? I would hope that police could talk a situation down to the point the nobody (else) gets shot.

imglorp 4y ago

Maybe the line to draw is autonomy? If you're after a mass shooter, today anyway, that would be an ROV activity: a human pilot flying it could distinguish cops, perps, and vics and fire one taser. If you ask for autonomy, then you're leaping into Slaughterbot territory (see link below someone already posted) and you might have thousands of them in a theater of operations.

Teever 4y ago

They're playing with fire here. What happens when civilians make their own tazer drones and start randomly hitting cops?

angelbar 4y ago

upsidesinclude 4y ago

Combine this with police militarization post 9/11 and we're on a terrible path. We have a trained military police force which views the public as an insurgency and is given ever increasing ability to subdue and subjugate the populace. The endless videos of people being tased into compliance is bizarre, no less the number of voices which condone the act.

oh_sigh 4y ago

Police can already keep occupants at bay with their fingers on the trigger of a gun while searching a house, if they want to. I see a taser-drone improving outcomes rather than a slippery slope kind of thing. A lot of times when police are dealing with an unstable/violent subject 1) they don't want to shoot them, and 2) have to get close to them to taser them. But getting close to them gives them the opportunity to be dangerous towards the cops. For example this guy, who was probably having a mental health crisis, just got killed because he threw molotov cocktails at cops: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/raleigh-police-body-cam-footage-man-molotov-cocktail-b2094304.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/rale... If they had some kind of long range taser, he might still be alive.

qgin 4y ago
That’s 100% true, but the tradeoff will likely be police not just using the taser in those instances, but a ton more that would have previously involved zero force involved or may not have even happened before the taser device made it so easy.