Bill Maher's New Rules, Don't Taser Grannies!

Another great "New Rules" from Bill Maher. He covers a bunch of topics from last week, but the focus on a Texas cop tasering a grandmother for using bad words is well deserved:



Oh and of course, for the main part of this video, all I have to say is "hell yes!"

Newsflash: Large Amounts Of Electricity Can Kill

Yeah, most people with common sense have known that from either witnessing or experiencing a blot of lightening connecting with a human being, but many in law enforcement have not caught on to this yet. Putting a few thousand volts into a taser and giving it to cops to use on citizens has resulted in hundreds of deaths in less than eight years.

From RawStory:

They are marketed as non-lethal weapons that allow police to capture suspects or criminals without causing any permanent harm.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and businessman Bernard Kerik made millions selling the idea to police departments across the country.

But Tasers have killed more than 400 people since 2001, according to a new study commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

As the article points out, cops in Canada are starting to ban them. Yet down here in America more and more law enforcement are using the weapons and killing plenty of people with their so-called safe device. A new study shows how lethal these things can be.

The study includes a medical analysis that concluded someone shot with a Taser could face as high as a 50 percent chance of cardiac arrest.

Obviously that number is for people with heart problems, but no one walks around with their medical history stapled to their chest to warn cops of what may happen when they get taser-happy. Tasers may have had good intentions by preventing gun deaths, but they bring too many problems to the equation to be considered a safe alternative.

Pittsburgh Considers Tasers In Schools

Over the last couple of years numerous stories have come out about taser abuse and the "non-lethal" weapon's ability to kill a small but sizable percentage of it's victims. Compared to being punctured by a bullet, tasers are a better alternative yet sometimes, the advocates of the device take it too far, such as into schools with young children around.

From The Tribune-Review:

The president of a school safety consulting firm said districts like Uniontown Area, which is considering arming its police officers with Tasers, have to take a conservative approach to their deployment and develop a comprehensive policy.

But an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said it's hard for him even to see a need for Tasers in a school setting.

Uniontown school officials intend to draft a Taser policy for their school police officers that might be discussed as soon as the school board's Aug. 18 meeting and could be considered for adoption next month.

The school's director of security says giving the district's three officers the option of using a Taser is more about providing the safest possible conditions for children, staff and visitors than as a weapon "directed at the students."

The director may say that the weapons will not be directed at students, but when the taser is in the hands of a school police officer, bad news (or tragic news) is just around the corner. As the Tribune notes, a 17 year old boy died last month in Winnipeg after officers used a taser on him after seeing him wield a knife. Another 17 year old kid was killed in North Carolina for throwing groceries at the store manager and advancing on the cops. Instead of being used as an alternative only to deadly force, the taser is used in all sorts of circumstances and many officers take advantage of the device.

What makes it worse is that too many poorly-conducted studies show the taser is safe, allowing for the companies that make the weapons secure more contracts while society is saturated with it and forced to accept this sometimes lethal non-lethal device.

Tasers On A Plane?

Snakes may have venom, but at least they are mere reptiles and not human beings that can press buttons to use a taser on a fellow man (or woman). Using tasers to fight terrorism seems like a silly idea unless you are making an arrest in a situation that involves direct conflict. Using tasers on an airplane to stop potential terrorists while in their seats is just plain insane.

From Wired:

A Canadian company called Lamperd Less Lethal is promoting the EMD Safety Bracelet. It's equipped with electro muscular disruption technology, which effectively short-circuits the central nervous system. Zap someone and they'll be completely immobile for several minutes.

The technology isn't new -- cops and security guards have been using it for years in tasers. What's new is the marketing approach. Lamperd is hawking the EMD bracelet as the ideal tool for fighting terrorists intent on taking over an airplane. [...]

Beyond preying on people's fears and insulting our intelligence, Lamperd is selling a product that's a horrible idea in the first place. Do you really want those bracelets on your flight? If hijackers get their hands the transmitter, they'll zap anyone standing in their way. Who's to say that in the chaos of an emergency a crew member will have time to identify the threat, activate the correct bracelet and fire the EMD pulse before the terrorist has control of the plane?

And then there's the possibility of random craziness. What if a flight attendant loses her cookies and zaps a passenger who wants to keep the whole can of CranApple juice? What about drunk passengers? Do you want the lush in 36D getting his hands on what is essentially a bracelet-mounted stun gun?

Flight attendants will and have thrown people off of planes for wearing t-shirts they don't like. How are we supposed to know that they won't use tasers on people that...gee, I don't know, are religious and pray?

If any, and I mean any airline gives this product more than a nanosecond of thought, then I am finished flying with a company that would jeopardize my safety in that way. It's bad enough that they jeopardize millions of passengers in others already.

Taser Abuse From Across The Pond

When one hears the phrase "Mind the gap" in London, you might want to watch the distance between you and a taser gun instead of that between a platform and an Underground train. Police abuse has been on the rise here in the U.S., but what happened to Daniel Sylvester is an incident that must be concerning to any Briton.

From The Guardian:

"Armed police jumped out and opened my car door," he said. "I said OK, I'm coming. I asked what was going on and as soon as I stepped out of the car I felt something touch me on the back of the head and then I was on my knees. Then it happened again and I was on my face and I felt somebody pressing my head down with their foot. By the fifth time I realised officers were pinning my arms together. It was like they were trying to break my arms and I was in pain, screaming out.

"I was shocked eight times altogether and I had urinated on the floor. It was like being tortured. It went on and on and I felt they were going to kill me."

According to guidelines set by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers, Tasers should be deployed "where officers are facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force to protect the public, themselves and/or the subject(s) of their action". Tasers have been used 47 times in London this year, with black people accounting for almost two-thirds of those stunned.

So not only should you be aware of this police brutality, you should definitely be on guard if you are a minority. The officers claim that they were searching for guns as part of an operation, but of course nothing was found. Instead, an innocent man was dragged out of his car, tasered in the head and stomped on by police. This "non-lethal" force is starting to become extremely dangerous...and deadly.

Why Tasering (An 82 Yr Old Woman) Is Bad News

Police groups argue that tasers are a great way to use non-lethal force to subdue dangerous assailants. How an 82 year old schizophrenic is a danger to society and the Chicago Police is not even up for debate. Yet police used 50,000 volts on her anyway. This is a closed case example of police brutality, but it isn't an isolated incident. Cops love to use these things on whoever they want, and we aren't just talking about Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro's shocking scene.

From The New York Times:

Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Fletcher one of them used their Taser, Bond said. The department is trying to determine if the officer violated department policy regarding the use of stun guns.

On Tuesday, Fletcher said officers had pushed their way into her home. ''They shocked me,'' she said.

Fletcher at times sounded confused during the telephone interview. Her granddaughter Traci Taylor told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandmother suffers from schizophrenia and dementia.

''My grandmother is easily confused,'' Taylor told the newspaper, adding that the elderly woman can be belligerent but is about 5 feet 1 and no more than 160 pounds.

''I just don't think they should be Tasing 82-year-old women. That's ridiculous,'' Taylor said.

Yes Traci, that is ridiculous.

Yet it is only one example of a growing problem around the country. Those "non-lethal" devices aren't so harmless and have been attributed to over 150 deaths. Perhaps some cops get a kick out of seeing people simultaneously convulsing and glowing with their stun guns, but to human rights groups, it is a tragedy. If you know of anyone being abused by cops in this way, check out this site here. This abuse must stop!