I have to say I don't like tazers. They are the perfect poster boy for liberalism. After years and years of defining deviancy down, we as a society have allowed a lack of discrimination to prevent us admitting that some scumbags just won't follow society's norms. We pay a huge price, financially and morally, to have police on the street to enforce those standards.
By giving the police guns we don't allow ourselves, we have created a special class of citizen, technically a super-citizen, with special rights and freedoms. In return, we expect special performance. A police officer is expected to go into harm’s way. While the average citizen is running away from gunfire, earthquakes, Tsunamis or assorted other holocausts, we expect the police to run towards the problem. Being at the sharp end, judgment under stress isn't just nice to have, but is essential. A police officer's primary function is to act as society's representative at the scene, and to make threat analysis decisions in any situation, and to deal with the threat in the best interest of society, not any individual citizen involved in the incident. Please note, the police are not there to protect the victim! Their only role is to protect society. Crimes are not committed against victims, they are committed against society!
Historically, police responded, dealt with incidents with appropriate force most of the time, occasionally using what was later determined, (in nice air conditioned offices with tea or coffee in hand, lighting just right), excessive force. Note that almost all of these incidents have two very common denominators. No gun was used, and visible bruising was evident. Canadian police have a long history of almost never resorting to gunfire in the line of duty. In the vast majority of shooting cases, the officer was vindicated.
As our society slouches to Gomorrah, criminal activity is changing. The widespread acceptance of drug use and other depraved behavior has lead to two largely different mainstream criminal activities, both related to the drug trade. In one stream are the drug importers, growers and distributors with major crimes, particularly murder and attempted murder. These first group members are seen by society as actually criminal, and police have no problem dealing with these criminals, (if they manage to catch them). Those in the other group are the drug users with their relatively petty crimes.
After thousands of handwringing stories on television, years of community activists and protesters, we as a society have become uncomfortable with calling these people criminals. We have been convinced to consider these people victims. This leads to the tazer.
Once the criminals were effectively decriminalized, the justice system hasn’t been able to effectively deal with them. Police are put in the unenviable position of having to deal with actual crimes committed against a majority of the population, while having to treat the perpetrators as victims as well. Anyone ever having had to deal with drug induced hysteria knows that using rational treatment and restraint is in-effective. We have demonstrated with public outcry that we, as a society, will not allow the police to use their guns to effect the arrest of these `victims’. Police know by experience that using normal force will result in lack of control, AND, visible bruising, probably leading to `excessive force allegations’. Enter the tazer. Instant control, no bruising, image of humaine treatment. A marriage made in heaven.
The problem is, the tazer isn’t as benign as advertised. Far too many people die after tazering.
If the police were content to only use the tazer on the decriminalized petty criminals high on drugs, we would probably be able to rationalize the occasional death. But, as in all tools, mission creep has caused the police to take the easier way out, and have started to use the tazer on anyone that confronts them, whether the individual is rational or not.
In our compact with police, society has authorized force to subdue violence. We HAVE NOT authorized violence to quell passive resistance. We now are seeing police use tazers indiscriminately against citizens who pose no threat of violence to society, just because they can, and to make their perceived job easier. It is time Canadians said enough! Either do the job you are being paid to do, or find something else to do. I would give every officer a choice, EITHER carry a gun, OR a tazer, never both. I expect that tazers would vanish in a few days.
