The United Nations Convention Against Torture has come out against tasers, just a month before a report on their trial use is due out from New Zealand Police. The use of the weapons, according to the UN, causes acute pain.
Well, yeah. Isn't that precisely the point of them?
And that, says the UN, amounts to a form of torture. What a very broad and liberal interpretation of torture. Torture to me is ongoing pain designed to extract information or for the titillation of the torturer. Not a short, sharp shock designed to incapacitate the offender.
The committee commented that studies overseas had shown tasers were dangerous and can cause death. Which they can. In rare instances. But they're probably not as certain of causing death as guns are. Guns appear to be terminal.
But in the 20-odd cases that the police used tasers in this country, nobody died. Nobody even lost an eye. And that's far better odds than if they'd been shot by cops in the line of duty.
Oh, sure, everybody with YouTube has seen the footage of the Polish immigrant being tasered by Royal Canadian mounted policemen, resulting in his death. But nobody's seen the footage of the four young officers ambushed while raiding a marijuana plantation in 2005. Or the cop killed in October while attending a house call. Or the 20-year-old officer shot while on traffic duty this month.
There have been up to 18 deaths by Taser in Canada; three in the past week. But 75 Canadian police officers have died because they were cops. The odds still favour the crims and who can blame the cops for wanting to even the odds a little?
