Police Taser Gun

As a police officer, let me tell you right now, I'm an advocate of using the Taser

In simple terms, it gives me more options when dealing with situations, especially when there could be an argument that the officer "didn't have to shoot them."

Now let's be clear, I don't care what anyone else thinks when I'm in the field dealing with a situation. I'm going to do what I have to do to come home safely, and to protect others. I'm a believer in the term that its better to be judged by 12 then carried by 6. But my point is, in situations "if you had other options" a life could have been saved, then I say its an option I want.

Let's take for example a suspect with a knife that say about 30 feet away from the officer. As an officer, my first action will be to pull my firearm and talk to the suspect (assuming I don't have a taser). If the suspect continues to close in on me, I will have no choice at some point but to shoot him.

Let's take the same scenario; however, now I have a taser. If I can maintain that gap and the suspect is not running at me or closing the gap quickly, I can easily and justifiably taser him/her and the incident is over. Of course, every incident is entirely different, and this may not work for every incident. The point is, I'm speaking as general as possible and basing this point entirely on a hypothetical for the most basic situation like this.

Why are some police departments still not using taser guns?

Wouldn't police departments be happy if their officers didn't have to actually use lethal force when they could have just tasered the suspect?

The fact is, there are still a lot of police departments reluctant to implement this new taser gun technology for fear of lawsuits. To be more precise, 11,000 out of 18,000 police departments are using these new tasers, whereas the others are still forcing officers to use lethal force with their weapon (Source: taser.com).

What's even more confusing for departments still not using them, is these taser guns have more accountability on the officers. Meaning, they offer a microchip that provides audio and video recording of the incident when the officer uses the tasers, exact time and date monitoring, etc. Wouldn't it be valuable evidence in court to show the suspect on drugs coming at the officer with a knife, and then getting tasered?

* The above information should be used strictly as opinionated material and not used as factual information. Although it is our opinion that police officers should have the option of using tasers, departments should seek legal advice when deciding on taser guns.

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