Tupperware and Tasers

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments (4)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  Tasers are a great improvement over lethal weapons. While they can cause death, they are far less likely to do real damage than guns or other weapons (knives, etc). They are also easy to use by the most vulnerable of us. The fact that they are abused (rarely) merely means that they are operated by humans. The lame attempt to categorize their use as torture is silly (hey, mace in the eyes is torture too, don’t ya think?)!

  Banning tasers makes almost as much sense as banning knives. Stabbing, now that is torture and the effects last much longer than tasing in the vast majority of cases!

  Posted by wolf on Jan 28, 2008 at 11:09 AM

  As with any weapon, an individual must reckon with the possibility, indeed the likelihood, of that weapon being taken FROM them ... and used ON them. 

  Training to use a weapon, whether it be a knife, a gun, a taser ... or any other implement of violence, is necessary to minimize these kinds of accidents. For women in particular, a weapon may be easily wrested from her.  But, if she learns some karate and other martial arts that teach a person how to use their assailants size and weight against him, she may be better off.

  Posted by GillianB on Jan 30, 2008 at 5:00 PM

  After reading the 2nd half of the article, as compared to the 1st half, I think I’d trust the ladies at Taser parties before I’d trust law enforcement with the use of Tasers.  In the examples of how tasers have been used with deadly force, virtually all of them were a result of police officers abusing their discretion.  They can’t be trusted with them, and are using them in a very reactionary fashion.  And I saw that all of the incidents described could have been defused if a little calm and reason were shown by the police.  The fact that reason is being replaced with tasering is very dangerous.  A taser should be like a gun, in that it’s used in the course of an officer’s job as an absolute last resort.  These officers have it the other way around, they’re tasering first and asking questions later.  So, although originally intended for law enforcement, and I know the irony in this, police should be prohibited from using them.  They should be for personal use only, as a way for someone to protect herself.

  Posted by jblanch3 on Feb 6, 2008 at 2:04 PM

  I am the mother of a young girl that was tased at a school in Ohio. all becasue she took a stand and was tired of being told to get out of the class room whenever a white student would call her the N - word .
  if there could be any way I could replay the whole incident and never send her to a school like that I would. My daughter still has nightmares of police dragging her small frail body down the hall and cursing at her in all manner of derogative terms possible and then while four policeman held her up in the air by her arms and feet above the stairs in the school they all let her go and dropped her body on the stairs.
  I can not believe such cruelty still exisist but it does.  I had to move her into another school district, pay for two homes to get her out of this racist community.  If you want to get away with some real crimes join the Police department.

  Posted by smawstuff on Feb 20, 2008 at 3:11 PM

  Page 1 of 1 pages

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Also by Silja J.A. Talvi

• Reporting From The Ground Up
  The power of street reporting
• Seattle Battles the Homeless
  
• Women Behind Bars
  War on drugs leads to explosion of female incarcerations
• Tupperware and Tasers
  
• Suffering Secondary Trauma
  Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind explores the complexity of Chang's psychology as it formed around the demands of her profession and her personal struggles stemming from her writing about The Rape of Nanking
• Justice Denied
  One man stands between Flozelle Woodmore and the "free" world--California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger