Tasers Arere an Extremely Effective Tool for Officers in Dangerous Situations

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Recommended: The use of a taser

50,000 volts of electricity in one shot is all that's needed to subdue a person in a dangerous situation. Tasers are an extremely effective tool for officers in dangerous situation as long as they are trained properly. For instance, to ensure the full effectiveness of tasers, officers are required to endure a full training session teaching them the proper situation to fire this powerful and intimidating weapon. Also, with mental health cases on the rise, any extra use of force method before drawing your deadly force should be welcomed with open arms. Next, there have been some cases involving death with tasers where usually other health related complications have been the cause. Clearly the negative stigma around tasers is strongly linked to poor training and poor knowledge of facts.
The training involving tasers has improved greatly and is now a requirement for officers to gain authority to use them. For example, officers that will carry tasers are now required to take approximately 12 hours of training. The lack of training in the past has lead to many of the issues such as over-use and misuse and negative stigma regarding tasers, this new requirement should eliminate those issues. Cp24 news reported that: "Police agencies that equip their officers with Tasers must follow guidelines on training, the overall use of the devices, maintenance, testing, record-keeping and reporting" (Kitching, 2013). What this proves is that officers are not just given a taser and are able to fire away with no consequences. It will be traced, and it will need to be proven reasonable that an officer even removed the taser from the holster. In order to be proven reasonable the officer must create a report on the situation and it must justify when the...

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...rs should not be blamed for these incidents and the negative stigma surrounding them should not exist.
In conclusion, Tasers are an extremely effective tool for officers in dangerous situation as long as they are trained properly. For example, 12 hour training courses involving tasers have been implemented in order to decrease the number of accidents due to the tasers' misuses. Next, with mental health on the rise, tasers are another tool on the belt for officers before they have to draw their lethal force weapons. Also, citizens are jumping too quickly to the negative stigma about tasers causing death. The deaths are resulting from other causes such as: health conditions, misuse of the taser, or lack of training. Ultimately, there needs to be more positive light on tasers and how they can be a huge asset not only to police officers, but for public safety as well.

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