GreggB

Member since: Jun 13th, 2006

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Jury Awards $6M to Taser Victim's Family (Switched)

Jul 21st 2008 2:09AM Buenotc, looks like you need to poke your head into a 5th-grade classroom sometime, or run back down to the local community college for a few more of those "advanced" lessons you're so fond of...

Voltage is not what kills, it's amperage. If voltage alone could kill, then people would drop like flies on a dry day; remember the last time you were shocked by a static discharge? Static is voltage, and nearly no amperage; the average static discharge from a human body is usually around 5,000-7,000 volts...

Tasers, stun guns, and the like, all operate on a high voltage, for the very fact that the use of pulsed high-voltage disrupts the central nervous systems normal communications, often to the point of incapacitation...and apparently a one-in-a-million or-so chance of death. Personally, I'd rather be hit with a stray taser shot, than a misplaced 9mm hollow-point bullet...my chances of survival are FAR FAR higher.

Back to the tasers though, look at it this way:
Voltage is like PRESSURE
Amperage is like QUANITY

You know how when you pinch off a garden hose with your finger, the water shoots out further because of increased pressure? Thats akin to what voltage does; allowing electricty to arc, or jump farther. Voltage hurts, but WILL NOT kill.

Amps will kill. Take that same garden hose, and pump ten times the volume of water through it...assuming the hose didn't burst, if you pointed the end at someone, it'd blow a hole right through their body...oops...

These tasers operate on micro-amps of power, something that literally millions of uses have proven is non-lethal in nearly all uses-cases. Imagine if those millions of uses were 9mm rounds instead...or maybe just needles, knives, or any other weapon a perp might have been wielding...not as pretty is it?

Tasers are not the final solution to defensive weapons, but they're a heck of a lot better than being shot with a traditional gun.