The Taser weapon - what is wrong with arming the New Zealand Police

Common wisdom is that the taser is a quick way to bring down an offender who may otherwise be a danger to others, including arresting officers of the law. It is also obvious to many that a quick sharp jolt is a disincentive to mess with police or break the law.

The police are not an army going to war on crime. The police are the guardians of the safety of the citizen. If the police carry guns, then the criminal will carry bigger guns. Conversely, one may assume that if the criminal carries bigger guns, then the police should carry bombs, and before long the only way to limit criminal activity is to nuke downtown.

Our culture is what is at risk, and it is not a culture that needs to be placed at risk. It is easy to arm police and then it is easy to say that all police are good and all criminals are bad, therefore police with weapons that can take down a crazy miscreant is preferable. What can a taser do that a net can not? It can stop the heartbeat of its target and turn an offender into a victim. It can cause death.

Is that not better than allowing criminals to stab police? Not all criminals bear weapons and to say that most do would be suspect. That some criminals carry a weapon is not a good reason to treat everyone like a criminal and for the same reason you can not treat every suspect as a guilty party. If the law is seen to dish out punishment without fair trial, then the law is no longer respected or trusted by average citizens who normally rely upon society's guardians to protect them, so the primary relationship that the law relies upon is corrupted.