12-year-old tased by police officer

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by justgo_withit

I have absolutely no experience with tasers and I have no idea. Tasers may actually be decently accurate and my hypothetical situation may be totally moot. Any taser aficionados in the house? Maybe there are degrees of scatter in tasers, like guns?

Tasers 101 is that tasers are relatively accurate and painful. There is a greater likelihood of a taser hitting different parts of one person's body than the taser accidentally hitting the wrong person. The latter will only happen if the police officer had a bad aim or someone jumped in front of the person about to be tased. In the former instance, police officers should not use a taser if they cannot effectively reach the target. Police officers tend to be trained not to use tasers and pepper spray if they may accidentally get the wrong person.

Originally Posted by justgo_withit

Of course not, nor did I imply that the population as a whole should blindly trust authority. My post said that because of my personal experiences, I am more inclined to believe that future developments will show that the officer made a good choice.

I was talking about myself and not about you. But, you actually implied that your positive experiences with police officers explain your trust and therefore your tendency not to challenge them. I disagree with that implication and urge everyone to consider how the experiences of others can shape your experiences.