He Never Saw It Coming

61-year old Colin Farmer (above) is blind and, due to two strokes, walks at a snail's pace using the standard white cane.


Enter the local cops in Chorley, Lancashire, where Farmer was wending his way to a pub for a drink with his pals.   The police were responding to reports of a man in town wielding a deadly martial arts weapon, a Samurai sword.

White cane, Samurai sword - whatever.

"The whole thing was like being trapped in a nightmare," he told the Chorley Guardian.

Mr Farmer said he heard shouting on the street but did not know what it was about and thought he was about to be "attacked by some hooligans".

He was then struck by the Taser and fell to the ground, dropping his white stick on the floor before a policeman handcuffed him.

Farmer is said to be considering legal action against the cops.  Go for it.

 

What Shows Up in Our E-Mail

As an avid motorcyclist I get plenty of e-mail from suppliers of bike parts and accessories.   Some of them throw in freebie teasers.   Today I got a taser teaser.  Really.

California based A&S Powersports is offering a combo-flashlight/stun gun free with any order over - wait for it - twenty bucks.

 

I'm pretty sure possessing this sort of thing is completely illegal in Canada but, hey, twenty lousy bucks and you get this damned thing free?   Then again the flashlight probably isn't very good.

Tasers Worthwhile Sometimes - Well, Duh!

It happened in a park in Surrey, B.C. on Thursday night. Officer responds to call about drunken teenager wielding a knife. Hears an argument. Confronts the 15-year old who has his hands behind his back. Kid brings his hand forward revealing a 15-cm. blade. When the suspect refuses to drop the weapon, cop stuns him with a single taser burst. Problem over.

Afterward, RCMP spokesman Sergeant Roger Morrow jumps all over the incident. "Despite all of the discussion and to some degree controversy over the use of Tasers, they are a very valuable weapon."

Memo to Morrow: the controversy is over the improper use of Tasers, not where they're employed like this as an alternative to a firearm. Please tell me that a sergeant in the RCMP grasps that distinction. Please?

Super-Taser

This is why we need the CBC.

A CBC News investigation has found some older models of Tasers prove to be far more powerful, as much as 50% more, than specified. The X26 models were manufactured by Taser International before 2005. Roughly 10% of the weapons sampled proved to be excessively powerful.

Scientists who performed the tests noted that Tasers are unlike other electronic devices in that there are no international standards governing their production.

Taser International, true to form, denies everything.

Alberta ran tests that also came in with 10% results. The province has now sent the first batch of its Tasers to Ontario for testing and is moving to set up a testing facility in Alberta. It plans to eventually test all 1,100 Tasers in service in the province.

You'll Be Dancing Anyway, Might as Well Have Some Music

A musical Taser. That's right, a Taser stun gun with a built in MP3 player.

Taser International sells the musical weapon under the name iTaser. How quaint. From The Guardian:

Arizona-based Taser International sells the handheld stun guns under the rather hyperbolic banner of "Changing the World and Protecting Lives". It maintains that the iTaser "allows for both personal protection and personal music for people on the go".

According to Rick Smith, founder of the company, "personal protection can be both fashionable and functionable".

The company says the new device is particularly aimed at women - with red, pink and even leopard print designs intended to make carrying a stun gun fashionable. A spokesman in Las Vegas said the inclusion of a music player would encourage purchases by women who want a form of self defence while out jogging, but would otherwise choose to take an iPod or other MP3 player with them instead of a weapon.

"A lot of women aren't going to go into a gun store and feel comfortable enough buying a Taser, so now we have some outdoor companies and dealers - some cellphone places are starting to carry them and hang them next to phones," he said.

They Can't Be Trusted

Saturday's Globe & Mail editorial says it all:

"Canadians cannot believe a word the RCMP have to say over the taser death of Robert Dziekanski."

Not a word. They killed this man and then waged a disinformation campaign to cover their backsides. Gee, haven't we heard this before? Remember a kid named Ian Bush who wound up with a bullet fired into the back of his head, supposedly in self defence by an RCMP officer who said he was pinned, face down, on the floor of a cell with Bush at his back? Guess what? That's an impossibility, just maybe not to the RCMP.

They always get their man. Do they ever. Wish it weren't so.

This time, though, they weren't so lucky. A guy named Paul Pritchard was there with a video camera. He captured the truth we weren't going to get from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.