Shocking, isn't it?

Over 30% of US police departments use them. The military is having some of their rifles modified to incorporate them. Civilian versions are available for those who want them.

"Them" are stun guns. Tasers. Devices that deliver a 50,000-volt charge pulsed several times over a 5-second interval. The effects are usually debilitating, causing involuntary muscle contraction and loss of muscular control for a short period.

Amnesty International has called for more study of their effects, claiming that over 70 people have died after being shocked by these stun guns in the past four years. Several state legislators -- including ones in California and Georgia -- have called for an immediate ban of the device in their states until further study can be done.

Legal Notice: I am a very minor shareholder of a couple hundred shares of Taser International stock. You can take what I write with a grain of salt or you can do the same research yourself and come to your own conclusions about whether my position on this issue is being driven by a stock comprising less than 1% of my total assets.

Fact: Over the same four years that Amnesty International referenced for their statistic on stun gun related deaths, over 1300 people were killed by police (See Uniform Crime Report at www.fbi.gov), and the majority of those deaths were from being shot with a handgun. Didn't hear Amnesty International complain about that, did you?

And that's the crux of why Amnesty International's complaint is ridiculous. For most police departments, the choice for subduing violent subjects comes down to:

• shooting them with live bullets, which can be overkill in many situations;
• shooting them with rubber bullets, which is better for crowd control, but not good with individual subjects;
• spraying "pepper spray", which has limited effectiveness and requires the officer to be within close proximity to the subject being sprayed, leading to possible self-exposure;
• whacking them with a wood or metal baton, which is effective, but repeated whackings can be just as brutal as shooting the person in the first place;
• stun guns, which have a distance of over 20 feet and will incapacitate most subjects long enough for police to restrain the subject.

Fact: Over 150,000 people have received shocks from stun guns. At worst, 70 have died after being zapped. The relationship between being zapped with a stun gun and dying doesn't seem to be a strong one.

In almost every case, the coroners' investigations of deaths related to stun guns have found that being zapped was -- at best -- a catalyst in the subject dying and not the cause. In most cases, the subject that died after being zapped by a stun gun had injested large quantities of drugs, fought with police for a period of time, been zapped more than once while continuing to battle with police, and been in generally poor health (overweight, damage from excessive drug use, etc.). And yet people want to blame the stun gun and not the idiot fighting with police after getting hopped up on drugs.

By the way, the exact same complaint was made about pepper spray in the 1990's. Pepper spray also had been the subject of controversy when several subjects in custody died after being exposed to pepper spray. The vast majority of deaths involving a subject exposed to pepper spray were found have been caused by a number of contibuting factors, and in almost all cases, the least contributing factor was the exposure to pepper spray. (See the National Institute of Justice report on the effectiveness of pepper spray at www.ncjrs.org).

Fact: Taser's stun guns deliver 50,000 volts, but at very low amperage (averaging .0021 amps or around 100 watts of energy). For comparison, sticking your finger in a light socket can deliver over 2200 watts of energy. The charge disrupts exoskeleton muscular activity. Numerous studies have found that the amount of charge being delivered is between 1/25th and 1/40th the level that would be required to disrupt the human heart. That's a lot of room for error with most people. Several doctors have also stated that the level of charge is low enough that it would not disrupt a pacemaker.

As a friend of mine points out: stun guns are a "disruptive technology" that will become pervasive over time with police departments. Korean Air has been authorized by the FAA to allow its pilots to carry them on-board. Several European countries, including the UK, have tested and found the devices safe enough to let their police deploy them. Police departments across the USA are thrilled to use them, because they cut down on brutality claims (see: batons and live bullets, above) and officer injuries, and increase an officer's ability to safely handle violent situations where stronger force is not required.

And that's the bottom line: it's safer for both the officer and the subject than any of the other lethal or non-lethal alternatives available to officers. It's also more effective than any of the alternatives for apprehending the subject without causing lasting damage.

A maximum of 70 deaths out of 150,000 uses seems like a better choice to me than any of the alternatives. But Amnesty International and a few state legislators come out against it.

I'm stunned, really.