Police officers, male and female, perform an incredibly important and invaluable public service. Their commitment to their jobs regularly puts them in dangerous situations, and thankfully, they are armed with knowledge, training and tools with which they can protect themselves and the communities they serve. Currently, at least 3,500 law enforcement agencies in the United States equip their officers with TASERs, a particular tool that effectively incapacitates potentially dangerous individuals for only a short period of time. In contrast to guns and batons, TASERs claim to cause only temporary pain, whereas other devices can cause much more permanent damage to humans.

Some men and women who work for the police state that TASERs lower the risk of injury for officers and provide officers with a welcome alternative to lethal force. As TASERs began to appear with more frequency on police forces, one study revealed that the use of guns and batons actually reduced as TASERs became more available to officers. Consequently, the intensity of force-induced injury to rowdy or uncooperative individuals being apprehended lowered. TASERs are marketed as less-lethal weapons and this aspect of the device encourages some police forces to increase the use of TASERs.

When police officers are faced with serious threats, like armed assailants, they are sometimes forced by the severity of a situation to react by engaging their guns or batons. The wounds caused by these weapons can be serious and even lead to death. According to the manufacturer, TASERs can stun these individuals into submission, without causing such intense injury or death. TASERs only leave light markings on the skin, where the shock met with skin, and no permanent damage remains.

TASERs offer a reduction in risk that appears to have a counterintuitive effect on human rights groups. The risk reduction actually gives these groups more reason to question the safety of TASERs when used by policemen and policewomen. The absence of physical evidence of TASER use on a victim is cause for alarm to certain people; such lack of evidence may encourage unnecessary use of TASERs, leading to a possible abuse of power and ability to cause pain. At one point, 85 percent of all individuals halted by a TASER were unarmed; the balance of power in these cases may not be entirely fair.

However, police officers must have just cause to use their guns on a human and sometimes, that just cause is simply not evident. Tragedy and unnecessary injury or death to a police officer may result in that situation. As TASERs do not require such a stringent policy, police officers may use them in a wider range of environments, eliminating the need to take chances with a criminal who may in fact be armed and poised to harm.

Law enforcement officers are entrusted with the safety of a community. They are given a responsibility to protect and to safeguard other individuals from illegal activity, personal harm and various forms of unlawful behavior. Their training is strenuous and their commitment to the office remarkably strong. Shouldn’t they be given every opportunity to keep themselves and their public out of harm’s way? A TASER is more likely to prevent a sustained injury than it is to cause one; it only seems to make sense that TASERs be a part of any police officer’s standard operating procedure, no matter the complaints made by individuals who protest the use of pain in any form of control.