If Not TASER, Then What?

A number of states in the United States currently prohibit the possession and use of Tasers and/or stun guns. As violent crime continues to increase all over the country, citizens are left with few means of protecting themselves other than firearms. Those who live in notoriously high crime areas are especially vulnerable, and state governments do little to offer suggestions or alternatives. It seems they’re mostly concerned with telling the citizens what not to do by prohibiting various means of protection, specifically Tasers. So people are left to find other means of protection, and even those resources are limited. For example, in Massachusetts, one must have a Firearms Identification Card (FID) to purchase pepper spray. I’d venture to say that most people who want pepper spray aren’t going to have an FID and won’t go to the trouble of getting one just to be able to buy pepper spray. It’s quite obvious that pepper spray is nowhere near as dangerous as a gun, so why are the requirements to obtain them the same? This illogical fact lends itself to an even more obviously illogical possibility, which is that the government would rather everyone own a gun as a means of self protection than non-lethal weapons such as Taser guns, stun guns, and pepper spray.

So what DOES the government expect its people to do? Nothing? Hope violent crime never happens to us? What is our alternative? For once, please stop telling us what we can’t do and tell us what we SHOULD do. And as citizens, we should be writing our congressman to get our voices heard. It seems that at least for now in some areas of the country, that’s the only legal thing we can do.