How Using Stun Gun to Subdue A Mentally Ill Child Can Save Life

Health experts have recently named antidepressants as the second most commonly prescribed class of drugs today among youth patients aged 19 and under in the United States. Physicians and medical professionals prescribe antidepressants for a whole host of reasons, including a sharp rise in the instances when they are called upon to manage and treat patients with mental illnesses and bipolar disorder diagnoses.

Bipolar attacks and psychotic episodes can include:

• Hallucinations – sensory experiences of things that do not exist outside the mind,
• Delusions – a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact, and
• Paranoia – the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense.

Because of their very age, the people who are most commonly come into contact with youth patients suffering from mental illness are their parent(s) or guardian(s) and other close relatives within the home. But what course of action does a parent have when the prescription drugs and therapies prescribed under the care of a licensed medical professional fail to keep a psychotic episode or bipolar attack is imminent? The news media is too often peppered with sensational stories of a mentally ill youth being horribly injured, sometimes even killed, when an alarmed family member has had to resort to calling in law enforcement for assistance. Law enforcement authorities until recently have not received the training that they desperately need to confront and subdue an irrational, mentally ill youth. Many times their arrival on the scene in these types of incidents results in escalation to the point where force, physical and/or weapons, is relied on rather than de-escalation and peaceful resolution.

This is exactly why the debate over when the possession and use of a self-defense device, such as a stun gun, by a family member is ethical and beneficial for potentially saving the victim(s) and the attacking child during such event from a further tragedy. Honestly, just think about it rationally. If your own precious child suddenly became delusional or hallucinatory, wouldn’t you rather quickly and safely use a stun gun to subdue him than have police become involved with a lethal outcome highly probable?

The results of a stun gun’s use on a child in the midst of a mental health-related hallucination or delusion are disorientation and loss of balance. And while very painful, the entire process takes only a few seconds to disable the youth for as long as 30 minutes. Even though the voltage delivered by a stun can be as high as 1,000,000, the amperage is so low that it will not inflict any permanent damage to the person who receives the stun shock. A bullet fired from a weapon can kill, but a parent confidently armed with a stun gun and trained in its proper use can easily save the life of her mentally-troubled child as well as her own life.