TASERS IN THE SKIES

Bullets have a nasty habit of depres­sur­iz­ing an airplane’s cabin. Firing bul­lets in an enclosed space is rarely a good idea. So I guess it was only a mat­ter of time before some­one decided to arm air­line secu­rity guards with tasers instead.
Tasers are the stun guns that inca­pac­i­tate their tar­gets with 50,000-volt shocks, turn­ing mus­cles into jelly. They’ve been used 45,000 times by police in the last five years. And although the weapons have been fin­gered in dozens of deaths, there’s been no con­clu­sive proof that the tasers were to blame.
In a press release Monday, stun gun maker Taser International announced that, for the first time, “the Transportation Security Administration of the United States Department of Homeland Security has approved a major inter­na­tional airline’s appli­ca­tion for the onboard use of TASER brand con­ducted energy weapons by spe­cially trained per­son­nel on flights to/​from the United States.“
THERE’S MORE: Meanwhile, “Oakland police, fac­ing law­suits over tac­tics used last year against anti-​​war demon­stra­tors, have agreed to stop using wooden or rub­ber bul­lets, Taser stun guns, pep­per spray and motor­cy­cles to break up crowds,” says WTVU (via the Sunshine Project).
AND MORE: Wrong, wrong, wrong. “Despite the wide­spread belief advanced by Hollywood movies [and cer­tain web­sites] that gun­fire erupt­ing inside a plane could depres­sur­ize the cabin and doom all aboard,” the Chicago Tribune reported in 2002, “offi­cials said it’s a myth and that the air mar­shals use stan­dard law-​​enforcement ammu­ni­tion. ‘So long as you don’t strike any hydraulic lines or hit the pilots, you’re OK,’ air mar­shal instruc­tor Steven Mosley said.“
(Thanks to Defense Tech reader JF for the catch.)
AND MORE: Over in the new Defense Tech forums, I’ve learned that I may be right, after all.
“You are cor­rect about the ‘Explosive Decompression’ as a result of a round exit­ing an air­craft. The great show Myth Busters, on Discovery, actu­ally did an exper­i­ment with a old fuse­lage,” reader Mike B notes. “They over pres­sur­ized fuse­lage to cre­ate the pres­sure dif­fer­en­tial that an air­craft would expe­ri­ence at alti­tude. After remotly fir­ing many rounds through the win­dows, no ‘Explosive Decompression.’”

November 8th, 2004 | Less-lethal | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.