Don't tase me, Bro! Take the GilfrdGrok Poll (Bumped from earlier date)
Today's Daily Sun reports that the Selectmen have approved money in the proposed police department budget for the purchase of TASERS-- electrode shooting stun guns. Given the publicity these thing have gotten lately, now that many police departments have purchased and are using (abusing?) them, is this really a good idea for Gilford? Take the poll below. Feel free to leave comments in the comment section.
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Oh, and if you haven't seen the video of the kid recently tased at the John Kerry event, click here. DO we really want to chance incidents like this?
Comments
Just watched a news clip of a person who was killed with a tazer (heart attack)
I say no way to tazers, death is unnecasary force IMHO
Posted by: Mike | November 15, 2007 03:05 PM
I appreciate the Grok wanting to provide information quickly to the voters, but I sure wish it was complete. Case and point: Mike brings up a concern about tasers and I've heard from others as well who have seen news broadcasts relating to them.
Members of the Budget Committee were concerned as well and asked very relevant questions based upon their knowledge of the taser. The Budget Committee was given a presentation by a Belknap County Deputy Sheriff who is a trained instructor and answered many of the questions and concerns/myths of the taser. These answers must have satisfied the members who had concern, because the vote was nearly unanimous in favor of them. The one dissenting vote was from someone who did not wish to see the presentation and stepped out of the room and merely voted on their preconceived opinion of the product (an abstention would have been more appropriate).
As has been fingerpointed in the past about the media, only a portion of the information is presented in hopes of catching one's eye. Then mysteriously the taser poll shows up again at the top of the Grok site with a very short portion of the presentation (the actual demonstration of the taser).
It is my hope that the Grok will allow voters to see the question/answer portion of the video also. I thought the exchange and full presentation was very informative for all the participants in the discussion.
I might be mistaken, but I believe Skip originally was a "no" vote until after the presentation...?
Posted by: John | November 17, 2007 09:35 AM
Actually, you can see the full presentation in Skip's other post on the topic. I was initially opposed when we first did this poll a month ago, but, after much thinking, reading (and discussion with my wife) I came to support this for our officers. The only reason we "bumped" this poll back up (no, it didn't happen mysteriously) to the top was the publicity it got in the Daily Sun Wednesday. Thanks for reading & commenting!
Posted by: doug | November 17, 2007 10:03 AM
In response to John. I just dont want to pay for them. Nor is my confidence level of any police officer very high.
When will people realize we are in a recession and the nipple is dry.
Posted by: MIke | November 20, 2007 01:22 PM
Police Dogs and now TASERS. We do not need these in a rural town like Gilford.
I'll bet that the live demo of the TASER on the volunteer person as shown in the paper was without bias. What happens when a elderly person or someone with a health condition gets TASER'd? Why didn't they demo that? This is a law-suit just waiting to happen.
Posted by: Phil | December 22, 2007 07:43 PM