What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?
First off, what's wrong with manufacturing weapons? The reality of the world today is that weapons are still necessary. In fact it's highly unlikely that weapons will ever be completely unnecessary.
Second, since when does the act of not manufacturing weapons become an excuse for immoral behaviour? I'm pretty sure if I came home and said "Hey Hon, I banged some hookers on my way home but at least I didn't manufacture any weapons!" I'd still end up homeless.
A 12 volt car battery is capable of delivering thousands of amps if it is shorted through a small resistance. Hypothetically, if you took a steel wrench and shorted the contacts, the wrench would melt from the huge current. However, 12 volts is not enough to penetrate your skin, so if you grasp the battery terminals with your hands nothing will happen.
Oh, it's not hypothetical. When I was being taught how to change a battery the wrench I was using came in contact with both the battery terminals and the side of the vehicle (what can I say, I was a clumsy kid). There was a bright spark, a loud noise, and the wrench was jerked out of my hands. Both the wrench and the vehicle had a small concave spot on them where they were touching.
Reasonable doubt doesn't apply in a civil case. The standard, IIRC, is a "preponderance of the evidence"; that is, "upon looking at the evidence, is the most likely conclusion that the defendant is liable." Reasonable doubt only applies in criminal trials. It's how OJ was "not guilty" in criminal court but still found responsible for causing the deaths in civil court.
People sharing hundreds of songs via the Internet is clearly illegal and they should expect consequences if they lose the gamble that no one will catch them.
The biggest problem with the RIAA gambit is that the consequences are so far out of line with the actual damages that the risk of fighting is too high to take. This tends to both strongly encourage people to settle immediately (a $3K settlement, while steep, is a far cry from potentially hundreds of thousands of $), and inflame people against the RIAA.
The basic unfairness is that the law allows the RIAA to assume that each song shared replaces a certain number of songs sold. This is simply untrue. I think this basic fact is the real reason that people just don't see why it's wrong to share songs - they know that the majority of the ones they downloaded they weren't going to buy anyhow. File-sharing is a lot like the radio, but the way people want the radio to be.
IMO, the RIAA would be a lot better served by finding out what people really want from digital media. I'm pretty sure that they'll soon find out that free-as-in-beer is low enough on the priorities list that if they address the issues above it, people will pay for it. ITMS, I think, is proving this point.
And, finally, the RIAA members themselves have helped create this situation by creating a marketing system that exists solely on the basis of disposable content. They create acts from whole cloth, promote the crap out of them, rake in as much cash as they can, then dump them as soon as sales start to fall. They happily buy into a radio system that overplays "singles" in the hopes of promoting some CD sales, but ends up creating tunes that are popular for a few months and despised for years to come.
Actually the article says that stab resistance is better than standard armor.
That means it's better than standard Kevlar armour, which has very poor stab resistance. Body armour meant to protect against both bullets and blades is reinforced with hard plates over the "problem" areas.
not getting into situations where it breaks down to a knife fight is probably the best defense against that.
Wow, your brilliance is unmatched - really! Commanders, just tell your soldiers "You don't need guns, ammo, armour, none of that crap - here's how it works: Just don't get into a situation where it'll come down to a fight! Right, off you go!"
The whole idea of body armour is to protect against an inevitable danger. People who really need it don't have a choice about avoiding a situation where they may have to have a knife fight, or gun fight, or whatever. Their job or situation puts them squarely in the path of danger.
The OS doesn't support the drivers, the drivers support the OS. Generally if the manufacturer doesn't write a driver for a particular piece of hardware, it's up to a coder or coders who have this hardware to do it because they want to.
For most consumer level PC hardware, it's suicidal not to release a driver that supports Windows, so of course Windows "supports" most hardware. Linux, for most of these guys, is an afterthought.
What Langa doesn't get is that the millions of people - consumers, institutions, corporations - that use Linux know about the problems with hardware support, and they use Linux anyhow.
If you "sell" me something and then tell me I can only use it a certain way, then you haven't "sold" it to me. You've leased it to me, or rented it.
When I buy a CD, I buy a copy of the content on the CD for my personal use - I can make whatever private use of it I wish. Copyright law says what I cannot do with the content, and I *can* loan my CD to a friend. I *can* make a backup copy. I *can* rip the contents to mp3 for use on my digital devices. I *can* make a mix-tape of the CDs I have in my collection. I *cannot* make copies of the CD for distribution. I *cannot* play the CD in public for others. I *cannot* use the content on the CD to make a "derivative work"*.
*Unless that derivative work falls under some limited "fair use" exceptions, such as satire.
Rightsholders not only want to exercise their rights, but also forbid you from exercising yours.
That is the true heart of the problem, and the protest. Personally I've got far more paid-for content than not, and I'm very willing to pay for content as long as I can make full use of it.
However, I am not going to shell out my cash for content I can only use at home, on a Tuesday, if it's sunny, and I can get my DRM-enabled software to work. Furthermore I'm unwilling to repeatedly pay for content every time the distribution method changes - ie: from tape to CD, from VHS to DVD, etc. I want to be able to make the choice to "upgrade" my media based on the benefits of the media or the media delivery system. There are real benefits to be had by buying my movie collection as DVDs, but I want to be able to make that choice not have that choice forced on me.
If DRM becomes ubiquitous then you can guarantee that content will be "leased" and not sold. The sale model will be deprecated and all your content will be rented on a schedule dictated purely by the rightsholders.
DRM means you say goodbye to the general purpose computing machine. It means you say goodbye to home-brew software, homebew hardware, homebrew content creation - all that creative endeavour becomes illegal, or impossible. No more listening to CDs of your friends garage band - they can't afford a key to "sign" their content, and your CD player won't play unsigned content, and the DMCA says you can't hack it so you can.
I meant that the solution for SCO is to create a new license for their IP to distribute future versions of it under. They have done this, partially, but they are (IMO) erroneously trying to make it retroactive. They are also trying to make their license apply to software not written by them.
The eWeek article has some interesting quotes by Sontag, indicating that he has no clue what the GPL is, what copyright is, and what a license in general is. Sad really.
Sontag: We don't have to knock out the GPL for us to succeed on the copyright issue. The GPL itself supports, in a lot of ways, our positions. Section 0 of the GPL states that the legit copyright holder has to place a notice assigning the copyright over to the GPL.
All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying here, 'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.' The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL. You can't contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong position based on the GPL.
The GPL is a license under which copyrighted material can be used by others, it is not an entity to which copyright can be assigned (transferred). Sontag seems to think that the GPL == the FSF, or something along those lines.
It is perfectly possible to "inadvertently" license your copyrighted material to someone else under conditions you don't approve of. The solution is to create a new license to distribute your works under to new people, not to pretend you never did it in the first place.
I also love this part:
Sontag: We feel very covered under the GPL itself, and second, U.S. and international copyright law does not allow for inadvertent assignments of copyrighted material; the copyright holder must make an explicit assignment, typically in writing, in a contract. If that's the strongest argument that's out there that SCO has a big problem here, that's a molehill as far as we're concerned.
This crap is right out of Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Notice of Removal. Novell argues that US Copyright law requires very strict wording to assign copyright, and it does. Unfortunately for this gang of thieves, the GPL is not an entity copyright can be assigned to.
You'll be sure to tell those comforting words to the guys starving widow and children won't you.
Have you known any actual criminals? I have. I even liked them too, in a not-too-close-but-friendly kind of way. As a rough generality, these aren't your imaginary Robin Hood type criminals who are comitting crime because they have no choise. They're just fuckups, layabouts, and losers. They find it easier to do nothing most of the time (except for drugs, they do those pretty much all the time), and commit crime for a quick buck here and there when the welfare gets low.
As another generality, they don't often support their numerous sexual partnes and offspring.
As yet another generality, these guys aren't going to willingly enter a dwelling in which the occupants are home.
I don't say the above to demean their existance as human beings, but only to clarify exactly who we're talking about here.
The kind of criminal that knowingly enters a dwelling in which the occupants are home are either trying to sneak in and get away with it, or they are outright attempting a home invasion. These guys are far more dangerous because they expect an encounter with the homeowner, and are prepared to deal with it. Remember, they are not going to get caught, and they aren't going to let something like your safety and welfare get in the way of either their crime or their getaway.
In the case of the latter criminals, their lives ain't worth squat. In the case of the former, actually encountering them during a burglary is vanishingly rare.
I'm sorry but I find you views on the price of a human life, regardless of who they are or what they are doing absolutely disgusting.
So, then, what should I do when I encounter a burglar in my home at night? Pack all my shit up for him, so as to prevent him from hurting his little back? Fuck that, let him run for his life.
No, I'm not a mugger. I just don't like fostering beliefs that aren't true, and fighting is a passion of mine.
The thing is to try to use the element of surprise provided by the sudden pain to use other self-defense maneuvers
Excellent advice, but why waste time with a Taser to do it?
Tasers are the same size and general shape as a Glock 9mm, so similar in fact that Officers have shot suspects with their duty weapons thinking they were handling a Taser M26. Thus concealability is an issue, as is accessibility.
Furthermore there is the fact that many courts will nevertheless consider a Taser a potentially lethal weapon in its use by civilians, and thus require the same consideration to use as if you were using a gun. Therefore, if it's legal to do so, it's smarter to just carry a gun.
Lastly, your life is at risk in a common mugging. If the criminal says "Give me your fucking iPod" and you say "No", he's not going to just say "Right then" and bugger off.
There are two keys on a keyboard used to delete characters, the Delete key - which on some UNIXes (maybe all?) is translated to a....hmmm, can't remember which ctrl-key, anywhoo, the backspace character is ^H. The caret stands for the ctrl key.
The relevance of this is that on some terminals ^H would delete and on some terminals Delete would delete, and often the character ^H would show up as exactly that on terminals that didn't recognize backspace. So instead of seeing the corrected word, one would see the screw^H^H^H^H^Hmessed up one.
The alternative, that intruders leave their rights at the door, is essentially that if someone breaks in, you have the right to torture them to death.
First of all if someone breaks in, and I'm home, for my own safety I'm going to assume that they mean me grievious bodily harm; to do otherwise would be imprudent.
Second, I really don't see a downside to burglars facing the very real possibility of death for doing nothing more than breaking in while a homeowner is home.
That's exactly my point. Why mess around with a device like a Taser, which in many cases is regulated as harshly as a firearm, when you can just use a firearm instead?
Less-than-lethal force is for law enforcement only, it has no place at all in civilian self-defence. If your life is really in danger, defend it with lethal force.
I'm not saying Tasers don't work, I'm saying that they work only in the right context - self-defence by an individual is not that context.
Getting a Taser to work properly requires that both probes get a good seat in the subject. A common problem is that only one gets in, or that both get in, but one falls out. In the article you sent me the Officer is clearly dressed only in a light, tight, shirt to ensure a good contact by the Taser probes. That's fine for a demo, but that's not how things go on the street. Now imagine him in loose clothing, layered, telling you to give him the fucking iPod right fucking now and tell me you're willing to bet your life on something as fragile as a Taser.
Here's a thread that illustrates what I'm talking about.
I'm completely willing to give this a shot. If I could convince the PD here to do it, I'd go get it done in a heartbeat. Barring that, if you want to shoot me with a Taser, let me know. Like I said in a previous post, I can get to Washington State pretty easy - maybe down to Oregon, or over to Idaho.
I used to think a lot of things were true that weren't. Popular media likes to hype crap like Stun Guns, but the reality is far different.
I'm more than willing to have you shock me with the commercially available stun gun of your choice to prove my point; in fact, I'd consider it a valuable training opportunity.
Anecdotal evidence says otherwise. I've talked to cops that use them, and have had them used on themselves, and the comments are that it hurts - not that it paralyzes. Of the commonly available "stun" weapons, the Tazer is indeed the best, but they aren't reliable stoppers.
I've talked to so many people who have been zapped from everything from garden variety stun guns like gramma had in "Die Hard II" to the much ballyhooed Myotron
and the common denominator is that they hurt.
I'd personally be more than willing to get "stunned" by any available electrical "paralysis" garbage on the market, and I'd be willing to bet that I could close in on the stunner and clinch them while they stun me. I'd be willing to be that I could fully demonstrate ability and motive to continue an assault, and prove that if I were an assailant the "stun gun" would be a meaningless tool for self-defence. really disabling the nervous system is also capable of stopping the heart and killing the attacker. Thus, you might as well use a weapon that is designed to do just that.
I can get to Washington State, so if anyone wants to take me up on this you provide the stun weapons and I'll provide the flesh.
Tazers and other "stun guns" are a waste of time and complete garbage for civilian self-defence. They work for cops because cops have batons, pepper spray, guns and backup to go along with them.
My understanding is that they work mainly with pain compliance (despite what the dreck^H^H^H^H^Hmarketting literature says), and pain compliance is not a tool I would choose to use on a mugger. Drunk Uncle Bob, sure.
Slashdot Mirror
What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?
First off, what's wrong with manufacturing weapons? The reality of the world today is that weapons are still necessary. In fact it's highly unlikely that weapons will ever be completely unnecessary.
Second, since when does the act of not manufacturing weapons become an excuse for immoral behaviour? I'm pretty sure if I came home and said "Hey Hon, I banged some hookers on my way home but at least I didn't manufacture any weapons!" I'd still end up homeless.
What an assinine comment, insightful my ass.
Pierre
Sure now you tell me!
Pierre
A 12 volt car battery is capable of delivering thousands of amps if it is shorted through a small resistance. Hypothetically, if you took a steel wrench and shorted the contacts, the wrench would melt from the huge current. However, 12 volts is not enough to penetrate your skin, so if you grasp the battery terminals with your hands nothing will happen.
Oh, it's not hypothetical. When I was being taught how to change a battery the wrench I was using came in contact with both the battery terminals and the side of the vehicle (what can I say, I was a clumsy kid). There was a bright spark, a loud noise, and the wrench was jerked out of my hands. Both the wrench and the vehicle had a small concave spot on them where they were touching.
I haven't changed a battery since.
Pierre
Reasonable doubt doesn't apply in a civil case. The standard, IIRC, is a "preponderance of the evidence"; that is, "upon looking at the evidence, is the most likely conclusion that the defendant is liable." Reasonable doubt only applies in criminal trials. It's how OJ was "not guilty" in criminal court but still found responsible for causing the deaths in civil court.
Pierre
People sharing hundreds of songs via the Internet is clearly illegal and they should expect consequences if they lose the gamble that no one will catch them.
The biggest problem with the RIAA gambit is that the consequences are so far out of line with the actual damages that the risk of fighting is too high to take. This tends to both strongly encourage people to settle immediately (a $3K settlement, while steep, is a far cry from potentially hundreds of thousands of $), and inflame people against the RIAA.
The basic unfairness is that the law allows the RIAA to assume that each song shared replaces a certain number of songs sold. This is simply untrue. I think this basic fact is the real reason that people just don't see why it's wrong to share songs - they know that the majority of the ones they downloaded they weren't going to buy anyhow. File-sharing is a lot like the radio, but the way people want the radio to be.
IMO, the RIAA would be a lot better served by finding out what people really want from digital media. I'm pretty sure that they'll soon find out that free-as-in-beer is low enough on the priorities list that if they address the issues above it, people will pay for it. ITMS, I think, is proving this point.
And, finally, the RIAA members themselves have helped create this situation by creating a marketing system that exists solely on the basis of disposable content. They create acts from whole cloth, promote the crap out of them, rake in as much cash as they can, then dump them as soon as sales start to fall. They happily buy into a radio system that overplays "singles" in the hopes of promoting some CD sales, but ends up creating tunes that are popular for a few months and despised for years to come.
Pierre
Actually the article says that stab resistance is better than standard armor.
That means it's better than standard Kevlar armour, which has very poor stab resistance. Body armour meant to protect against both bullets and blades is reinforced with hard plates over the "problem" areas.
Pierre
not getting into situations where it breaks down to a knife fight is probably the best defense against that.
Wow, your brilliance is unmatched - really! Commanders, just tell your soldiers "You don't need guns, ammo, armour, none of that crap - here's how it works: Just don't get into a situation where it'll come down to a fight! Right, off you go!"
The whole idea of body armour is to protect against an inevitable danger. People who really need it don't have a choice about avoiding a situation where they may have to have a knife fight, or gun fight, or whatever. Their job or situation puts them squarely in the path of danger.
Pierre
The OS doesn't support the drivers, the drivers support the OS. Generally if the manufacturer doesn't write a driver for a particular piece of hardware, it's up to a coder or coders who have this hardware to do it because they want to.
For most consumer level PC hardware, it's suicidal not to release a driver that supports Windows, so of course Windows "supports" most hardware. Linux, for most of these guys, is an afterthought.
What Langa doesn't get is that the millions of people - consumers, institutions, corporations - that use Linux know about the problems with hardware support, and they use Linux anyhow.
Pierre
If you "sell" me something and then tell me I can only use it a certain way, then you haven't "sold" it to me. You've leased it to me, or rented it.
When I buy a CD, I buy a copy of the content on the CD for my personal use - I can make whatever private use of it I wish. Copyright law says what I cannot do with the content, and I *can* loan my CD to a friend. I *can* make a backup copy. I *can* rip the contents to mp3 for use on my digital devices. I *can* make a mix-tape of the CDs I have in my collection. I *cannot* make copies of the CD for distribution. I *cannot* play the CD in public for others. I *cannot* use the content on the CD to make a "derivative work"*.
*Unless that derivative work falls under some limited "fair use" exceptions, such as satire.
Pierre
Rightsholders not only want to exercise their rights, but also forbid you from exercising yours.
That is the true heart of the problem, and the protest. Personally I've got far more paid-for content than not, and I'm very willing to pay for content as long as I can make full use of it.
However, I am not going to shell out my cash for content I can only use at home, on a Tuesday, if it's sunny, and I can get my DRM-enabled software to work. Furthermore I'm unwilling to repeatedly pay for content every time the distribution method changes - ie: from tape to CD, from VHS to DVD, etc. I want to be able to make the choice to "upgrade" my media based on the benefits of the media or the media delivery system. There are real benefits to be had by buying my movie collection as DVDs, but I want to be able to make that choice not have that choice forced on me.
If DRM becomes ubiquitous then you can guarantee that content will be "leased" and not sold. The sale model will be deprecated and all your content will be rented on a schedule dictated purely by the rightsholders.
DRM means you say goodbye to the general purpose computing machine. It means you say goodbye to home-brew software, homebew hardware, homebrew content creation - all that creative endeavour becomes illegal, or impossible. No more listening to CDs of your friends garage band - they can't afford a key to "sign" their content, and your CD player won't play unsigned content, and the DMCA says you can't hack it so you can.
Fuck that.
Pierre
I meant that the solution for SCO is to create a new license for their IP to distribute future versions of it under. They have done this, partially, but they are (IMO) erroneously trying to make it retroactive. They are also trying to make their license apply to software not written by them.
Pierre
The eWeek article has some interesting quotes by Sontag, indicating that he has no clue what the GPL is, what copyright is, and what a license in general is. Sad really.
Sontag: We don't have to knock out the GPL for us to succeed on the copyright issue. The GPL itself supports, in a lot of ways, our positions. Section 0 of the GPL states that the legit copyright holder has to place a notice assigning the copyright over to the GPL. All these contributions of our IP did not have an assignment by SCO saying here, 'We assign these copyrights to the GPL.' The fact that we participated with Linux does not mean that we inadvertently contributed our code to the GPL. You can't contribute inadvertently to Linux. We feel we have a very strong position based on the GPL.
The GPL is a license under which copyrighted material can be used by others, it is not an entity to which copyright can be assigned (transferred). Sontag seems to think that the GPL == the FSF, or something along those lines.
It is perfectly possible to "inadvertently" license your copyrighted material to someone else under conditions you don't approve of. The solution is to create a new license to distribute your works under to new people, not to pretend you never did it in the first place.
I also love this part:
Sontag: We feel very covered under the GPL itself, and second, U.S. and international copyright law does not allow for inadvertent assignments of copyrighted material; the copyright holder must make an explicit assignment, typically in writing, in a contract. If that's the strongest argument that's out there that SCO has a big problem here, that's a molehill as far as we're concerned.
This crap is right out of Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Notice of Removal. Novell argues that US Copyright law requires very strict wording to assign copyright, and it does. Unfortunately for this gang of thieves, the GPL is not an entity copyright can be assigned to.
Pierre
You'll be sure to tell those comforting words to the guys starving widow and children won't you.
Have you known any actual criminals? I have. I even liked them too, in a not-too-close-but-friendly kind of way. As a rough generality, these aren't your imaginary Robin Hood type criminals who are comitting crime because they have no choise. They're just fuckups, layabouts, and losers. They find it easier to do nothing most of the time (except for drugs, they do those pretty much all the time), and commit crime for a quick buck here and there when the welfare gets low.
As another generality, they don't often support their numerous sexual partnes and offspring.
As yet another generality, these guys aren't going to willingly enter a dwelling in which the occupants are home.
I don't say the above to demean their existance as human beings, but only to clarify exactly who we're talking about here.
The kind of criminal that knowingly enters a dwelling in which the occupants are home are either trying to sneak in and get away with it, or they are outright attempting a home invasion. These guys are far more dangerous because they expect an encounter with the homeowner, and are prepared to deal with it. Remember, they are not going to get caught, and they aren't going to let something like your safety and welfare get in the way of either their crime or their getaway.
In the case of the latter criminals, their lives ain't worth squat. In the case of the former, actually encountering them during a burglary is vanishingly rare.
I'm sorry but I find you views on the price of a human life, regardless of who they are or what they are doing absolutely disgusting.
So, then, what should I do when I encounter a burglar in my home at night? Pack all my shit up for him, so as to prevent him from hurting his little back? Fuck that, let him run for his life.
Pierre
what if you jump out of bed, interupt them and they start to run away?
How do I know that they're running away and not running to get reinforcements?
Can you shoot them in the back?
I'm Canadian, so the answer is that practically, no I can't.
I hope not or your laws consider property more important than human life.
IMO the life of someone willing to enter the dwelling of another, for the purpose of robbing them, while they are home, is not worth anything.
Pierre
Why should we care? Are you a mugger?
No, I'm not a mugger. I just don't like fostering beliefs that aren't true, and fighting is a passion of mine.
The thing is to try to use the element of surprise provided by the sudden pain to use other self-defense maneuvers
Excellent advice, but why waste time with a Taser to do it?
Tasers are the same size and general shape as a Glock 9mm, so similar in fact that Officers have shot suspects with their duty weapons thinking they were handling a Taser M26. Thus concealability is an issue, as is accessibility.
Furthermore there is the fact that many courts will nevertheless consider a Taser a potentially lethal weapon in its use by civilians, and thus require the same consideration to use as if you were using a gun. Therefore, if it's legal to do so, it's smarter to just carry a gun.
Lastly, your life is at risk in a common mugging. If the criminal says "Give me your fucking iPod" and you say "No", he's not going to just say "Right then" and bugger off.
Pierre
No, it's not even close.
Pierre
It's a Usenet thing.
....hmmm, can't remember which ctrl-key, anywhoo, the backspace character is ^H. The caret stands for the ctrl key.
There are two keys on a keyboard used to delete characters, the Delete key - which on some UNIXes (maybe all?) is translated to a
The relevance of this is that on some terminals ^H would delete and on some terminals Delete would delete, and often the character ^H would show up as exactly that on terminals that didn't recognize backspace. So instead of seeing the corrected word, one would see the screw^H^H^H^H^Hmessed up one.
HTH,
Pierre
Stun guns used to work that way, but newer ones definitely do not.
They all say that, but very few actually prove it. The Taser might do this, if everything goes right for the user, but it might not.
Sending me to the Taser site for "proof" isn't exactly convincing, either.
Pierre
The alternative, that intruders leave their rights at the door, is essentially that if someone breaks in, you have the right to torture them to death. First of all if someone breaks in, and I'm home, for my own safety I'm going to assume that they mean me grievious bodily harm; to do otherwise would be imprudent.
Second, I really don't see a downside to burglars facing the very real possibility of death for doing nothing more than breaking in while a homeowner is home.
Pierre
Vancouver, Canada. phoneyman telus net Shoot me an email and we'll talk. Pierre
That's exactly my point. Why mess around with a device like a Taser, which in many cases is regulated as harshly as a firearm, when you can just use a firearm instead?
Less-than-lethal force is for law enforcement only, it has no place at all in civilian self-defence. If your life is really in danger, defend it with lethal force.
Pierre
Anonymous nothing, my name is right there.
I'm not saying Tasers don't work, I'm saying that they work only in the right context - self-defence by an individual is not that context.
Getting a Taser to work properly requires that both probes get a good seat in the subject. A common problem is that only one gets in, or that both get in, but one falls out. In the article you sent me the Officer is clearly dressed only in a light, tight, shirt to ensure a good contact by the Taser probes. That's fine for a demo, but that's not how things go on the street. Now imagine him in loose clothing, layered, telling you to give him the fucking iPod right fucking now and tell me you're willing to bet your life on something as fragile as a Taser.
Here's a thread that illustrates what I'm talking about.
I'm completely willing to give this a shot. If I could convince the PD here to do it, I'd go get it done in a heartbeat. Barring that, if you want to shoot me with a Taser, let me know. Like I said in a previous post, I can get to Washington State pretty easy - maybe down to Oregon, or over to Idaho.
I used to think a lot of things were true that weren't. Popular media likes to hype crap like Stun Guns, but the reality is far different.
Pierre
Are you speaking from experience?
I'm more than willing to have you shock me with the commercially available stun gun of your choice to prove my point; in fact, I'd consider it a valuable training opportunity.
Pierre
Anecdotal evidence says otherwise. I've talked to cops that use them, and have had them used on themselves, and the comments are that it hurts - not that it paralyzes. Of the commonly available "stun" weapons, the Tazer is indeed the best, but they aren't reliable stoppers.
I've talked to so many people who have been zapped from everything from garden variety stun guns like gramma had in "Die Hard II" to the much ballyhooed Myotron and the common denominator is that they hurt.
I'd personally be more than willing to get "stunned" by any available electrical "paralysis" garbage on the market, and I'd be willing to bet that I could close in on the stunner and clinch them while they stun me. I'd be willing to be that I could fully demonstrate ability and motive to continue an assault, and prove that if I were an assailant the "stun gun" would be a meaningless tool for self-defence.
really disabling the nervous system is also capable of stopping the heart and killing the attacker. Thus, you might as well use a weapon that is designed to do just that.
I can get to Washington State, so if anyone wants to take me up on this you provide the stun weapons and I'll provide the flesh.
Pierre
Tazers and other "stun guns" are a waste of time and complete garbage for civilian self-defence. They work for cops because cops have batons, pepper spray, guns and backup to go along with them.
My understanding is that they work mainly with pain compliance (despite what the dreck^H^H^H^H^Hmarketting literature says), and pain compliance is not a tool I would choose to use on a mugger. Drunk Uncle Bob, sure.
Pierre