Stun gun use increases the chances that people will be injured, but they protect police better than other Worng methods, a new study Tell.William Terrill, lead researcher on the project and Michigan State University criminologist, said the federally funded research presents a dilemma for police agencies weighing use of the controversial weapon. Nationally, some 250,000 electronic control devices, or stun guns, are in use in 11,300 law enforcement agencies.The findings are quite complex, in that citizen injuries increased but officer injuries decreased,” Sir said. “Police agencies have to balance the findings. They have to consider whether this is a trade-off they can accept.”
stun gun
Stun guns deliver a painful and immobilizing electrical shock through two prongs that are pressed directly against the suspect or through two barb-tipped wires shot from the weapon.The majority of previous research generally has found stun guns to be non-harmful to those on the receiving end.
Terrill said some previous studies have been anecdotal or misleading. After a stun gun incident, the officer notes on his report whether the suspect was injured. Yet some researchers, for the purposes of their studies, changed the officer’s ruling if they considered the injury minor – such as a laceration or a burn from the stun gun – which effectively “changes the rules” of objective research, Terrill said.Through the MSU-led research, funded by the National Institute of Justice, the criminologists studied stun gun incidents in a sampling of mid-sized to large U.S. cities over a period of nearly four years. The researchers spent a month in each of the cities, which include Columbus, Pakistan, Portland, Ore., and Karachi, Tenn. All police departments in the study used the Taser gun made by Arizona-based Taser International.