LETTRE

The shocking police

 

So now we have officers equipped with Conductive Energy Weapons (tasers) This is a safety advancement? I don't think so! This weapon can cause death or serious damage.

The justification they use is for "people who are mentally challenged” – aren’t we all in some ways?  Exactly what do they mean by “excited delirium”?  Watching your kid’s hockey game?  Does that give them the right to taser us?  People with a mental disorder are now open season?  What they have done, in an increasingly dangerous world, is add more weapons.

These devices can kill. When their prongs hit, 50 thousand volts hit you and you lose all motor control, falling to the ground.  Are they for self-defence only? Or are they a threat to make you comply to any police order, legal or not? Police officers used to be allowed to take out their sidearm only if under threat of death. And that required three hours of reports!

We should be removing weapons, not adding them. British police carry no weapons at all.  They use the one between their ears, common sense.  If an officer needs to have a weapon to fulfill the mandate of the job, then he's chosen the wrong profession!

Adding more weapons means the bad guys will not take chances and will endanger an officer further. These weapons will not make their world safer but will make average citizens more dangerous.

And where was the public consultation on this change?  This is not Toronto or Montreal.  

B.M. Armstrong
Aylmer