Yes.  Unequivocally, without a doubt, yes.

Tasers are considered a non-lethal option for police officers but in reality they are lethal.  They are killing people who, might be posing a threat, but rarely is it a threat that deserves a death sentence.  I know…I know… not every who is tasered dies.  In fact, the majority of people who are tasered survive with no lasting impression.  However, sometimes people do die.  I guess I’m not comfortable playing Russian Roulette with people’s lives.

I would rather the police officers discharge their gun.  Everyone knows that a gunshot wound can be lethal.  When an officer fires his gun, he does so knowing that it can lead to death.  This, hopefully, means that the officer only uses his gun when the situation is dire enough to warrant the possibility of death.

With a taser, the officer deploys the taser in situation that do not call for lethal force but where death is still a real possibility.  I have difficultly with that logic.  

In one of the most publicized Canadian cases of taser use leading to death, Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was tasered in the Vancouver airport when he picked up a stapler and took a combative stance.  A few days into the inquiry, one of the officers said that he feared for his life when Dziekanski picked up the stapler.  The next day in the Edmonton Journal, a letter to the editor, pointed out that if staplers are so threatening then perhaps we should take away the tasers and hand out staplers instead. 

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