Something I’ve been following for a few years now is the increased usage of Tasers by police officers against unarmed, and at times totally innocent civilians. This disturbing trend has lead to deaths. This story involved a police officer killing an unarmed, mentally ill man with a taser, who goes on to kill himself.
People are being tased at traffic stops. In University Libraries, and political forums.
Though some of these events have had consequences for the authorities, in general they don’t. Unfortunately this is a DAILY event, all over the country, and authorities are protected by the Patriot Act.
The implications are terrifying to our personal safety and civil rights. Should we really have to fear a taser to the gut if we disagree with a police officer at a traffic stop?
There are a few ways we could react to this issue. One, though dangerous, could be to hack, or modify a taser for some subversive purpose. Obviously we would have to do a lot of research to know what we were doing, but I like the concept hypothetically. The act of "Tasing" is a strange performative concept that could be explored in myriad ways. The whole notion of Non-Lethal weapons is interesting too.
It could go a lot of different ways. What do you guys think?
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