One of the dangers of giving every cop a taser is that Police will move from deploying tasers when there is a risk to physical safety to using them for simple compliance.
Most NZers are so welded to authority worship, they may have actually just assumed that the Police can pull a taser on anyone who isn’t complying with their directions. That’s not the case, the taser is there to provide officers with a ‘less than lethal’ option to apprehend suspects if those suspects are a threat. That’s a world of difference between a person with a knife who isn’t doing what an Officer is demanding and a belligerent person who has no weapon at all. By giving every Police Officer a taser, that threshold shrinks quickly and sharply.
We simply don’t have the rigorous checks and balances for the current level of Police power, adding tasers will lead to more people with mental health issues and more Maori being tasered.
