Keep the Tasers until something better comes along

Here's the scenario: Your crackhead neighbour just blasted the last of his bag of rock into his face, he's out of Valium and on day four of hard livin'. As a result, he's built up quite a mean streak toward the rest of humanity so he hits the road.
Now that he has taken his rage to the streets, how would you want the police to respond? A quiet chat in the back of cruiser, maybe even over a cup of warm coffee? That would be nice except he's deep in the throes of cocaine psychosis and a quiet chat isn't really going to get through until they subdue the beast raging inside of him.
By the way, that beast within just drove the car in a somewhat reckless manner through the front doors of the busy local drug store.
Now it's up to the police to decide how best to handle this insane situation. A mad person with apparent problems is tearing up the store and innocent people are at risk. There is no time to reason with the tortured soul because of the shape they are in. What would you do if you were a police officer faced with those circumstances?
I don't think the manufacturers of the Taser, that wonderful piece of electronic wizardry that can make a grown man twitch on the ground like bacon on a hot griddle, ever thought their device would kill people. They tested the human bug zapper countless times before they sold the first unit but I'll bet they never fired it at anyone jacked up on drugs. Or jacked up because they're off their drugs.
The Taser, and other similar devices, were ballyhooed as the next greatest thing in law enforcement and, for a while, it appeared the zappers were going to live up to the hype. It provided officers with an alternative to deadly force and a means to subdue the unruly from a distance, thus minimizing risk to themselves. But then people started dying after getting blasted with 50,000 volts. In most of the deaths, the victims were usually on, or off, something which made them react in an irrational manner. The mix of electricity and psychosis has proven to be deadly in a growing number of cases, including two in Canada in less than a week.
But how is an officer to know if the suspect in front of them is naturally out of touch or lost his head because crystal meth or crack is more important in their life than living? Don't forget, there are innocents involved so you can't just haul out the ol' 9 mm. and pump a few rounds into the suspect so it could well be Taser-time.
In the old days, before crack and meth and all the other weird stuff that came along to really mess people up, an officer might subdue the unruly with a couple of whacks with a nightstick and a night in the drunk tank. But we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto, so until something better comes along, or the devices have been outlawed, I don't have too much trouble with an officer utilizing one in the line of duty as long due consideration has been given to the fact that in recent times more suspects have died at the end of a Taser than an officer's gun.

Peter Heckbert is an editor of the Truro Daily News. He can be reached anytime at pheckbert@trurodaily.com