UK kiddies cop a righteous tasering
LibDems decry increase in electro-justice
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The Liberal Democrats are a tad worried that the UK is sliding inexorably into a US-style law enforcement pit where the merest hint of insurrection is countered by a robust tasering - even if it means delivering electro-justice to wide-eyed kiddies.
According to shock figures "revealed in a Parliamentary answer", the facts are these:
- Police in England and Wales fired 50,000 volt Taser guns at children 28 times between January 2007 and August 2008
- Tasers were used on under-18s 11 times in 2007 and 17 times in the first eight months of 2008
- If that rate were to continue, the use of Tasers on children would have doubled between 2007 and 2008
- A further 83 children were 'exposed to the use of Taser' in the 20-month period
- In total, 2,222 people were 'exposed to the use of Taser'
The Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne declared:
"Given the grave doubts about the Home Office’s claim that Tasers are not lethal, they should not be used on children. Police officers must be able to protect themselves, but these weapons have killed more than 300 people in the United States and should not be issued to untrained officers.
"We need an in-depth inquiry into the use of Tasers before they become commonplace on British streets. We must not slide down a slippery slope towards fully-armed, US-style policing."
Yeah, well he would say that, wouldn't he? This is the problem with the wishy-washy, namby-pamby pinko burghers of Middle England - they've never had their grandad - awarded the Victoria Cross for single-handedly taking out a Japanese machine gun nest in Burma armed with nothing more than a tightly-rolled copy of the Daily Mail - flattened by a fridge thrown from a sink estate tower block so that feral yoof high on contact adhesive and alcopops could relieve him of his 56p pension.
What these kids need is a solid tasering, a lick o' the cat and a touch of the birch followed by an isolation cell in borstal and a couple of years in the army. Mark my words: It's the only language they understand. ®
COMMENTS
Taser the parents
That should get them to keep their brats in line!
Police 2.0
What is everybody smoking these days?? Stabbings etc have been going on since the dawn of time, but just because there are a few Daily Mail stories exclaiming that every kid in Britain carries a knife, smokes drugs and shots people we now have the Police tooled up, zapping people.
Every taser should be fitted with a camera and every discharge should be logged and open for review on PoliceTube.
Then we vote on the clips and those where the cop blatantly popped one off because he had his other hand full with a burger should be sacked.
Discuss.....
@Boris The Cockroach
"Nothing turns a left wing liberal into a reactionary conservative faster than having his house burgled"
Maybe, maybe not, but then surely nothing turns a reactionary conservative into a cautious left wing liberal faster than having a member of your family shot dead on the tube even though they were wholly innocent? Or being baton-charged in a tunnel by riot police for the crime of walking down the street peacefully? Or being arrested with pre-staged video and photographs being "leaked" immediately to the media with much trumpeting/front-page news and use of words like anti-terrorist police, and terrorism, terror, blah, and then subsequently being released three days later with no charge whatsoever, and of course no press; see the nine men arrested on the Viva Palestina convoy in the North West. It works both ways unfortunately, depends which blunt end you happen to be impaled upon.
But riddle me this: How will tazering yoofs stop them or anyone else burgling your house? How will it achieve some better society? Do you think it will instil respect for the police or resentment? Do you think that after a good tazering a person will become a saint or tool up better next time? If there's something that history teaches us over and over again it's that aggression just leads to more aggression. I'm not saying I know what the answer is and lord knows I've lived in some rough towns in my time and have wanted to clobber a kid or two but the reason I haven't is mainly because unless I killed 'em, they'd be back, with mates, the following week.
The use of tazers will result in an escalation of violence not a decrease in crime or an increase in 'respect' for the fuzz. If the police want more respect they need to put a lot of effort into recovering their credibility, they need to be accountable again but simultaneously supported in doing their job. I think the police are over-zealous because for years they've been catching crims and the courts have been letting them go, so they're frustrated and take it out on anyone they can now - but giving them a new vicious weapon can't be the answer to solve that particualr problem. Can it?
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