Things They Should Invent: stop tasing people as part of training

Often much is made of the fact that police officers and taser salespeople get tased as part of their training.

I think this is a shitty idea and they should stop it immediately.

Why? Because the person being tased might live.

Stick with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

Every once in a while people die from being tased, and we aren't sure exactly why. They don't know when they tase a person whether they'll die or not. So a taser isn't actually a safe stun gun, it isn't like setting your phaser to stun, it's a randomly lethal weapon. Believe me, if they were reliable never-lethal stun guns, I'd have one in my night table and one in my purse - whether they were legal or not!

If you've never been tased, you appreciate how they're randomly lethal, because you have no idea whether you'd survive a tasing or not (and what you'd experience while dying). But if you've been tased and then walked away with nothing more than a bit of a headache (or whatever), then you're more likely to think "Hey, it's no big deal! I've survived it myself!"