This appears to have the makings of another Kryptonite factor episode - remember that one? In a nutshell the world (and his blog) discover that Kryptonite bike locks could be unlocked with nothing more specialist than a Bic ballpoint pen, the big K stuck their heads in the sand and pretty much carried on as usual whilst their prospective customers went elsewhere. Kudos to Kryptonite for wising up eventually and doing the right thing, but, it took a long time.

Anyway a Taser is a rather drastic (although allegedly non-fatal) bit of law enforcement kit. But it appears that the Taser's makers are claiming that it's safe whilst ignoring and apparantly misrepresenting evidence to the contrary.

Amnesty International's report on Taser usage in the US is worrying, given that a little Googling for "taser kills" throws up about 14,100 results, so it's apparently not a rare event. Inflicting a high voltage shock (even a low current one) on members of the public is a potentially risky business (as a qualified electronic engineer I know more than enough about electrickery. Rule 1: don't mess with it). I can see this problem escalating.