Before New Zealand police get too attached to stun guns as the preferred method of controlling "non-cooperatives", perhaps they should take a close look at the taser inquiries underway in Canada

There’s a serious disconnect going on in Canada over the use of tasers. You know, those handy little stunners that kind of kill you without killing you. The kind that New Zealand has just okayed for use by its police. It’s not that they are not effective in stopping people threatening the police. It is perhaps that they are too effective. Fatal even, when it comes to the state of some recipients of the 50,000 electrical volts.

The Roy al Canadian Mounties say they need more tasers per Mountie. Their bosses however have been having second thoughts about the hand-held shock dispensers in terms of associated risks, resulting in a new policy which restricts just who is eligible to be shocked into submission. Like they know at the time of shooting!

This is all set against a story that has gripped Canada since a Polish visitor was zapped five times by RCMP officers at Vancouver airport 18 months ago. A matter of seconds after the volts, and being handcuffed on the ground, he was dead. Thankfully those police actions in those last vital seconds of his life were captured on cell phone camera by a visitor to the airport.

The tale of Robert Dziekanski is harrowing. The guy didn’t speak any English, had arrived from Poland to visit his mother and couldn’t find his way out of the baggage area at the airport. After wandering around for about twelve hours, while his mother waited in the arrivals hall, Dziekanski who was by then dehydrated, then disoriented was soon dead.

A high profile inquiry – the Braidwood inquiry – is currently underway to establish what happened and in particular what role was played by the four Mounties who tasered Dziekanski, but who will not face criminal charges. Every now and then a pinch is required to make sure it is clear this really did happen, and not only that, it happened in an airport in a Western democratic developed country. What's more, it happened at the airport that in less than a year will be welcoming visitors from all around the world for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Let’s hope like hell they can all speak English.

But back to the disconnect.

The RCMP bosses appeared last week before the House of Commons Public Safety Committee (independent of the inquiry) to explain their new taser policy which, for the first time, they’ve acknowledges a high risk of death in certain circumstances. As other police forces around the world – including New Zealand – open up the way for tasers, such an admission is a major wake-up call.

Tasers have been linked to at least 12 deaths in Canada , all along the lines of Mr Dziekanski in that the recipient died shortly after the magical zap.

Canada ’s fairly conservative Globe and Mail newspaper has almost congratulated the RCMP bosses for rethinking the risks of the tasers. While many other papers throughout the country report the excruciating details of the Dziekanski disaster, they also report the call from the police for “more tasers” because they…”save lives”.

Let’s get this right. You need weapons capable of firing 50,000 electrical volts which have been involved in the loss of lives to “save lives”. This is one of the most perverse examples of utilitarianism presented for some time. Justification of the greater good, i.e. possibly saving lives at the expense of the few, takes on an awfully nasty, Big Brother persona when it comes to police control.

If the bosses are saying we recognize a problem in the guise of a high death risk, and the front line guys are saying we need more of these weapons, isn’t it about time the guys in the office spoke to the guy on the horses?

Of even more concern, shouldn’t the guys from the offices in New Zealand talk to the guys in the offices in Canada ?

Here’s the thing. Tasers are supposed to be the new best thing in subduing non-cooperatives. That means it is better than shooting them with a bullet. In theory, that's a seriously good advantage. Trouble is, there's a growing body of evidence to suggest that pumping 50,000 volts of electricity into someone who is already highly agitated may not be the smartest thing in the manual.

In Canada, the impetus for re-evaluation has taken the life of a disorientated non-English speaking voyager who was – and this was obvious to others in the area at the time – going out of his mind trying to get out of the airport. It is also due to the strength of his shattered mother who waited for 12 hours on the other side of the airport wall only to be sent home and find out through the media the next day that her only son was dead.

The police say – quite rightly in only the strictest application of theory – that there is no clear evidence that tasers kill. But y'know, guns sitting all by themselves don’t kill either.

In fact cars don’t kill. But when they are driven by drunk drivers they have the potential.

So, when tasers are fired, how on earth is the RCMP officer, or the Kiwi cop, going to be able to evaluate the potential of the recipient to die as a result of having 50,000 volts of electricity pumped through him or her, not once, not twice, but maybe five time as in the case of Mr Dziekanski?

Isn’t pepper spray safer?

The CBC’s investigative team ran a study which showed that many of the tasers in use actually fired volts above those stipulated by the manufacturer. It does not take Einstein to realize that a weapon firing excessively strong charges could be problematic in any stand-off. The RCMP says it is taking this into consideration in the review of its taser policy.

Amnesty International has said that tasers were linked to 334 deaths in North America alone, not to mention the potential health hazards involved because, let’s remember, people who are tasered are NOT necessarily guilty nor deserving of such arbitrary punishment.

So before the New Zealand police wholeheartedly embrace the tasers which they began using in December, after what was only a perfunctory parliamentary debate,, they should take a second to research the disaster that has triggered (for want of a better verb) the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski.

Being disorientated, dehydrated, scared, not able to speak English and brandishing a desk stapler as a ‘weapon’ should not be a reason to die. Not in Canada, and not in New Zealand either.