Video: Controversial Taser shotgun weapon launched
The controversial Taser range of weapons, used by police forces in the
UK to deliver electric shocks via metal barbs fired from a pistol
shaped device, has been extended to include a shotgun launched option
Alastair Good
Published: 6:25PM BST 02 Jul 2009
The projectile, known as the , the "eXtended Range Electronic
Projectile", or XREP, is a wireless device capable of delivering an
incapacitating electric shock from up to 100 feet away.
The shell can be fired from the sort of shotgun regularly issued to
police forces in the United States, and although such weapons aren=92t
yet employed by British police forces, it wasn=92t long ago that
electric shock devices themselves were the sort of thing that could be
found =91only in America=92.
The safety of electric shock weapons has been questioned in the UK and
the US following a spate of deaths. Amnesty International released a
report in December that claimed that since its introduction in the
United States in 2001, 334 people had died there after being shot with
a Taser gun.
Referring to the launch of the XREP, Amnesty International UK=92s Arms
Programme Director, Oliver Sprague said: =93There are serious risk
implications in the accuracy of firing these weapons. The electric
bullets could easily cause serious injury to the face and head as they
would be shot at a much further range than the conventional Taser.=94
In the UK, questions have been asked over a lack of restraint by
police officers when a video was published last month of a man being
repeatedly shocked with a Taser weapon while lying prone on the ground
in Nottingham.
The Home Office refused to comment on whether they would be adopting
the latest version of the Taser weapon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5724652/Video-Co=
ntroversial-Taser-shotgun-weapon-launched.html
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