Good - and very sobering - article

[Bill Glasheen]

I was reading in the Wall Street Journal (online) today about protests after the Iran election. Apparently Ahmadinejad won by a landslide, or so the mullahs tell us. And now as the country erupts in protest, the government has shut down cell phone service, the BBC, the internet, etc., etc.

Yea, that's democracy for you.

Meanwhile, the following line piqued my interest.

As night descended on Tehran, supporters of main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with anti-riot police and plain-clothed militia. The city resembled a military zone as thousands of Special Forces units and anti-riot police stormed streets waving their electric batons and hitting rioters and onlookers.

Ooo... Electric batons. Sounds like a kinky martial artist's dream. But it's just another version of the Taser-type devices.



I did a little more research on this, and found a very good online article from the University of Oklahoma police site. It's worth a read from beginning to end.

Personal Safety Devices. Do these gadgets really work?

If Rory comes online, I'm sure he can attest to having "tased" himself for jollies just to see if the thing actually worked. Like many "foo foo" martial things (like "no touch" knockouts), they work really well if your recipient is properly coached.

When these devices first came on the market, some police officers and others were even video-taped in demonstrations where the stun guns supposedly "knocked them down" — carefully staged demonstrations where the person being "stunned" had been set up -hyped- into thinking they were going to be knocked down.

Through lengthy discussion of how it was going to feel, signing liability waivers, placing cushions/mats below where they would surely fall, placing strong men on either side to catch them before they hit the ground, and other psychological tricks to "prep" them into truly believing they were going to be physically knocked off their feet.

Well, if you believe something strongly enough, it may happen. Unfortunately, your attacker will probably not be so carefully prepped into believing that your stun gun is going to have the desired effect...

Same story; different venue.

Some devices do work in special circumstances such as those that fire projectiles that penetrate the skin and deliver the charge from a distance. Unfortunately you and I aren't going to get our hands on such a thing.

Meanwhile, remember this about these electric devices.

Our self defense instructors have attended CLEET training where we've repeatedly "zapped" each other with various brands and models of "stun guns". The effects?

Being "zapped" by a stun gun just made us MAD!

And that's very likely what will happen if you use a stun gun on an assailant...just make them very mad.

We've been zapped on bare skin and through clothes. We've been zapped on various body parts, including on the neck at the base of the skull. We've been zapped for a second, and for five seconds, and for longer.

We've seen a defensive tactics instructor zapped on bare skin on the neck, continuously, for over a minute, with the most powerful "stun gun" the state training center could find, while fighting an opponent. The effect? It made him EXTREMELY ANGRY. It actually caused him to fight harder because of the pain.

Hmm... How about Plan B?

By the way, this site had something really good (and wise) to say about martial arts. And it's very much in line with what George has been preaching all along lately. I'll leave you with that quote.

- Bill

There are a nearly infinite variety of martial arts which may be learned. Some are intended for defense while others are primarily offensive. Every martial art requires physical dexterity, conditioning, very substantial mental discipline, and lots of practice. To think that you can take a few lessons and pick up a few pointers and be ready to defend yourself is delusional. While martial arts techniques certainly do enable a diminutive individual to defeat a larger, stronger person, success is dependent upon proper execution; difficult in the practice environment and often impossible under conditions encountered in everyday activities.

We encourage participation in martial arts; they're good for you mentally and physically, and constitute outstanding exercise even if you never utilize the techniques. But we discourage the "ordinary person" from relying upon martial arts for personal safety and defense.

The short classes OUPD teaches in "self-defense" are focused almost exclusively on "escape and evade" tactics and discourage in the strongest terms any confrontation with or retaliation upon an attacker. The best defense if attacked is to draw public attention to the occurrence. The best defense prior to attack is to develop sound personal security habits, maintain awareness, and project an appearance of confidence.

[Bill Glasheen]

Our self defense instructors have attended CLEET training where we've repeatedly "zapped" each other with various brands and models of "stun guns". The effects?

Being "zapped" by a stun gun just made us MAD!

And that's very likely what will happen if you use a stun gun on an assailant...just make them very mad.

I got to thinking more about this, and the martial implications.

We (Uechi Ryu practitioners) spend a good deal of time rubbing and striking each other's forearms (kote-kitae) and legs (ashi-kitae). Why? Presumably if we don't do that, bad things could happen.

To me personally, the greatest benefit of the conditioning isn't so much that we can tolerate some blows on the street, but rather than we can condition ourselves so that we're capable of countless hours of partner work in the dojo. If we're not getting hurt and/or we actually learn to crave the contact (endorphin rush), then that's lots of time to gain experience working with a real human.

There are actually two POTENTIAL mechanisms that these weapons work.

1) Pain and pain avoidance. "Don't tase me, man! Aaarrrggghhh!!!!" An officer or a person defending themselves makes their desire known. If the other party doesn't comply, the Skinner shock is administered.

We all know the limits of pain as a weapon. Conversely pain has its uses in situations where senses are intact and the will to resist isn't that strong (or the desire not to get injured is).

2) Compromising structural integrity. Presumably the shock is capable of incapacitating certain muscle groups - at least for a very brief period of time. To the extent one is able to break skin resistance and get key muscles to contract, one could toy with an opponent by making him/her contort in various postures. But that of course would require a good knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Your average Joe isn't going to know that, unless taught formulaic "If, this, do that." procedures. And blindly following formulas has its issues.

So.... Is it really "very likely" that all you'll do is make the bad guy "MAD"? That's what they say. Is their stochastic assessment spot on? Well... it's clear to me that the responses are going to be in a spectrum, and we need more data to know the reality vs. a range of opponents of various abilities and degrees of determination.

Perhaps the best answer to "Does it work?" is "It depends."

What should be clear to a martial artist is that ANY of these devices are close-range weapons. Even the nifty electric baton - a stick with an attitude - is something used only when danger is within THEIR striking distance.

So is it responsible to sell these devices to people with no training and lead them to believe they are safer? Probably not. If anything, it's kind of like setting out those Japanese beetle traps (with the pheromone lure). You get to bag a lot of bugs, but you also attract a lot of bugs who find another bug (and your plants) before they find your bag. In this case a person might invite harm in closer in order to give that zap. So great, you zapped a bad guy. Now what? Oops... Now he's REALLY close.

However... What about the trained LEO and/or martial artist? Would it be cool to have a pair of these and treat them like escrima sticks with an attitude? Oh the fun we could have...

So then... Would we prepare ourselves for dojo battle by spending a good amount of time with a little back-and-forth zappy-kitae?

- Bill

[RA Miller]

Bill-
X26 Taser is a whole different animal than the old 'stun guns'. Thought I described taking the hit here a long time ago.

On me- brain stopping pain. I can and have run on a broken fibula, recovered from frostbite in my hands and had a fingernail melted through. Up until the Taser those were the three worst pains I had ever felt. Taser blew them out of the water. I was unable to think for the first three seconds of the five second ride. I'm usually pretty good with pain and I was planning to shrug it off and pull the wires. I couldn't move (but I didn't scream, which is better than most).

I've used it on one extreme ED. The guy was trying to drive his own head through a brick wall to go to heaven. With the damage he was doing to himself, with no measurable effect, going hand to hand or using impact weapons probably would have killed him before he stopped. OC had already been tried and he didn't even shut his eyes, no effect whatsoever. The taser stopped him, literally. As long as the taser was cycling, he couldn't move. The second it stopped he would start banging his head on the cement. It took six cycles- thirty seconds- to get him cuffed and his head protected.

There have been people who showed no effect to Tasers- they are rare, though and I would say that the Taser has significantly more one-shot-stops than a handgun. Most, interestingly enough, were obese.

We used to play with the old Novas and other stun guns too. Taser is different.

Rory

[Van Canna]

There have been people who showed no effect to Tasers- they are rare, though and I would say that the Taser has significantly more one-shot-stops than a handgun. Most, interestingly enough, were obese.

[Bill Glasheen]

That statement is ambiguous. Are obese people more likely to show no effect to Tasers, or are obese people more likely to experience a one-shot-stop?

FWIW, my suspicion is that the fat layer provides high resistance to the electrical current, making it more difficult for a significant amount of the charge to make it to nerve and muscle.

QUOTE: I would say that the Taser has significantly more one-shot-stops than a handgun.

Very nicely stated. Absolute statements in fighting and martial arts bother me. We all know that the real world is nuanced. Making a claim relative to a baseline we know (the one-shot-stop percentage of a handgun) is much more useful than absolute language in either direction.

Only problem is the use of the typical hand unit sold to civilians. One has to get way too close for comfort to deply. The electrodes fired from a distance provide the best approach to disabling a difficult subject.

- Bill