Where Are the Stun Guns?

by with 2 Comments Uncategorized

Not tasers. Not rubber bullets. Not tranquilizer darts. Not mace. Not anything we have seen before.

Where is the weapon that can effectively incapacitate its target without lethality? What brilliant mind is developing this revolutionary defense mechanism that could save millions of lives (and earn millions of dollars)?

Let me be specific: this is a weapon that can paralyze, immobilize, or knock unconscious its target without killing them. To my knowledge, it doesn’t exist yet.

If such a weapon existed, here are some of the enormous societal problems it could alleviate:

  1. Home Security. Many families are reluctant to have a gun in their home because of the danger it poses to children or even negligent adults. A stun gun would be a safe home defense tool that would at most knock out an intruder. The worst misuse would be an accidental, unintentional shooting of the self or another; but since no deaths would occur, the damage would be only temporary and not permanently traumatizing to a family or community.
  2. School Safety. Every teacher could have a stun gun without fear of causing unintended mortal damage to someone at the school. The weapon could be like a fire extinguisher: “Break glass in case of emergency.” The penalty for abuse of the stun gun would be severe, possibly a federal crime. But once again, the worst case scenario is that someone is rendered immovable for a time; not killed or permanently injured. Unfortunately, even an armed security guard might be too incapacitated (or cowardly) to stop an attack, so stun guns would offer a last line of defense for teachers or even for students in the worst case scenarios.
  3. Police Shootings. For every nefariously motivated murder by a bad apple in the police force, there are dozens of good officers who shoot innocent victims out of fear or immediate safety concerns. A stun gun would allow police to shoot first and ask questions later if they felt their safety was at high risk. If this weapon truly was non-lethal, then the worst that could happen is that a police officer immobilizes an innocent person until all fear of imminent danger is gone. Much like improper arrests warrant lawsuits against officers who abuse their power, likewise a citizen could sue for damages if unjustifiably stunned. However messy the legal and financial entanglements, no human lives would be forever lost in such a case.
  4. Robbery and Assault. Stores and Businesses that are subject to being looted could carry this much safer defense option (vs. a shotgun) that could deter or at least give pause to potential criminals. Also, individuals who are walking alone in dangerous places could feel a stronger sense of security knowing that they have the means to protect themselves against assault or robbery.
  5. Most people have an innate, fundamental aversion to killing another human being. This has been proven in studies about war and the large number of soldiers who purposely fire up or down instead of straight ahead to avoid causing the death of even a hated enemy. A stun gun allows a person to take action against another human being in extreme circumstances without hesitancy on account of this aversion to killing, knowing that a K.O. is the worst possible outcome.

If developed, this stun gun would obviously not solve all of the problems mentioned above. But I would be curious to see how anyone from either side of the current debates about gun control and the 2nd Amendment would take issue with such an invention.

My intention with this article is not to take sides or discuss the merits of opposing ideologies. I am simply pushing this idea out into the ether in hopes that a more qualified mind than mine can bring it to fruition.

Sometimes, the solutions to our gravest and largest dilemmas in civil society today are not exclusively A or  B; but they are the yet-to-be-invented C.

I don’t know what this weapon will ultimately look like or entail, but I leave the matter up to the ingenuity of our world’s best and brightest. We have microchips, nuclear power, and space exploration… bring on the stun guns. 

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A Notification of Death

by with 2 Comments CultureFeatured

[This is part one of a three-part series on American gun violence.]

The screen on my phone illuminates with a notification. My eyes peer over to read the information and then I return to whatever activity I was performing. As I write this piece, I received notifications from The New York Times and ESPN. While this may seem to be mundane behavior in the 21st century; it’s not. It’s not mundane because often the words in the notifications inform me of death and my reaction to that information over time alarms me. Whether it’s a headline of another LeBron James stat line or a notification that seventeen have been gunned down in yet another mass shooting, I typically peer away and go about my business – I’m desensitized and that’s a major problem.

April 1999 was the spring before I was to enter high school and I remember, quite vividly, learning about the Columbine High School shooting from the evening news that night. I wasn’t allowed to have a cell phone then but I knew from the murmurings of the adults in the street on my way home that something bad had happened. I was in the eighth grade and I quietly wondered if I would have to fear for my safety in high school. However, at the time, it seemed like such a one-off incident and growing up in Brooklyn – Colorado could have been on Pluto for all I knew. So the initial fear subsided and I recall the outrage from adults which lead to discussions around the shooters music of choice, bullying, the shooters parental upbringing, but never a referendum on guns. 15 dead in an American High School.

It was my first day of work as a full-time working professional, ever, on April 16, 2007. I was living at home at the time and was so excited to share with my family all of the details of my first day of work at American Express. I wasn’t given a laptop that day so I wasn’t as connected to what was happening in the world for most of the day. However, I do remember people around the office murmuring about a school shooting at Virginia Tech. Focused on making a good first impression, the school shooting didn’t register until I retired to my room later that evening where I learned of the scale of what had taken place. Gun control again lead the national debate for a time but then faded into the background. 33 dead in an American University.

I was living in Sydney, Australia at the time of the Sandy Hook shootings in December 2012. I remember having to play the role of American Ambassador in providing answers to my perplexed Aussie friends who simply could not understand why mass shootings continue to occur in the States. It was in hearing myself answer their questions aloud that I realized how nonsensical it is to not have sensible gun control laws in place. Even as I explained the full context of the brilliance of the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment I was still unable to make sense of this American problem. On my first night back in America, I saw my friends giving a television interview on CNN; their daughter had been in one of the Sandy Hook classrooms. Miraculously, she was physically unharmed but many of her fellow students did not suffer the same fate. For many reasons, that shooting was the most traumatic for me personally. I believe in the sanctity of the joys of the childhood experience and I couldn’t sleep for many nights as I came to the belief that the frequency of gun deaths in one of the most wealthy and powerful nations in history had to be intentional. 28 dead in an American Elementary School.

Fast forward to the Parkland shooting last month and shockingly there were no murmurings in the street this time. Many people, myself included, received the notification on their phone and went about their day after learning that seventeen teenagers were gunned down in their high school. In the days that followed the remaining students, whose lives will never be the same, rose to the national spotlight with a defiant message to the nation: #NeverAgain. The politicians and the corporations that own them all responded with an all too familiar bluster around what actions they would take to change what has become status quo. 17 dead in an American High School… again. 

As much as we don’t want to admit it, this is who America is: A rabidly violent nation whose love affair with guns will cease at nothing or no one; not even elementary school children. It is, in fact, the “Wild Wild West” that the rest of the world portrays us to be because we allow this to happen time and time again. Sadly, while I praise the fervor of the Parkland students, and the Sandy Hook students before them, and the Virginia Tech students before them, and the Columbine students before them; I believe that they too will ultimately add their voices to a large chorus of people that want sensible gun control but will never see it. I hope I am wrong but #NeverAgain may just be yet another hashtag thrown in a mountainous heap of social justice hashtags that never sees any legitimate federal action. More dead in an American… doesn’t really matter now, we’re desensitized anyway.

Part Two: MLK 50 Forward: Bankrupt Justice