March 29, 2005
Cooking with a Taser? That’s some RARE bacon!
Wisconsin Professor to Test Stun Guns on Pigs
Now this is an interesting research project. Take some pigs, zap them with a taser, see if they die. Give them some cocaine, see if they die. Give them some cocaine and then zap them with a taser, see if they die. Not as cool as trauma pods, but interesting nonetheless. And if the research is able to determine whether we can reduce the number of humans dying from being tased by the cops, a few pigs are worth it.
But someone doesn’t see it that way:
“Shocking more pigs is only going to add their numbers to the Taser-related death statistics,” Patti Gilman, whose brother died after being shot with a Taser in British Columbia in June 2004, wrote in a letter to the school. “Robert’s death never should have happened. And neither should these experiments.”
…
That’s a worthy goal, but researchers should instead study humans who have survived Taser shocks and autopsy reports of those who died, said Laura Yanne of PETA. She promised an “unprecedented” protest on Tuesday, but would not release details.
“Subjecting pigs to cruel experiments is not the way to go on this. It’s so obvious,” she said. “This is a half-million dollar boondoggle.”
First of all, someone who is going to include pigs in the statistics for taser related deaths is crazy. It is the same sort of crazy that compares chicken farms to the holocaust. Anytime someone opens their mouth and starts spewing this nonsense, the only reason to keep listening is for comedic value.
But this goes to a larger point. The PETA folks care more about animals than they do about humans. To them, animals are on an equal moral footing as humans, and thus actions which cause pain to animals, no matter how much they improve our lives, are abhorrent. And again, in a big step away from the “reality-based community”, they don’t seem to understand that we can learn an incredible amount more from testing these hypotheses on animals than simply studying humans who have survived Taser shocks and autopsy reports from those who didn’t. Some things can only be proven by experiments and the scientific method, not searching for correlations in completely uncontrolled circumstances from months or years ago.
Thankfully cooler heads at the land of the Baaadgers are prevailing:
“I think this is an outstanding example of one of those questions that can only be answered using animals,” said Eric Sandgren, a UW-Madison professor who heads a committee that oversees animal research. “Boy, there’s been a lot of deaths from this. If the alternative is to go back to using bullets, let’s find out how to make this safe.”
Much has been made of the police starting to employ “less-than-lethal” methods to restrain criminals. The opponents of such technology like to point out that “less-than-lethal” is still occasionally lethal. But holding up perfection as the standard is unrealistic. If the alternative is real bullets, some imperfections are acceptable.
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(second attempt to comment, blogger/haloscan is unreliable at times)
I find it mildly amusing that pigs are being used in these tests. Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s the police were sometimes referred to as “pigsâ€; not very flattering since I was a police officer at the time. I stopped a young man going down the street with a hefty trash sack that looked suspicious. We were looking for some burglary suspects at the time. I asked, “What ya’ got in the sack?â€. He replied, “Pig.†I was about to vent when he opened the sack for our viewing; turned out he had just been to the meat market and was taking home a freshly slaughtered pig. This has almost nothing to do with the subject of your blog and I apologize for the misdirection.
Zap the pigs if it will help to prevent injury to a human and to hell with PETA.
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