Killing Them Safely

About every two minutes a police officer uses a TASER. Sold as an effective way to subdue violent suspects without injuring them, TASERs have revolutionized the way officers do their jobs. One company is responsible for this revolution: TASER International. The company’s mission statement: “Protect Truth. Protect Life.”   In 1993, brothers Rick and Tom Smith started what would become TASER International in their parents’ garage. Both just in their early twenties, they were shaken by the shooting deaths of two of their friends and imagined a world without guns. By 1999, after years of trial and error and facing bankruptcy, the Smith brothers claimed to have finally found the right combination of safety and power. While TASERs were too expensive for mass civilian adoption, law enforcement officers clamored for them. Almost immediately, TASERs began to change the way officers did their jobs and in less than five years, the Smith brothers went from flirting with bankruptcy to running a mu