The Taser has garnered headlines in both Canada and the United States recently as the debate seems to continue about the validity of the use of the weapon as well as the injuries and deaths that have resulted. The pool is crowded already, but here comes one more diver on the scene with an opinion.

Imagine yourself as a police officer faced with a suspect who is non-compliant with your instructions and is more than likely armed. From what I have read of most of the cases that people are complaining about, the suspects were armed with something that would be considered a weapon be it a knife, a table or a gun.

What do you do? What is best for your safety and that of the suspect?

You could stop everything and try to talk to the suspect and talk them down; get them to de-escalate the situation and let you take them into custody with nobody being harmed. Most often this is step one and by the time the Taser comes out, this step has long since come and gone. As much as some TV shows and movies might have us believe the police come in shooting, reality is that anyone with two brain cells would rather talk it through than have to deal with the complications of drawing a weapon, never mind actually using it.

Another option might be to attack the person with the weapon in hand-to-hand combat and hope you come out on top. As attractive as this option might seem in Steven Segal movies, it is a little unrealistic. Unfortunately this action could result in more complaints from the suspect or his family if things go badly, as you "beat" the suspect. There is also the potential that you lose the physical confrontation and have potentially serious problems on your hands as they might get access to your gun and your Taser. Clearly this is not a good option either.

There is always the gun. It certainly has the stopping power and will disable and/or disarm the suspect. There are problems though, as this too could lead to issues of excessive force, second-guessing and lawsuits. In addition there is also the issue of the paperwork involved that most TV officers refer to in negative terms. In this option there is also the risk that the suspect you are trying to disarm, would be handed a suspended sentence for this offence, and might end up dead. Clearly there is little to recommend this option unless the circumstances have gone beyond all control.

What else is left? There is the Taser. It will disable most people long enough for the officer to subdue the suspect with little or no risk to themselves and no risk of losing control of their weapons. The Taser also offers the additional advantage of being much less savage to the suspect's body than a gunshot wound or two.

In this situation, faced by officers in some jurisdictions quite regularly, the Taser is the option that makes the most sense.

Does it carry risks? Of course it does as any of the other options do.

The one thing none of the people involved in these stories want to focus on is the thing most important to the story. If the people who are hit with the Taser complied with the officer's instructions in the first place there would be no need to deploy the Taser to begin with, nobody would get hurt and there would be no claims against officers and no lawsuits. Of course if people did not engage in criminal activity there would be no need for police officers either, but this is not an ideal world and these are not ideal situations.