Supporters say that electroshock guns are a safer alternative to devices such as firearms. Taser International uses the term “non-lethal” as defined by the United States Department of Defense – which does not mean the weapon cannot cause death, but that it is not intended to be fatal. Non-lethal weapons are defined as “weapons that are explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate personnel or material, while minimizing fatalities, permanent injury to personnel, and undesired damage to property and the environment.”
Supporters say that electroshock weapons and tasers are more effective than other means including pepper-spray (an eye/breathing irritant), batons or other conventional ways of inflicting pain, even hand guns, at bringing a subject down to the ground with a minimum physical exertion.
Critics, however, charge that police officers who are risk-averse resort to tasers in situations where previously they would have used more conventional, less “extreme” techniques, such as trying to reason with a cornered suspect.