If you carry a concealed gun, you are the problem

[Lee-Lee]

204. There is a reason cops don't carry just tasers

They are a good less-lethal alternative is some, certain specific situations. But they have some significant limitations.

You only get one shot. After that it is very clumsy to reload a new cartridge. If you miss that one shot under stress, you are in trouble. If you have more than one attacker, you are in trouble.

They are very range limited. 15 feet for the civilian models, so that means to use it somebody must be within 3 steps. In LE circles that is often considered too close to allow a person with a knife, because they could possible close that distance before you can react and fire a taser of gun.

They only incapacitate for a very short period- that is OK if you have another police officer right next to you ready to handcuff them before they get their wits back about them. The minute the electricity stops flowing, the person hit is back in full control of their body.

They can be ineffective if somebody is on drugs.

You would be very hard pressed to use one against somebody attempting to gain entry to your home or vehicle in many circumstances.

For a taser to work, both probes must have good penetration into the skin. That means you must hit with both probes, and both must get through to skin. In the winter if somebody is wearing layers heavy clothing this can be a problem, and leather jackets also can slow them enough to prevent good penetration. If either probe hits a button, zipper, or hard object in a pocket you have the same problem.

I have taken the ride on a taser (we had to be tazed in order to carry one) and used them on people. It wasn't fun being tazed, it felt like a bunch of sledgehammers whacking my body, but if I was alone on a call and had a dangerous suspect in front of me, my hands were on my gun. The taser came out only if I had backup on scene with a gun out in case it failed.