Ever feel like shocking people just ain’t what it used to be? Like your self-defense experience is a little bit…boring? TASER International, whose 50,000 volt “electronic control technology” has helped redefine “trigger-happy,” knows what you’re missing: a new leopard-print stun gun, and an mp3-equipped holster to put it in.
Yes, for just a shade more than $450, you can own not just a weapon, but a personal protection experience. So says TASER head Rick Smith. “Personal protection can be both fashionable and functionable,” Smith elaborated in a press release announcing the company’s plans to “unleash” the new weapon and holster. Weapon, you say? Thought TASERs were nonlethal? Well, they are—as long as you don’t suffer from over-exhaustion, a heart condition, a back condition, or “excited delirium,” and avoid the perils of “Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome,” which according to TASER “results from a complex set of physiological and psychological conditions characterized by irrational behavior, extreme exertion, and potentially fatal changes in blood chemistry.” Symptoms include “extreme agitation” and “sweating profusely.”
The company claims that these conditions, and not the device itself, account for the more than 150 recorded deaths of people who were for the most part perfectly healthy before receiving (often repeated) shocks from the device. But whatever: Seizures are such a buzzkill. Ditch those squares, rock on to your own soundtrack, and don’t forget: shoot early and often. Ain’t no party like a TASER party.
—Casey Miner
