You can’t ignore the headlines. It seems as if almost every day there is a new incident involving the police and the use of stun guns. A simple google search provided ample evidence that tasering has become a serious national issue. Go to YouTube and you can view dozens of incidents, most of them involving campus security personnel.

There are two types of campus security -

1. Real Campus Police - They carry guns and can arrest your drunken ass. From my experience these guys are pretty level headed and calm. They can shoot students who pose a deadly threat and therefore that sort of threat nearly never arises. For every other situation they depend on their reasoning skills to navigate the various situations they encounter.

2. Campus Security guards- by definition these guys are nothing but a pack of pussies who failed the police entrance exam and are forced to play babysitter to rich kids who will soon be out-earning then 10 to 1. Campus security guards are notorious for harassing students for silly shit and reveling in the harrowing task of writing parking tickets. An exception to this exists on campuses that offer a criminal justice program. Guards at these schools are typically in the program and take their job seriously as it is a stepping stone toward a career.

I would like to make the argument that taser guns should not be given to either group.

Campus Police already carry a gun for extreme situations. However, just the presence of their firearm earns them a level of respect that ought to give them the upper hand in most situations. Giving these guys stun guns will only make them lazy. Instead of using their conflict resolution skills they will simply stun drunk students that give them a hard time. Although this makes for great YouTube material, students should not be subjected to 80,000 watts for asking a cop “hey don’t you have a Dunkin Donuts to protect piggy?”. Nor should a taser be an acceptable alternative method to dragging a drunken frat boy from a car that he was driving in reverse at 40 miles per hour across the provost’s front lawn.

Campus security guards should also never be issued stun guns. These bitter hacks have survived for decades with walkie-talkies and mag-lights as their only weapon. The last thing a college campus needs is a bunch of over-caffeinated police academy dropouts carrying “non lethal” stun guns that are responsible for at least 147 deaths in the United States since 2000. These bozos should stick to writing parking tickets and call the real police for everything else.

Before you give me the old “we live in increasingly dangerous times” lecture let me expose the proliferation of stun guns for what it is - a profit making crusade by stun gun manufacturers. They rushed these things to market before properly testing them and now people are dying. I think it is about time the police went back to the good old days of beating people and leave the high tech gadgets to the harmless nerds and geeks of our society.