{"id":2142,"date":"2008-02-19T05:46:11","date_gmt":"2008-02-19T10:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2008-02-19T12:29:16","modified_gmt":"2008-02-19T17:29:16","slug":"talking-point-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2142","title":{"rendered":"Talking Point Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest talking point among the paranoid left in the Twin Cities is that the Saint Paul Police Department – a union operation in the third-most-liberal city in the nation’s fourth-most-liberal state – is secretly out to brutally squash leftist <\/em>dissent at this September’s Republican National Convention in Saint Paul.<\/p>\n

The local Sorosphere can be expected to, and forgiven for, doing what they’re paid to do – push lefty talking points. And Andy Birkey at the MinMon does his bit, expanding on a bit of lefty hysteria that’s been making the rounds lately:<\/p>\n

St. Paul Police Department is requesting 230 Tasers<\/a> to outfit the all of the department’s officers with the electroshock weapon, Fox 9 News reports. The SPPD will purchase the Tasers with $210,000 collected from drug raids. The St. Paul City Council will have to approve the purchase.<\/p>\n

The purchase is expected to arrive in St. Paul just in time for the Republican National Convention prompting media speculation that the weapons are being purchased specifically for the convention. When asked by Fox 9 News whether the police will use the weapon at the convention particularly against protesters, police spokester Tom Walsh said, “Our hope is that no one will have to use any degree of force. If it becomes necessary, will that be one of the tools available to them? I suppose that’s safe to say.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, the conceit among the local fringe-left is that the SPPDs is going to act as a tool of Karl Rove<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We need more of these lethal weapons when the wild and crazy protesters come to exercise their 1st Amendment Right to free speech.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, that’s the kind of rubbish we’ve come to expect from the local fringe left – the City government is bending over backwards, if not a little further, to make protesters welcome (in some quarters, more welcome than the delegates themselves).\u00a0 The tasers are for when the “anarkids” – the trust-fund fops that are promising violence in Saint Paul next September – get violent and won’t respond to a regular arrest, but the cops don’t want to over-escalate.<\/p>\n

If one assumes that the critics of the SPPD are completely irrational, of course, you might assume that they’re unaware of what tasers are for.<\/p>\n

Tasers – used legally – are a step in the escalation to dealing with a violent suspect that needs to be restrained for the public’s and, often, their own safety.\u00a0 They are used when the police need a relatively safe means to subdue and restrain a violent suspect, and simple holds and hand-to-hand techiques won’t work.\u00a0 It is both less violent than other means (of which more in a bit), and vastly less indiscriminate.<\/p>\n

So let’s say some of you get your wish, and the SPPD doesn’t have tasers.\u00a0 What then?<\/p>\n

Here’s what.<\/p>\n

When (not if) someone gets violent, without tasers, the police will have to resort to…:<\/p>\n