Shoot to Kill.

I have been an outspoken opponent of the use of Tasers in the police force since they were introduced in Australia. The reason? It's simply barbaric, and could quite literally kill you. Or kill me, anyway.

I have what is known as a second degree heart block, situs inversus and dextrocardia - essentially a heart deformity that requires a pacemaker. I don't really understand how tasers work our how my heart works but the long and short of it is that I've concluded that me plus a stun gun would not equal something pretty. Even if I do something wrong, police officers have no right to shoot me unless I am armed and dangerous. Yet they are allowed to cause what used to be referred to as 'cruel and unusual punishment', maybe just for being then and there. Or at least, they used to call it 'cruel and unusual punishment'. Now they call it 'standard procedure'.

It is the human psyche, when faced with something stressful such as a violent situation or a language barrier, to whip out something that will just uncomplicate matters. In America, it's guns. Here, it's Tasers. Frankly, I don't know which is worse.

I literally start shaking when I see police officers walking around with Tasers. Police officer or not, no human being has the right to have the power to inflict such pain on another human being.  

And what's with Tasering someone two, three, up to twenty-eight times? How much of a raging looney was that Aboriginal man who died of a heart complication to warrant twenty-eight Tasers? If he was white it would never have happened, but no, we have a heartless police force with no sense of justice that is not just content with the ability to inflict pain, but the ability to kill lawlessly. We are being kept in check by torturers and murderers.

We used to live in a world of witch-burning and black lynching. Now, we live in a world where we torture the innocent. What is happening that we destroy our humanity? Are they the terrorists, or are we? We all die drenched in blood.