Interesting article, certainly evidencing serious police brutality and oppression using a horrible piece of technology...However, my views on it are not as clean cut as 'are we happy with these things in the hands of the police', as I see the issue of the police being armed as more of a question of 'why aren't we, the people, arming ourselves too?' and shouldn't we have the (moral, if not legal) 'right' to procure arms for our defense - defense from the state and it's tentacles, the police and the military?

More often than not, rich, 'law abiding', land owning classes have guns, farmer, land owning classes have guns, police have guns, military have guns...But do us proles have guns? no. Do us rebels have guns? no. Do us peasants guns? No.

Systematically, since around the 'Dunblane Massacre' 96/97 (perfectly timed with gun law changes elsewhere in the world, including the USA) the state has dismantled the gun laws and created new layers to stop us from procuring and handling and discharging of weapons. but the state has at the same time boulstered it's arms and it's policies and laws relating to it's own use of force via the police and military. 'states guns good, people guns bad', thats what it sniffs of...

So we see a clear picture emerging...they can have whatever weapons they see fit to subdue and control us, yet we are incapable, logistically and legally, to procure and own firearms for our own protection FROM THE STATE and from fascists and others that wish to 'get rid of us'.

My personal view is that we, the revolutionary strugglers, should be armed immediatley, with guns and ammunition hidden all over the the place in 'bunkers', so that 'when the time comes', which it will do, we all know that, we will have sufficient arms to help keep our communities safe.

We must be able to repel the states forces, the police and military, when the time comes, using every weapon at our disposal. Gone are the days when rising peasants would just hold sickels and hoes or whatever gardening tool they could get their grubby hands on...These days we need guns, powerful ones at that, to make sure we dont become the 'prison island'! that we seem to be turning in to!

Barricading the roads, protecting our besieged communities, developing safer streets with 'militia's' or 'armed community defenders', engaging state forces and ultimately repelling them away, will be the task of the revolutionary strugglers...So we need guns for that time, which may be anywhere between three to ten years away (if at all in our life time).

So what Im saying is, really, let them have their stupid, horrible, opprressive weaponry to keep us at bay, but let us gather our own guns, to repel them when the need eventually arises.....

Long Live the Struggle for Freedom and Total Liberation for all Animals and Nature!!

Test using clothing with conductive hemp thread showed that they protected the public from Tazers using the faraday cage principle.
The user of the Tazer was given the jolt as they were a better conduit.

Ok thank you for the party political broardcast.

Shall we look at what most cops carry?

CS, causes irritation to eyes,nose etc, fairly harmless as the effects are short lived, a few people have had reaction to it, however it is far from a leathal option.
Stick, can cause bruising to fleshy bits and occasionally a broken bone or two.

both have to be justified in court, check the law its a reality.

Taser is LESS damageing than tem.Indipendant studies have shown that as there are no Amps just volts there is nothing but over stimulation of mussles causeing contraction, these people are not getting electrocuted by the mains.
The real number of uses of taser is much higher than reported as they dont show the times when someone has been challenged by the cops and has decided that the taser makes this an pointless fight and gives up.

therefore no one gets hurt.

As to arming everyone so we can have a civil war and deaths on the streets as the second poster wants, well think of it this way.
There are approx 200,000 hard core acctivists in the UK
There are 7.2 million "affluent" people in London alone, that being those who have £30,000 in liquid assets. Thats just in london, say you get your dream of armed people on the streets,defending their comunities. Thats you walking down the road to burn and kill the "affluent" who you hate so much that you want to shoot them (why else do you want a gun in the terms you have used) and they defend themselves........200.000 onto 7.2 million.


good luck



now grow up, and try and fix problems through example of leading a better life and showing people what a better world can look like rather than the politics of hate and envy.

'anon', firstly, you dont know what you're talking about, as I shall now prove...

1) People have died of CS exposure, actually,, and if you route around the Net, you'll find sufficient examples of health deteriation in people exposed to it...It is GAS, made to intoxicate and, in 'overexposure' - for example getting gassed by police in a cell with no air vents - it can be lethal

2) CS gas is more than something that 'just goes away', people have suffered irreversible illness as a result. Put it this way, you get gassed in the face by the police, and you'l feel it, it'l hurt, not like it and remember it all to well for the next time. It isn't being stung by a wasp (which can also be lethal), it's being gassed in the face by a human

3) As for your 'critique' of my call for arms, NOT CALL TO ARMS, dufus, there's a difference, well, you plainly are not in touch with reality my friend. All over the world the people are arming themselves and defending their communities, the Zapatista's are one of the ebst examples of this action to DEFEND. I said nothing about ATTACK. People like you are scared of confrontation, whereas people like me, guerrilla's in the urban conflict, see it as the only way in which we can be truly free from the state.

4)Your garbage about this many activists versus this many people who earn a certain amount per year, means nothing mate, absolutely no academic merit whats so ever or even logical philosophical reasoning AT ALL. your probably fourteen, bless you...

if not, get over it, the revolution is coming..but where will you be 'anon'...where indeed......

"4)Your garbage about this many activists versus this many people who earn a certain amount per year, means nothing mate, absolutely no academic merit whats so ever or even logical philosophical reasoning AT ALL. your probably fourteen, bless you..."

This is a nice clear example of why people like yourself aren't very good achievers in life because you FAIL to understand how people actually think. If you actually took 5 minutes to take your nose out of a book, you would quickly realise that human nature doesn't care about academic merit and reasoning.

What anon has rightly stated is that a large number of affluent people will just choose to just ignore your philosophical reasoning because they really arn't interested in what you have to say. And since they pull the purse strings as taxpayers and there are a larger number of them than you, I doubt your academic meritted logical philosophical reasoning will actually have any realworld impact.

If you can't offer anything with a carrot or a stick (incentives or leverage), then forgot it. Why should people even bother listening to you? What is in it for them? Until you can answer that, there really is no point continuing. Unless of course you are going to turn to the fascist state to enforce your opinions on other people?

You neo-borgeoisie make me laugh! Your comfortable little world, your DVD's and 4x4's...Guess what? It's not sustainable, you ever hear that word, SUSTAINABILITY?

I have a job (although I naturally detest the worker/wage enslavement), I have a home (although I detest the landlord and the rent, the banks and the mortgages), I have a family (which I love and wish to protect and support) and do 'everyday' things like you (catch buses, pay taxes, watch tele, poo and sneeze)...Hell, I even have to use the supermarkets as i yet in life do not possess enough freedom to live how i'd like to (that's all part of being enslaved by the 'system', dint ya know!?). But I struggle on in hope of true change.

Well, one day, maybe ten, maybe twenty, shit, maybe even fifty years away, life in this 'country' (UK) will be a whole lot different.

Cops will kill you point blank range with guns for resisting, never mind tasers, all the cops will have guns, the laws will be far more totalitarian, considering that they even support police brutality now, (under EuroConventHumRights the police state can kill rioters, those fleeing lawful custody or those commiting a violent crime or aiding fleeing of lawful custody...check it if you dont believe me!) ID cards will be a given and absolutely compulsory (which will probably be brought in after 'they've' bombed the olympics 2010 or other public place, killed some kids, blamed it on extremists and introduced compulsory ID), and the insurrection, well, it will be in full swing.

All I ever called for, and what I call for now, is the arming of the people to defend themselves - you guys aren't comfortable with the idea of your lovely little world becoming smashed to pieces.

But thats not your fault, it's not our fault, like I said, it's part of the 'enslavement' that we all suffer under. You may think you have real choice, but we have as much choice as sleeping fleas, riding on a furry barrel over a raging waterfall, there's nothing we can do, the end for the comfortable lifestyle will come - It's a mathematical inevitability! It's a revolutionary fact!

The history books show us that - no matter who wrote them, they still show us that - all empires crumble, thats ALL EMPIRES, even this one, the Empire of the Elites, the Empire of the World Order, call it what you want, ITS NOT SUSTAINABLE, it will one day not exist.

Now, lets just back up here and talk about numbers, populations and other figures, as you guys are throwing them around like research students, willy nilly and what not, with complete disregard for facts of teh real matters.

So you say 'all the people' or 'most of the people' or 'everyone who earns over such and such amount' will halt the revolution? Well that in itself is a contradiction in terms, as it wil be the 'people', the ones you seem to represent with your words and no actions, that will be bringing the revolution in the first place. More people are poor in this country than are rich or well off, so where do you place yourself? Well off, I bet.

Are you a struggling worker like I, are you poor, poverty stricken as I have been all of my life? Who do you really represent? The proletarians? the peasants? the trade unions? the elites? who? You tell me. Because I know who my people are, I know where my community is, I know my history and roots, and I will never forget them. But what about you? Do you live as poor as your father or mother did? do you remeber what it's like to have no food growing up and having no money or work? did you then change your life around to become more better off than your parents, eh? and in that way, did you win? in that way, are you the new prolatarian? Are you fuck! You are the neo-borgeois, you are the laughable slave to comfort and routine!! you are pathetic, even worse than a counter-revolutionary, as you'd sit back and let the state crush entire communities to keep your Xbox and your car running. So lets get that clear, you do not represent the masses, you represent the neo-borgeiosie, the new class of idiots that are enslaved by consumerism and internet shopping, Ebay and FaceFuck, Mcdonalds and Nike......You honestly think that your life is stable and sustainable? let me ask you this, you deniers, you 5th colunmists, you fucking collaborators - how much debt are you in? need i say more on the matter? just think about the querstions i've asked and answer them honestly...

And what I believe is that what you're really saying is that the police and army will fight for you and you will stand with them and even collaborate with them against the masses, the revolutionary masses, who will be fighting for their freedom and the freedom of all living things and all nature? Yep, i think thats where you are coming from.

I think you are the ones who need to get your eyes away from the CNN and ITV news, look on the web, look on the streets, listen to the 'people', most are very unhappy at the way things are currently, many talk of 'change from below', thousands talk of the state and corporations 'taking and not giving' and millions are looking and waiting for the change to start. politicians and corporations that back them will not give us change, niether will the police, church or army give us change.

Well, now then we are at the beginning again, as the insurrection must come first, but even before that we need the state oppression to get 'everyone' who wants to fight out on to the streets to barricade themselves away from fascism and protect what they're trying to build up. The actual fascists are showing their ugly and repulsive faces around more these days, too, so we would expect a rise in fascism to coincide with more state brutality...this the 'people' will not tolerate (I hope they wouldn't, anyway) and the insurrection can begin in earnest.

To get to that stage, we need armed resistance to the status quo, even before that stage we need arms and ammunition that can be hidden and used at the right time to DEFEND ourselves from physical oppression.

Our rebellion would bring troops on to the streets and failure of the troops to put down their guns would result in further civil strife, which would lead to full on, horrible, yet unavoidable (and desired by the state) civil war and eventually the 'people' will take no more and the revolution could start once and for all; when the land owners would lose everything they own, maybe even their lifes and homes if they are not lucky - or fast to run away; the royals will be strung up; the police tossed aside; the power in the hands of the truly poor and truly needy, the state will lose it's centralised power base in London, which would be overcome by race wars and serious army bombardment, hunger, potential famine and major upheavel. The world would be on fire, everything would be unstable.

From the ashes of the mess of the collapse of the Empire, freedom would be built, new communities would flourish, large chunks of previously privately owned, and elite dominated land would be worked and lived on by thousands of 'post revolution settlers, retired insurrectionists, freed workers and homeless and suffering', moving out of the towns and cities - which would be in a total mess - in to the country side to build newer, more sustainable lives.

The fascists and reactionaries, BNP-types, remnants of police and state and church supporters would hunt us down, would try to counter-revolutionise the people (the Bolsheviki revolution of November 1917 showed us what the reactionaries and right wing will do, as did the spanish civil war 1936-39 with the rise of Franscisco Franco), so we would expect splatterings and smatterings of communities to spring up and pop up all over, living off the land and sustaining themselves properly, free to live and breathe the air as humans, not numbers or slaves to a wage.......... we would also expect those communities to be armed and ready to fight to defend their new homes and lives, from you, the collaborators, 5th colunmists and deniers and haters of the uprising.........

Where industry and technology (my luddite distaste) can carry on, people will undoubtedly spring in to action to continue with certain things like 'mass production' of bread, other food and clothing and housing resources...Machinery previoulsy owned by power barons and corporate pigs, will be taken and changed to be used for processes that do not harm or hinder the people and nature, but help to sustain it and defend it (solar energy, water energy, wind energy, for example, would revolutionaise household fuel use, moving dramatically away from oil and petrol products)...the ideas are endless, to be honest, we could build any world we wanted to, DONT YOU GET IT? Millions like me, whether you believe it or not, think on similar lines...

The revoultion would bring so many possibilities for change and opportunities to live freely, as the state as we know it, and the power structures keeping it in place, would cease to exist.

What we live under now is 'UK PLC, UK LTD, UK CORP' our councils are corporate entities with 'chief execs' (check the name of your local one, i know mine, he's an idiot)...it is not the 'country' you think it is, but then if you are so engrossed by the Lie, the biggest lie of all (that you're free, ha ha, dont make me laugh), then i understand why you'd hate to see the insurrectionary process and the ensuing revolution, because it scares you, you would not be able to survive, although I on the other hand, with MILLIONS like me WORLDWIDE ( not to mention the 3 billion HOMELESS people, yes, thats a lot of peasants and poor, compared to the 'petty' amount of neo-borgeois you 'defend') would be able to as we have not forgotten how to live free, can you, all you deniers, collaborators and haters of the uprising, can you say honestly to yourself that you would survive the revolution, could you live off the land? Could you catch a fish to eat or grow food in the fields? ha ha, could you fuck! all you can catch is a big mac and a sexually transmitted illness!


So put that in your comfortable pipe, whilst sat in your comfortablee chair, in your comfortable home, on your comfortable carpets, with your comfortable life, and smoke it...

In August 2009 I was returning home from a saturday night out with my friends. A police car with lights flashing screech in front of me and I then confronted by a cop shouting "police stop taser taser" "on the floor or you will be tasered". Because I didn't get on the floor quick enough I was tasered and fell to the floor. He then shouted for me to put my hands behinf my head. I wasn't able to do this as I was still being tasered. When he finally stopped the taser I did put my hands behind my head, but yet again I was too slow and got tasered again. This time, I was convulsing that hard, that I knoked my self out.

Woke up in ambulance on way to A & E. I had concussion and a broken nose. I had no idea why I was targeted by the police. The following morning, I was visited by a PCSO (not a real cop) who gave me a letter apologising for the mistaken identity and subsequent tasering. It was quite apparent that the letter a standard bullshit one and the signature was pre printed!!!!!

After 3 days I complained and went through the process of claiming compensation, which to date is still going on.

Taser's are fucking painful if used once, they are excruciatingly painful if used again, and in my case it caused serious injury. They should not be made available to non-firearms cops. Beware trigger happy coppers who think they're Billy the Kid.

Toulouse: Gunfire and stones against police

August 25, 2010 - Toulouse: Gunfire and stones against police (Le Parisien, 25/08/2010)

Police came under heavy gunfire and stone-throwing that injured one of them in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the sensitive district of Bagatelle in Toulouse. Officers of the Mirail anti-crime brigade were called before midnight to intervene in the city where shots had been fired. In helping a victim of the shooting police were repeatedly fired at with a shotgun by masked individuals, reported the union Alliance. According to another professional organization, the SGP-FO police unit, one particular individual in a vehicle opened fire on the car of the LAC.

The ensuing chase turned into an ambush when police were confronted with about fifty people engaged in classic stone throwing, said Police Unit SGP-FO.

One policeman was wounded by the hail of stones. An inquest has been opened for attempted homicide of the police officers.

Fuck. No wonder the people need better weapons. I suppose tasers make a reasonable alternative to guns, but when someone if firing a shotgun out of car at you, i guess you don't have any choice but fire back.

French are bunch of tossers anyway

"In helping a victim of the shooting police were repeatedly fired at with a shotgun by masked individuals, reported the union Alliance"

Luckily it was a progressive, right-on shotgun, of a kind that will never be used when we disarm the police. We'll be able to patrol the streets armed with marxist tracts and vegan flapjacks, as there are no nasty people out there.

Perhaps activists could lead the way now, say by preventing the Saturday night 'uprisings' in high streets all over Britain, using only reasoning and persuasion.

Still, what would a 'union' know anyway?

shouldn't you be at work?

ah yes, you are.

I think your piece is well informed and well written. Though I agree entirely with your sentiments like the IPCC's sham investigations and other similar comments I think this detracts from your credibility, in the eyes of folk who are not already onside. They are the people we need to convince. I'm sure you get my drift.

I heard about the use of tasars at the evicted squat. I tried but was unable to corroborate this. No need for detail, but have you been able to obtain confirmation that tasars were indeed used at this eviction?

Great work, on a really serious issue.

Thanks

M

I think we can all agree that Tasers themselves are not the problem, but it is the usage of them that is at issue.

They definitely have their place. You've got an knife-wielding drugged out nutter threatening to kill you, then your options are definitely limited. Its all well and good, these people saying that violent force should not be used by the police under any circumstances, but these people seem arn't the ones putting their neck on the line and they don't seem to be able to offer a viable alternative.

Nutter with a knife..... my view is you have a number of choices:
a) shoot them
b) taser them
c) pepper spray them
d) tackle them hand-to-hand.

(a) is the least risky,.. (b) is pretty good,.. (c) is risky,.. (d) yeah right, you first

Hence the police need guns and tasers. This is clearly true and cannot be argued against without being unreasonable. The streets are full of dangerous nutters, deal with it.

The real issue is about the police using Tasers inappropriately.
That is nearly an issue of training and guidelines and improvements in best practice.
It has no relevance to tasers themselves





I'd like it if the police could tackle these people without harming anyone, but sayi

you are spreading bull shit...

the man in nottingham was not repeatedly tasered because he was a knife waving 'nutter' as you state...rather he was on his way home through town and got in a lttle altercation when pigs pulled up on him and started being overly aggressive....

so spread your pro-pig propaganda someplce else...all pigs are targets, they know what they sign up for.......

You were there were you? He was arrested for GBH and had already assaulted a bouncer and another cop. He was hardly minding his own business. Maybe, just maybe, he was a drunk thug who was wandering the streets looking for a fight, not an innocent member of the public who got done by 'the man' ?

As for tasers, I don't understand how anyone can be against them. You can criticise their use in certain situations, but to rule out their use all together is silly. If the police are approached by a man wielding a knife, would you rather them shoot him dead or temporarily stun him with a taser?

If the police are approached by a man wielding a knife, would you rather them shoot him dead or temporarily stun him with a taser?

I'd actually prefer them to shoot them dead. A man wielding a knife is not going to be a very nice person who means people harm. If they taser him, lock him up, he'll still be out on the street with potential to cause me harm.

I know it is callous, but the SAFEST option for my family is for the police to kill him.
Thats one less repeat offender who could cause me harm.

One police officer was armed with a tazer when two of them walked over to harras protesters outside the Miss World "competition" in Newcastle this year.
Also in Newcastle there was historically the Chartist rally following Peterloo. In response to that massacre the people went armed.

Don't you think it's cute that the cops on here tag-teaming the comments section have been so earnest?

As if the cops give a damn about the opinions of anyone but themselves. Why bother 'debating' with them?

For cops and the politicians they represent, any 'debate' here is only about framing the discourse within limits that they control and preventing anti-capitalist/anarchist radicalisation.

In the discourse of the state, everything is reduced to the level of tabloid journalism, where, if you question the concept of an armed goon squad protecting the coffers of the bosses, you are confronted by the demand to know what is to be done about 'nutters' and 'thugs'.

The dangerous 'nutters' and 'thugs' are in the policeforce, military and ruling classes, everyone else is an amateur by their standards.

>> Don't you think it's cute that the cops on here tag-teaming the comments section have been so earnest?
Poor attempt at being dismissive. In an attempt to distract any form of debate, the next approach adopting by most losers is to try and discredit the other debators. Classic trick used by politicians and other scumbags.

>> As if the cops give a damn about the opinions of anyone but themselves. Why bother 'debating' with them?
Strawman argument. Asking why bother debating with cops as if someone is arguing that you should debate with them (even though no one actually is).

>> For cops and the politicians they represent, any 'debate' here is only about framing the discourse within limits that they control and preventing anti-capitalist/anarchist radicalisation.

Perhaps people beyond cops and politicians, want to prevent anarchist radicalisation. There isn't actually that many anarchists about, so its fair to say the left over proportion of the population has no common ground with what anarchists want. Most people don't want to live in a squat and use a compost toilet, eating out of bins.... they just arn't interested.


>> In the discourse of the state, everything is reduced to the level of tabloid journalism, where, if you question the concept of an armed goon squad protecting the coffers of the bosses, you are confronted by the demand to know what is to be done about 'nutters' and 'thugs'.

I think you will find most people are sick to death of thugs and nutters. I certainly don't want to be the one dealing with all the nutters in nottingham on a saturday night. Why is it you never see groups of anarchists up on saturday night stopping fights outside nightclubs?

You are trying to suggest the the tail wags the dog, whereas it is the dog that wags the tail. The ONLY reason the tabloids choose to write things are to sell more papers and profit. So they write about things people want to read about. People are sick of thugs and anti-social behaviour, so will be interested in buying a paper that has that theme written in it.


>> The dangerous 'nutters' and 'thugs' are in the policeforce, military and ruling classes, everyone else is an amateur by their standards.

You clearly need to get out more.

now run along to your master, you have a pay check waiting.

only the pig trolls are talking about 'anarchist radicalisation'...I was talking about a very real subject, a future 'UK PLC' when our 'freedoms' will be more restricted than they've ever been and for that time (not now, not today) we should be armed. and nutters, thugs and coppers get dealt with the same by revolutionaries so to distinguish between them is pointless...

fuck the police

fuck the state

>> ...we should be armed. and nutters, thugs and coppers get dealt with the same by revolutionaries so to distinguish between them is pointless...

1. Mmmm, I see you need some form of arms. Perhaps a device that disarm a violent, aggressive person who means harm. Perhaps you could make a gunlike tool that fires two wires into a person skin and give them an electric shock?

2. So there 'revolutionaries' are going to go around and sort out disputes / crime / etc. Would it be fair to say they will 'police' the nutters / thugs / coppers? This is excellent stuff, we need people who enforce rules.

3. I'm guessing you will need a special name for these revolutionaries to distinguish them from everyone else. Can i suggest giving them special hats and uniforms so that people can recognise them more easily.

Sounds good to me.