True North

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 dissent at this September’s Republican National Convention in Saint Paul.

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:

St. Paul Police Department is requesting 230 Tasers 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.

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.”

Now, the conceit among the local fringe-left is that the SPPDs is going to act as a tool of Karl Rove:

We need more of these lethal weapons when the wild and crazy protesters come to exercise their 1st Amendment Right to free speech.

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).  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.

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.

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.  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.  It is both less violent than other means (of which more in a bit), and vastly less indiscriminate.

So let’s say some of you get your wish, and the SPPD doesn’t have tasers.  What then?

Here’s what.

When (not if) someone gets violent, without tasers, the police will have to resort to…:

• Billy clubs and riot batons - which are  much more violent than tasers, vastly more prone   to cause injury, and a propaganda coup for the wackjobs.
• Pepper Spray, which is both less reliable at subduing people, and much more indiscriminate.
• Pepperball and beanbag rounds, and  “Baton” rounds, which are high-impact  “non-lethal” founds fired from shotguns and/or 37mm/40mm grenade launchers, respectively.  They hit their target like Mohammed Ali in his prime,   knocking them down quite violently.  They are vastly more likely to injure their target than  tasers.  Worse, they involve firearms, which are a psychological crossing of the Rubicon   that any sensible police department would like  to avoid.
• Clouds of tear gas applied via hand grenades, grenade launchers and so on.  An area weapon, it’d make huge parts of downtown Saint Paul un-usable until the clouds of irritant dispersed, and be both a nuisance and health hazard to everyone in the city downwind, and a potent propaganda symbol for the anarchists and the entire fringe left.

So if it’s safety you’re concerned about, you should SUPPORT the purchase of the tasers.  I’d be willing to chalk the opposition to tasers up to ignorance…

…but underestimating ones’ opponent is a fool’s game.

Insert the obligtatory “I support free speech, and the right of the peaceful protester, bla bla bla” here. And let’s be honest - neither I nor any other Republican is afraid of any of the violence these screeching little weasels are planning, since ANY Republican is an even match for 20 lefties in ANY kind of scrap, rhetorical or otherwise (and this forum is evidence of it).

But let’s not be stupid; there is a significant faction among the demonstrators that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the safety of the protesters.  They WANT a riot.  They WANT the psychological images of tear gas and grenade launchers and cops in riot gear.   They WANT to reap the propaganda bounty of an indiscriminate, violent response to their provocations (as they did with the Critical Mass riot last year).

Tasers enable a measured response to small acts of unreasoning, illegal activity.

And that’s just not crazy enough to suit the demonstrators’ purposes.  They want to provoke a massive, polarizing response.

You can practically see the genitals tingling when some of these fops talk about the violence - indeed, as we noted last week, some of their actions seem calculated to provoke panic reactions - the panic that will play into the propaganda plans of those who seem bent on provoking a riot.

I’m sure Andy Birkey doesn’t want that.  He’s just doing what he’s paid for.

Cross-posted/comments welcome at Shot in the Dark.