The Story of Tasers

Tasers have been through many changes in the last 4 decades. The 1st generation of projectile firing stun guns was created in the late 1960’s by an aerospace engineer named Jack Cover. Jack created a small hand held tubular device that used gunpowder to blast 2 projectiles about 5 yards. These projectiles looked like heavy straightened fish hooks connected to thin insulated wires shot out of a flashlight. The whole contraption was dubbed the Taser TF-76. This crude model, and the next few that followed, were simply used to force obedience by delivering an electrical charge large enough to achieve “pain compliance�. So Jack Cover started a company to manufacture these devices, and it is rumored that that T.A.S.E.R. was an acronym inspired from the childhood novel Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle. This device with it’s cylindrical shape was not created to resemble a firearm, but because it was powered by an explosive gunpowder charge, it had to be classified by the ATF. After much debate, the ATF sadly lumped it in with sawed-off shotguns as a Title 2 weapon available only to law enforcement. This severly limited the market and the first few models and production quickly died out.

Then in 1993, two Arizona brothers set out to make a new type of stun gun, that would be not be illegal to carry. They contacted Jack Cover who revealed an idea, to use compressed air or nitrogen propel the darts. They immediately hired Jack Cover as an employee, and began to work together on the 2nd generation of Taser. The new design was called the Air Taser 34000 and was basically similar to the old TF-76, with 2 new important features: it used compressed air to launch the projectiles, and when fired, the 34000 dispersed Anti Felon Identification Confetti for easy tracking by law enforcement agencies.

As popularity spread though the law enforcement community, the Air Taser Company received an invitation by the Czech police to test and demo the devices in Prague. The presentation proved to be a total failure as repeated police officers were able “fight through the pain� and take down the person shooting the Air Taser 34000. After returning home defeated and embarrassed, the team began to design a more effective technology. They realized that the stun gun jolts of the model 34000 did not cause someone to completely lose muscle control, especially if that assailant was determined. They worked on a new pattern of electrical disbursement, that would deliver uncontrollable muscle spasms, to render even the most aggressive, drug crazed attacker completely helpless. The Advanced Taser M18 and M26 models were born. After that, thousands of international law enforcement agencies readily accepted this new technology,implementing the non-lethal tool as an alternative to using a gun. In addition to the AFID confetti, a computer dataport was added to track usage on the job. The X26 debuted in 2003 and was the first Taser model to feature the patented “shaped pulse technology.� The X26 was created 60% smaller and lighter than the M26, but packed a much bigger punch! As popularity of the Taser grew, demand for more non-intimidating consumer friendly models led to the creation of the Taser C2 which looks more like a shaver than a self-defense device. Recent developments in Taser technology include a wireless missile that can be shotgun deployed, up to 100 feet away!!