Now THAT'S a Fail!

One in twenty tasers FAIL:

TORONTO and VANCOUVER — One in 20 stun guns breaks and is returned to the manufacturer, the head of Taser International said yesterday.

Rick Smith, chief executive officer of the controversial weapons company, said that although Taser employees fire the devices more than 100 times before the gadgets leave the factory, their electronic components can wear out from regular use.

"Taser devices, like any other electronic device, you're going to have a certain number of failures where the devices break, especially in the law-enforcement realm," Mr. Smith told a meeting of The Globe and Mail's editorial board yesterday.

Mr. Smith was responding to questions about a lawsuit by shareholders that was settled out of court, in which former employees alleged that the weapons had design flaws and other assembly defects. He said the allegations in the lawsuit, dating back to a period between 2003 and 2005, were "extremely inflammatory" and "so far from the truth."

Stun guns in Canada do periodically break, but officials at Taser International said that isn't because of manufacturing defects, but rather general usage where the weapons are dropped or the electrodes break off. [That's a really lame excuse for breakage of a product in its regular usage environment.]

That's some failure rate. And people hate Windows Vista! Amazing.

So does this mean that:

- 150 of the new 3000 tasers in NYC,
- 62 out of the 1250 tasers coming to Los Angeles,
- 500 of the 10000 tasers planned for the UK (Though that might hit complications.), and
- 50 out of the 1000 tasers planned for Dekalb County(or here), GA

are going to require repair? You'd think that would make for some grouchy taxpayers.