When police departments are trying to sell us on the value of adding tasers to their arsenals, we’re told that they will only be used sparingly, and that tasers are an alternative to deadly force.

By this reasoning, we should expect no more incidents of tasers being used than incidents of police firearms being used before tasers were available to them. Right?

Ha. Here’s the reality:

The family of a Burlington teenager has filed a formal complaint against a city police sergeant alleging the officer fired a stun gun at the boy while he was handcuffed and pinned to the ground this week….

…(Burlington Police Officer) Schirling said his department acquired Tasers about three years ago, has used them fairly frequently, and they have proved an effective law-enforcement tool. Initially a skeptic, Schirling said seeing the devices in action sold him on their usefulness.

“It is designed to minimize injuries to officers and to people the force is used on,” the chief said.

Funny, I don’t recall Burlington Police officers shooting people with their sidearms “fairly frequently” before the tasers came along.

Again, as an alternative to deadly force, I think most sane people would be all for these things. The problem is, of course, that police departments routinely BS us about how they actually intend to use them and – as in Burlington – choose instead to use these potentially lethal devices “fairly frequently” – sometimes just for the purpose of causing pain in order to coerce desired behavior (which, in more civilized nations, is considered torture and is frowned upon).

But, once again, we just celebrate this sort of thing at the highest levels in Vermont:

Shameful.