Meet the long-range taser.  For when stunning your victims at close-range just won’t do.  As the accompanying promotional video testifies, the long-range delivers “true incapacitation” without wires, and from a “ground-breaking distance” of a 100 feet away.  Sweet!  But don’t expect to see your neighbor firing one at your dog—or you—anytime soon.  According to a recent article in New Science:

A team led by Cynthia Bir, a trauma injury specialist at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, found that some of the 275 XREP cartridges that Taser supplied for testing last year were capable of delivering an electric shock for more than 5 minutes, rather than the 20 seconds of shocking current they are supposed to generate.

Electric shock weapon expert (!) Steve Wright finds this particularly worrisome, “what happens when the weapons are fired at pregnant women, people with health problems or the very young?”  I’m with you, Steve.  Pregnant women, people with health problems and the very young should receive shocks of only 20 seconds or so—in the name of all that’s humane.

 
In New Scientist: Long-Range Taser Reignites Safety Debate