Another comment or two on the taser

I hear a lot of comments on this whole incident containing the phrase "in this day and age." I guess I'm supposed to understand that because there are occasional violent incidents in the world that it's okay to use a stun gun on a teenager running around on a baseball field. I'm sorry, but even if you accept the premise that life is more dangerous now than it was 10 years ago, a premise I do not accept by the way, there is no logical connection between the general situation and the specific incident.

Let's think about going to the ballpark. What's the actual disaster scenario? Someone plants a bomb somewhere and thousands of people die, right? Aside from making sure that you don't smuggle alcoholic beverages into the stadium, anybody see any real security at the gate? Have there been a lot of violent incidents where people run into the middle of a public place, make a spectacle of themselves, then start killing people?

Looking at it from another angle, I go to games a lot. There are always security people stationed around the field. Am I wrong in presuming that the part of the job description for those people is to a) prevent people from running onto the field, and b) if they do get on the field to catch and remove them? Is it really that hard to get security people who can move quickly? I mean, you go into this job knowing that you may be called upon to run after and try to catch someone, right?

All in all, I can accept that tasers can be a useful substitute for deadly force to subdue someone who's getting violent. But I can't accept them as an easy shortcut to avoid actually doing your job properly or as something to use because you're annoyed at someone's behavior. It's way too subjective and it's becoming much too prevelant.