By Rick Badie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — He bought his wife a Taser after Meredith Emerson was snatched out of the woods and killed.
Firearms, Tim McCoy told me Saturday, are not allowed in national forests. Tasers are.
We’re talking in the kitchen of the Lawrenceville home he shares with Leigh, his wife of 12 years. They had invited me to a party, one with an unusual theme. A Taser party. Think Tupperware party but with Tasers in designer colors like electric blue, black pearl and titanium silver.
It was quite the bash, though no one got liquored up. (Booze wasn’t served, a wise move when you’re hawking stun gun devices. During the party, McCoy let his wife shoot him for demonstration’s sake. More on that later.)
The McCoys decided to become authorized Taser dealers after they purchased two of the devices. They were granted dealership status in February after going through the approval process with Taser International, the manufacturer.
Their business, “Packing Jolt,” was born. Their slogan: “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Shock.”
Civilian Tasers and police Tasers vary. Shock from the police device lasts four seconds. The blast from the civilian one lasts 30 seconds. That way, the shooter has time to escape to safety. If the shooter presses the “trigger” again, he’ll release another 30-second cycle of electricity. If there’s more than one predator, the others will probably scat after they see their comrade paralyzed, according to the video shown Saturday.
The civilian Taser has a 15-foot coil with two barbed probes on the end. The probes hook to the attackers’s clothes, or the skin. So in addition to being blasted with 50,000 volts, an attacker might get hooked like a fish.
“Not as messy as a .357,” quipped Alan Oberlander of Stockbridge. He attended the party with his wife, Vivian, and two kids --- Kristle, 19, and Joe, 15.
Oberlander struck me as a no-nonsense guy. You know the type: Deep love for the USA and the right to keep and bear firearms. He bought two Tasers --- one for his wife and one for his daughter.
“Just think if those two girls would have had a Taser,” he said, referring to the co-eds at the University of North Carolina and Auburn University who were recently murdered. “This is better for women who may not feel comfortable carrying guns. But believe me, we got those, too.”
No doubt, Tasers are valuable to civilians and cops. They just need to be deployed wisely.
In May 2004, a Lawrenceville man died in the Gwinnett jail after the authorities shocked him five times. I wrote that local law-enforcement agencies should hold off using the devices until research could determine whether they contributed to this man’s death and others in Georgia. A medical examiner’s report concluded the chest shocks didn’t kill the man. A heart attack did.
Apparently, Taser International understands the need to draw a line between the infliction of punishment and forced submission. In June 2005, the manufacturer released an advisory warning to law enforcement, saying that repeated and prolonged strikes from its stun gun device may impair breathing and lead to death.
I almost died Saturday after seeing McCoy take a five-second burst. To prepare, he put on an insulated vest and positioned himself so that he’d be struck in the back.
Oberlander did the countdown. “5,4,3,2,1!”
McCoy’s wife pulled the trigger. Zap.
McCoy didn’t drop to his knees, but he buckled a little. Everybody asked the private investigator and AT&T construction lineman if he were OK.
“Pull the probe out!” he yelled. That took a while, but Oberlander finally got it out of his back.
Then, I asked the one question everybody wanted to know:
“How did it feel?”
His answer is unprintable. Suffice it to say that McCoy likened the shock to an engine firing up while a spark plug is stuck up a certain part of one’s body.
The basic civilian Taser costs $299; the laser-sighted model sells for $350. Packing Jolt gives Gwinnett residents a break. They get $75 worth of free accessories (holster and extra cartridges) as well as free shipping and delivery. The couple has sold 11 devices so far, including the two Oberlander bought Saturday.
The McCoys feel strongly that Tasers are going to change personal safety, much the way airbags altered automobile safety. The predator’s job, they say, just got harder.
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution