While Tom is working on his latest new invention, the electric rifle, he meets an African safari master whose stories of elephant hunting sends the group off to deepest, darkest Africa. Hunting for ivory is the least of their worries, as they find out some old friends are being held hostage by the fearsome tribes of the red pygmies.

Tom invents the electric rifle, a gun which fires bolts of electricity. The electric rifle can be calibrated to different levels of range, intensity and lethality; it can shoot through solid walls without leaving a hole, and is powerful enough to kill a rampaging whale, as in their steamer trek to Africa. With the electric rifle, Tom and friends bring down elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffalo, and save their lives several times in pitched battle with the red pygmies. It also can discharge a globe of light that was described as being able to maintain itself, like ball lightning, making hunting at night much safer in the dark of Africa. In appearance, the rifle looked very much like its contemporary conventional cousins.

Fictional character, Thomas A. Swift, was the childhood hero of NASA researcher Jack Cover. So mesmerized by the adventures of Tom, Jack developed a real-life electroshock weapon designed to disrupt voluntary control of muscles in 1969; naming it after his hero: Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle. Today, the Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle, or TASER, is used by police to subdue fleeing, belligerent, or potentially dangerous subjects, often when what they consider to be a more lethal weapon would have otherwise been used.
Knowing history ofttimes puts a thing or an occurrence into a very interesting perspective. I find it particularly ironic that a fictional weapon used to bring down elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffalo, and to do battle against red pygmies is now used by police often resulting in the death of its victims. Today, it is not at all unusual to hear of yet another death by TASER electrocution. A teen-ager, a mother, a mentally impaired person, and the list of victims goes on. What was meant to subdue has turned into a deadly weapon of choice. The TASER, IMO, has become taken the place of a rope and tree so often used to subdue those who got out of line for being too uppity. Or in some cases, for sport.

I am sure that many of you will recall these words: "You just had a big-time use of force ... tased and beat the suspect of CHP pursuit, big-time" spoken by Sgt. Stacey Koon on the night of March 2, 1991. I don't recall ever hearing the terms"tased" or "tasered" before the Rodney King incident. In 2008, 72 north Americans died as a result of being TASED. And in the first 4 months of this year, 2009, 16 Americans have died as a result of 50,000 volts of electricity entiring their bodies at the hands of the police. but in 2008 72 North Americans 16 Americans - and in the first 4 months of 2009 have died so far in 2009 ... another 72 North Americans died in 2008 ... all from being tasered with a minimum of 50,000 volts of electricity from the police. Rodney King was fortunate - he lived after that brutal attack.



Sojourner's Place is committed to this 2nd Annual Day of Blogging for Justice: End TASER Torture in America. I encourage all Sojourners to sign the petition and demand congress to investigate TASER Tortue in America. to immediately.

Obliged to you for hearing me,
and now old SjP ain't got nothin' more to say...
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
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