Tasers Safe After All

I thought I'd run out of things to say about tasers, but not only do the weapons carry a risk of long-term harm - perhaps even death - and facilitate police brutality, they may also be a fire hazard. Police in Florida (which reportedly leads the US in taser associated fatalities) used one of the devices against a suspect (used, apparently, not because he posed a threat to anybody but because he was running away), in the process causing his shirt to catch fire:

"I wish I knew more details," a Taser spokesman told the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post. The spokesman said a combustible such as gasoline or the alcohol in pepper spray may have sparked the fire.

Well that's alright then. The odds of tasers and pepper spray being present in the same location must be... Oh, not very high at all.