Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle

Massive now is the story of 21-year-old college student Andrew Meyer, who was arrested and tasered during a town hall forum featuring John Kerry. Upon reading the various accounts of the story that have emerged, and watching the YouTube video, I’ve come to two very different conclusions about the incident:

-This kid was an arrogant jackass who completely deserved having his mic cut off. With his ranting non-stop list of questions, he was going over the time granted to him, and cutting into the opportunity of others to ask their questions. In that sense, he was denying them their freedom of speech. I doubt he was immediately being arrested when the two officers first moved in on him, only when resisted against them in the back of the room did they have to be more forceful. When he got zapped, I really couldn’t help but chuckle, just by the way he cried. He had the aura of an asshole, and the cops responded procedurally. People shouldn’t be so quick to claim that his freedom of speech was being violated when it’s difficult to tell what exactly happened. People shouldn’t place complete and total faith in a YouTube video.

However…
-The taser is the only thing that makes this story a national sensation and not just some second page article for the local newspaper. Time and time again I hear that the kid had already had been put in handcuffs by the time the officers used the taser on him. Yes, he had been warned that he would be tasered if he continued to resist. It’s really impossible to tell if he had continued to resist, but by that point, I still doubt the tasering was necessary when they had him in cuffs, and being that there were at least four officers on him, it would’ve been easy to carry him out of the room. He still seemed to struggle against them as they ushered him out. Also, even if he is found guilty of disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, it should be sensible that the charge of inciting a riot will be dropped. He called out for help and asked if the crowd “was seeing what was happening.”
Even everyone’s favorite conservative blowhole Bill O’Reilly agrees that the tasering was just a bit much (fast forward to 5:10, watch until the end of the video.) Not that anything that O'Reilly spews out of his mouth is worth giving any sort of credit to, but the irony just hit me like a electric volt to the chest!

Yes, I used a taser joke. From this moment on till a couple of months or so, the taser will recieve more attention than any other tool on a policeman's belt, even more than the fucking gun. It'll become a staple of American culture. I think it’s pretty safe to say that “Don’t tase me bro!” will be remembered as the catchphrase of 2007.