Just remember it could be worse than we have it. Holy "anti" batman
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=469652&in_page_id=1770
We reveal how easy it is to buy lethal stun guns
By RICHARD PRICE
The Viper Defender is a perfectly innocuous-looking piece of equipment.
Sleek, matt black and no bigger than a pack of playing cards, it could quite easily be mistaken for a pocketsize radio. Given that it runs on the same harmless batteries as your average Walkman or electric razor, what harm could it possibly do?
Well, quite a lot actually. Just ask teacher Peter Kelly, who was zapped in the back with a Viper Defender as he stood outside the gates of Ashton Park secondary school in Bristol.
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All it took was the press of a button to send the best part of a million volts surging through his body, throwing him paralysed to the ground where he lay writhing in agony.
Unable to defend himself because of the overwhelming electric shock, he was left at the mercy of his attacker, who then punched him, as well as a female colleague standing next to him.
The Viper Defender, you see, is no standard piece of household electronics. It is the most powerful stun gun in the world, with the capacity to instantly blast 950,000 volts of electricity into the central nervous system of anyone unfortunate enough to brush against it. That's what happened to Mr Kelly.
One moment he was outside the school, where he teaches mathematics; the next instant he was transported into unspeakable pain, his legs turning to jelly as the massive electrical charge overwhelmed his body, while horrified pupils looked on.
Such was the devastating impact of the attack that Mr Kelly remains too upset to discuss it. His attacker - a 19-year-old stranger, Marvin Airey - this week admitted the attack at Bristol Crown Court and will be sentenced at a later date.
But how on earth did a teenager lay his hands on such a devastating - and illegal - weapon?
The answer, a Mail investigation has chillingly discovered, is all too easily. In less than a week, we were able to take delivery of a small arsenal of stun guns. All of them are illegal in this country, all were delivered by post with no questions asked, all were purchased over the internet, and all of them were frighteningly cheap.
Indeed, the most expensive item - a stun gun baton which can deliver a 750,000-volt shock as you smash someone over the head with it - cost just £65. The Viper Defender, which is an astonishing 20 times more powerful than standard police issue Taser stun guns, came to a paltry £45 including postage.
Is it any wonder that campaigners and those responsible for enforcing the law are becoming increasingly concerned about this menacing trade?
Consider this startling statistic: the number of stun guns seized by Customs has increased by 750 per cent in the past five years.
Though Customs officials concede that they intercept a tiny fraction of the total number arriving in the country (around 1,000 a year at the last time of counting), the figures are seen as clear evidence that the popularity of stun guns is increasing at an unsettling rate.
In an increasingly violent society, the prospect of scores of thugs and criminals getting their hands on them is frightening indeed. Already Amnesty International has expressed its concern. It has gathered statistics in the United States, where stun guns are far more widely used, to show that more than 220 people have died after being 'shot' with stun guns in police incidents alone.
Most suffered massive heart attacks. And they fear Britain is heading in the same direction. When other medical research is considered, the dangers become even more evident.
In the first study of its kind, published recently in the Annals Of Emergency Medicine, Dr William Bozeman concluded that the chance of dying after being shot by a stun gun could be as high as one in 870. Other potential serious injuries include respiratory failure, malfunction of pacemakers, injury to the central nervous system and miscarriage.
As Amnesty's Oliver Sprague puts it: 'Stun guns are dangerous weapons, they cause extreme pain and inflict immense terror. In many countries they are used as the tool of the torturer. No one in the UK should be allowed to obtain such a weapon, let alone for as little as £45.
'It's horrifying to think that an ordinary British citizen can get their hands on such a dangerous piece of torture equipment so easily. The internet has made it far too easy for arms dealers to circumvent the law.'
Of course, torture is not an issue in the United Kingdom. Or is it? Senior police officers have told the Mail that drug dealers and hardened criminals are increasingly turning to stun guns as a means of torturing debtors and enemies without leaving any visible marks.
Just consider these random examples.
In December last year, a suspected robber ran amok with a 500,000-volt Taser in Harrods.
In Cressing, Essex, a 60-year-old man was attacked with a stun gun as he tried to fight off four masked burglars at his home, later requiring hospital treatment following his ordeal. In Northamptonshire, a gang used a stun gun to attack a lorry driver and steal his vehicle, along with its £250,000 cargo.
In February, Brian Whitfield, a 44-year-old doorman from Gateshead, was jailed for life for murdering his expartner, whom he was said to have tortured with a stun gun before stabbing her to death.
And in Avon, two teenagers will soon stand trial for allegedly attacking an innocent bystander with a stun gun outside a McDonald's restaurant 'for a laugh'. Their victim, too, was hospitalised.
Of course, if you believe the sales hype, stun guns are essentially harmless. They are sold as a safe and effective way to protect yourself without any lasting damage, by incapacitating assailants at the flick of a switch.
The marketing is increasingly sophisticated. In America a new version of the Taser will soon go on sale to the public, available in four colours: black pearl, titanium silver, electric blue and a female-friendly metallic pink. But what if you are not an attacker but a victim?
That was the position in which 50-year-old Barry Dickinson unexpectedly found himself as he walked along a street in Oldham, near Manchester. Without warning a gang of men leapt out of a car and blasted him with a stun gun. He immediately lost control of his muscles and was dragged into the car, beaten and robbed of his watch before being dumped further up the road.
While paralysed by the shock, he was beaten so badly his nose and cheekbone were broken. With stun guns so easily available, police are increasingly coming across incidents such as this in which criminals use stun guns to incapacitate victims before assaulting or robbing them. One senior Scotland Yard officer told the Mail: 'The beauty of these weapons - if you could call it that - is that they leave no real mark and often the victim literally doesn't know what hit them.
'They're increasingly used by drug dealers to settle scores with each other, teenage tearaways and football hooligans, but they've also been used by thieves and in armed robberies. We are taking it very seriously.'
The Metropolitan Police are so concerned about the issue that the Flying Squad's remit has been changed. Until two years ago they would only investigate crimes involving firearms, but now they are called in when stun guns are involved as well.
Yet as the Mail's investigation proved, getting hold of these weapons online is frighteningly easy. On the official website for the Viper Defender, the stun gun is promoted as a muscular boys' own toy.
It features footage of people demonstrating the 'raw savage power' of handheld stun guns. Included among the purportedly light-hearted films is a clip of four teenagers daring each other to be 'zapped'.
The boys are not identified, but both the setting (a typical suburban back garden) and their accents are unmistakably British. How did they get hold of an illegal weapon? The website does not elaborate.
Buying the Viper was a simple enough process, which merely required a credit card. There were no checks made on my age or whether or not I had any criminal convictions. In other words, a ten-year-old boy using his father's cash card could find a stun gun dropping through his front door in a matter of days.
All the items I purchased, it should be noted, are banned under the Firearms Act, and in theory anyone possessing such a weapon could be jailed for up to ten years. Yet you would never have known it from the attitude of the suppliers.
Our research showed that companies providing stun guns to British customers can be found in Germany, France, South Africa and the Far East - though the majority hide behind the cosy anonymity of the internet.
I was able to take delivery of three stun guns within a week from two suppliers - but was left in no doubt that if I was prepared to wait longer, dozens more weapons were available to us. One of the companies, Security Discount Germany, operates from a well-appointed office and warehouse on an industrial estate in Darmstadt, a small town just south of Frankfurt.
It sells a variety of stun guns ranging from 100,000 volts to 750,000 volts, as well as a variety of batons, pepper/CS sprays (from as little as £3 each), handcuffs and other security items.
They also offer online package deals - for instance a 100,000-volt stun gun, a pepper spray and a CS spray retails for just over £20. We spoke to SDG's owner, Andreas Floethe, who could not have been more helpful.
He said: 'I have to inform you that some products are not legal in the UK, but that is up to you to find out.' Would they still send us a 750,000-volt stun gun and a 10-inch 750,000-volt stun baton? 'Yes we will.'
And when the packages arrived, one was discovered to contain a complimentary can of pepper spray - also illegal in this country. So much for regulations.
We also purchased a Viper Defender from another website, to which we had been directed by Viper Defender's South African sales team.
All we had to do was pay £45 by Visa, with no questions asked, and less than a week later the weapon arrived in a unmarked white jiffy bag, with no receipt and nothing to indicate anything else about the company.
All this just goes to show how the British authorities' attempts to clamp down on the trade in stun guns have been emasculated by the rise of the internet.
When the Mail put its concerns about the easy availability of stun guns to the Home Office, its response was: 'Our laws on the import of firearms are very strict and enforcement agencies take comprehensive action to prevent illegal importation of firearms.
'HM Revenue and Customs and the police service are active in targeting groups who would seek to illegally import firearms, whatever their motive, including criminal gangs who use firearms to protect or expand their illegal activities.'
As part of their 'activity' they might consider taking a look at the internet. Otherwise it is surely only a matter of time until Britain sees its first stungun death.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=469652&in_page_id=1770
We reveal how easy it is to buy lethal stun guns
By RICHARD PRICE
The Viper Defender is a perfectly innocuous-looking piece of equipment.
Sleek, matt black and no bigger than a pack of playing cards, it could quite easily be mistaken for a pocketsize radio. Given that it runs on the same harmless batteries as your average Walkman or electric razor, what harm could it possibly do?
Well, quite a lot actually. Just ask teacher Peter Kelly, who was zapped in the back with a Viper Defender as he stood outside the gates of Ashton Park secondary school in Bristol.
Scroll down for more ...
All it took was the press of a button to send the best part of a million volts surging through his body, throwing him paralysed to the ground where he lay writhing in agony.
Unable to defend himself because of the overwhelming electric shock, he was left at the mercy of his attacker, who then punched him, as well as a female colleague standing next to him.
The Viper Defender, you see, is no standard piece of household electronics. It is the most powerful stun gun in the world, with the capacity to instantly blast 950,000 volts of electricity into the central nervous system of anyone unfortunate enough to brush against it. That's what happened to Mr Kelly.
One moment he was outside the school, where he teaches mathematics; the next instant he was transported into unspeakable pain, his legs turning to jelly as the massive electrical charge overwhelmed his body, while horrified pupils looked on.
Such was the devastating impact of the attack that Mr Kelly remains too upset to discuss it. His attacker - a 19-year-old stranger, Marvin Airey - this week admitted the attack at Bristol Crown Court and will be sentenced at a later date.
But how on earth did a teenager lay his hands on such a devastating - and illegal - weapon?
The answer, a Mail investigation has chillingly discovered, is all too easily. In less than a week, we were able to take delivery of a small arsenal of stun guns. All of them are illegal in this country, all were delivered by post with no questions asked, all were purchased over the internet, and all of them were frighteningly cheap.
Indeed, the most expensive item - a stun gun baton which can deliver a 750,000-volt shock as you smash someone over the head with it - cost just £65. The Viper Defender, which is an astonishing 20 times more powerful than standard police issue Taser stun guns, came to a paltry £45 including postage.
Is it any wonder that campaigners and those responsible for enforcing the law are becoming increasingly concerned about this menacing trade?
Consider this startling statistic: the number of stun guns seized by Customs has increased by 750 per cent in the past five years.
Though Customs officials concede that they intercept a tiny fraction of the total number arriving in the country (around 1,000 a year at the last time of counting), the figures are seen as clear evidence that the popularity of stun guns is increasing at an unsettling rate.
In an increasingly violent society, the prospect of scores of thugs and criminals getting their hands on them is frightening indeed. Already Amnesty International has expressed its concern. It has gathered statistics in the United States, where stun guns are far more widely used, to show that more than 220 people have died after being 'shot' with stun guns in police incidents alone.
Most suffered massive heart attacks. And they fear Britain is heading in the same direction. When other medical research is considered, the dangers become even more evident.
In the first study of its kind, published recently in the Annals Of Emergency Medicine, Dr William Bozeman concluded that the chance of dying after being shot by a stun gun could be as high as one in 870. Other potential serious injuries include respiratory failure, malfunction of pacemakers, injury to the central nervous system and miscarriage.
As Amnesty's Oliver Sprague puts it: 'Stun guns are dangerous weapons, they cause extreme pain and inflict immense terror. In many countries they are used as the tool of the torturer. No one in the UK should be allowed to obtain such a weapon, let alone for as little as £45.
'It's horrifying to think that an ordinary British citizen can get their hands on such a dangerous piece of torture equipment so easily. The internet has made it far too easy for arms dealers to circumvent the law.'
Of course, torture is not an issue in the United Kingdom. Or is it? Senior police officers have told the Mail that drug dealers and hardened criminals are increasingly turning to stun guns as a means of torturing debtors and enemies without leaving any visible marks.
Just consider these random examples.
In December last year, a suspected robber ran amok with a 500,000-volt Taser in Harrods.
In Cressing, Essex, a 60-year-old man was attacked with a stun gun as he tried to fight off four masked burglars at his home, later requiring hospital treatment following his ordeal. In Northamptonshire, a gang used a stun gun to attack a lorry driver and steal his vehicle, along with its £250,000 cargo.
In February, Brian Whitfield, a 44-year-old doorman from Gateshead, was jailed for life for murdering his expartner, whom he was said to have tortured with a stun gun before stabbing her to death.
And in Avon, two teenagers will soon stand trial for allegedly attacking an innocent bystander with a stun gun outside a McDonald's restaurant 'for a laugh'. Their victim, too, was hospitalised.
Of course, if you believe the sales hype, stun guns are essentially harmless. They are sold as a safe and effective way to protect yourself without any lasting damage, by incapacitating assailants at the flick of a switch.
The marketing is increasingly sophisticated. In America a new version of the Taser will soon go on sale to the public, available in four colours: black pearl, titanium silver, electric blue and a female-friendly metallic pink. But what if you are not an attacker but a victim?
That was the position in which 50-year-old Barry Dickinson unexpectedly found himself as he walked along a street in Oldham, near Manchester. Without warning a gang of men leapt out of a car and blasted him with a stun gun. He immediately lost control of his muscles and was dragged into the car, beaten and robbed of his watch before being dumped further up the road.
While paralysed by the shock, he was beaten so badly his nose and cheekbone were broken. With stun guns so easily available, police are increasingly coming across incidents such as this in which criminals use stun guns to incapacitate victims before assaulting or robbing them. One senior Scotland Yard officer told the Mail: 'The beauty of these weapons - if you could call it that - is that they leave no real mark and often the victim literally doesn't know what hit them.
'They're increasingly used by drug dealers to settle scores with each other, teenage tearaways and football hooligans, but they've also been used by thieves and in armed robberies. We are taking it very seriously.'
The Metropolitan Police are so concerned about the issue that the Flying Squad's remit has been changed. Until two years ago they would only investigate crimes involving firearms, but now they are called in when stun guns are involved as well.
Yet as the Mail's investigation proved, getting hold of these weapons online is frighteningly easy. On the official website for the Viper Defender, the stun gun is promoted as a muscular boys' own toy.
It features footage of people demonstrating the 'raw savage power' of handheld stun guns. Included among the purportedly light-hearted films is a clip of four teenagers daring each other to be 'zapped'.
The boys are not identified, but both the setting (a typical suburban back garden) and their accents are unmistakably British. How did they get hold of an illegal weapon? The website does not elaborate.
Buying the Viper was a simple enough process, which merely required a credit card. There were no checks made on my age or whether or not I had any criminal convictions. In other words, a ten-year-old boy using his father's cash card could find a stun gun dropping through his front door in a matter of days.
All the items I purchased, it should be noted, are banned under the Firearms Act, and in theory anyone possessing such a weapon could be jailed for up to ten years. Yet you would never have known it from the attitude of the suppliers.
Our research showed that companies providing stun guns to British customers can be found in Germany, France, South Africa and the Far East - though the majority hide behind the cosy anonymity of the internet.
I was able to take delivery of three stun guns within a week from two suppliers - but was left in no doubt that if I was prepared to wait longer, dozens more weapons were available to us. One of the companies, Security Discount Germany, operates from a well-appointed office and warehouse on an industrial estate in Darmstadt, a small town just south of Frankfurt.
It sells a variety of stun guns ranging from 100,000 volts to 750,000 volts, as well as a variety of batons, pepper/CS sprays (from as little as £3 each), handcuffs and other security items.
They also offer online package deals - for instance a 100,000-volt stun gun, a pepper spray and a CS spray retails for just over £20. We spoke to SDG's owner, Andreas Floethe, who could not have been more helpful.
He said: 'I have to inform you that some products are not legal in the UK, but that is up to you to find out.' Would they still send us a 750,000-volt stun gun and a 10-inch 750,000-volt stun baton? 'Yes we will.'
And when the packages arrived, one was discovered to contain a complimentary can of pepper spray - also illegal in this country. So much for regulations.
We also purchased a Viper Defender from another website, to which we had been directed by Viper Defender's South African sales team.
All we had to do was pay £45 by Visa, with no questions asked, and less than a week later the weapon arrived in a unmarked white jiffy bag, with no receipt and nothing to indicate anything else about the company.
All this just goes to show how the British authorities' attempts to clamp down on the trade in stun guns have been emasculated by the rise of the internet.
When the Mail put its concerns about the easy availability of stun guns to the Home Office, its response was: 'Our laws on the import of firearms are very strict and enforcement agencies take comprehensive action to prevent illegal importation of firearms.
'HM Revenue and Customs and the police service are active in targeting groups who would seek to illegally import firearms, whatever their motive, including criminal gangs who use firearms to protect or expand their illegal activities.'
As part of their 'activity' they might consider taking a look at the internet. Otherwise it is surely only a matter of time until Britain sees its first stungun death.
