What about the anarchist octegenarians? Fabric like this could save their life and it's being denied to them!?

I guess that's about the level of science you'd expect from a boffin at Leeds Polytechnic.

Firstly if you are firing a taser at a cop armed with a gun I wouldn't describe you as anything other than a moron.

Secondly, it doesn't matter if it's not possible / highly unlikely to hit someone in the head; it's the fact that they will try that increases the risk of serious injury.

Think Chainmail. Been around for hundreds of years, conducts electricity, considered protective clothing. Hardly an original idea.

Mines the one with the metalized mylar laminated to the inside.

it's a layer of tinfoil then?

It's the Chainmail one on the peg. Good against tazers, tesla coils and swords.

Don't tase me (in the head) bro!!!

OK i'm on my way....

See that tinfoil hat should now come with a tinfoil suit to match!

"Tase him Bill!"

*bbzzzzzttt* *flash*

"Gah, he's wearing one of those darn tinfoil vests!"

"Fine, back to good ol' fashioned bullets then"

BANG!

Not for sale to the public - well, that's alright then. Because of course there's no way a member of the general public could ever be smart enough to figure out make one of these Taser-proof vests themself, now, is there?

Then again, 60% of Americans believe that the world was zapped into existence by a magic sky pixie, 6000 years ago. So perhaps there isn't.

Not because of the risk of being tasered but I think a Faraday cage waistcoat would go very well with my tinfoil hat ;-)

Seriously though - good article, neatly shows how someone making assumptions about technology they obviously have no idea about can create a media scare by spouting forth!

I've handled a taser briefly, and I can tell you that no-one who has fired one is ever going to aim for the head, even if they know the target is zap-proof on the chest. Those in the know might just aim for the legs, but even then, there's a much lower chance of a take-down. Does Thor do trousers?

Of course, selling to the military/police only is obviously a joke - most of the people who need protection from tasers are victims of security forces from what I've seen. And in the UK, it's easier to get an illegal hand gun than a taser

I don't need to explain the icon...

They know it's out there and available. They know that it could well be in use.

How about they buy it anyway, just in case. If the guy misses his face and gets it in the chest, no problem. If he does get, by some miracle, the top barb to hit the coppers' face and the other in his chest, at least the space between the probe and the vest might be enough to stop him getting 50kv through the eye socket.

...a market for tin-foil hats with government subsidies. Zapato Productions Intradimensional will make a mint.

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

"BEWARE OF COMMERCIAL AFDBS: Since you should trust no one, always construct your AFDB yourself to avoid the risk of subversion and mental enslavement. Sometimes, AFDBs will be sold on places like eBay. Do not purchase these pre-made AFDBs, even if the seller seems trustworthy. They may contain backdoors, pinholes, integrated psychotronic circuitry or other methods that actually promote mind control."

Well, they should know...

> Secondly, it doesn't matter if it's not possible / highly unlikely to hit someone in the

> head; it's the fact that they will try that increases the risk of serious injury.

Well no. If they aim for the head the chances of missing completely are greatly increased, hence the risk of seriopus injury is reduced. Given an 8 degree divergence the greatest chance of being hit in the head would seem to be if the aiming point is the upper torso... Given a target wearing such a vest the most appropriate aiming point would seem to be the legs.

Last time I looked, water was a terrible conductor of electricity. So much so, in fact, that you can use it as an electrical insulator. It's the stuff mixed into the water that gives it it's conductive properties.

If in doubt then try it for yourself: Collect some pure water (say from a dehumidifier) and put in in a cup. Then connect the two contacts from a 9v or higher battery and see what happens - probably nothing. Then add some salt to your pure water and give it a stir. You should quickly see the effects of electrolysis - the water will be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. Being that water is 2 parts hydrogen to 1 part oxygen, one of those contacts will have twice as many bubbles as the other.

For better effect, connect the battery to two graphite probes instead.

What the hell does he think Police marksmanship is up to anyhow, dead-eye dick standards?

Armed Coppers here in the UK are trained to shoot what's called a "stop shot", or "centre body mass" - that's the upper/central chest, to you and me. Shooting at the head - or any other extremity come to that - is the realm of mythical sharpshooters, Wyatt Earp, and probably Calamity Jane.

Get bloody real, prof - if the taser won't stop the thug, a bloody good application of the extendible baton into the nether regions'll probably do the job, and leave less marks too!

Laser, cause it's the closest icon to an electric spark we have here ;)

just for the record, in the article you state our bodies are good conductors because we're mostly made out of water. that's both correct and incorrect. water in itself is actually one of the worst conductors in existence, but the minerals in our bodies that pollute it are actually making it conductive, hence it is not the water in our bodies that make us conductive, it's the minerals.

also, how is this news? you can't tell me nobody thought of running copper/aluminium wires through clothes? hell, I'VE thought of that before and 'm not THAT smart.....

Paris because even she could've invented this.

Pointless - the power will take the path of least resistance, and everyone knows that coppers a better conductor than tinfoil....

i'll get my ..*KZZZZZZZTTTT* GAAAAH!

*KZZZT*

*KZZT*

*KZzzzZZZZzzzZZZT*

I'll go quietly....

In the UK at least all officers on the street will be wearing a half inch of kevlar. That'll stop the points from the tazer quite effectively and I suspect insulate the wearer from them quite well.

A solution without a problem, at least as far as the police are concerned. You might be able to sell them to small time crims.

You guys are just jealous because you didn't think about it. As for thinking about it as chain mail...well it's no wonder you didn't get the idea. I doubt it will be that heavy anyway, unless I am missing the sarcasm...quite possible!

Oh and I agree with you Lewis, it's a tad silly to suggest that now the body is protected they will fire tasers at the hear, surely the legs would be better!?

I've just realised this post is a bit ranty so I'll get my coat and go for a walk.

Well, actually, yes. If Tasers don't work on cops any more the emerging hi-tech villains would have to switch back to guns.

If I were a cop I'd rather get stunned by a Taser than be shot by a gun.... Frankly!

I recently saw an episode of myth busters, where they were trying to make a water taser. While testing a regular taser, one of the probes hit the dummy in the face. This happened twice, out of three (shown) tries to hit the dummy in the torso.

It looked like it would have sucked to be the dummy.

To avoid face (eye) shots, the police are probably trained to aim for the stomach. But that just makes me think that accidental testicle tasering is fairly common.

and target the perp's body one of the diverging darts is going to make for an eye and the other for a bollock anyway. Serves 'em right too.

"And that's with a pistol that shoots in straight lines"

Oops. Back to school with those failing teachers for a bit of mechanics revision.

Unless you've developed a projectile weapon that overcomes the effects of gravity and air resistance, in which case file your patent and start printing money.

Pure water is, indeed, not very conductive at ordinary voltages (although the H2O molecule is highly polar, and water will ionise readily if subjected to sufficient electrical pressure).

However, water is also a very good solvent; and the moment anything made of any kind of charged particles is dissolved in it, it becomes conductive.

Let's get something straight, guys: Englishmen should NOT pontificate about what is possible, not possible, easy, or not easy to do with a firearm. You don't have sufficient experience with the tools in question, since not too many of you have ever actually FIRED any.

I'm an American. Over the course of my childhood, I fired just about everything you could imagine, from shotguns to magnum revolvers, to 45 ACPs, to rifles. If your target is within twenty feet, trust me when I say that shooting it between the eyes is NOT HARD AT ALL. You just have to have a little patience, and actually AIM the PISTOL.

Maybe I'm luckier than most. My father was a U.S. Marine pistol trainer in Okinawa in the late fifties, and he trained me "the old way". I was ALSO a U.S. Marine, and I tested rifle expert the whole time I was in (my best score was 242/250 on a range with a 500 yard line, on a somewhat windy afternoon).

If you want to achieve virtually MYTHICAL performance, you can improve your marksmanship with a few exercises. My father used to hold a 2" thick dictionary out at arms length while he watched television at night to build endurance. Also, you can get a more stable shooting position by rotating your elbow upwards so the arm locks, and your elbow doesn't bend when the gun fires (the shoulder absorbs the shock and you maintain your "natural point of aim"). Also, forget all that "Weaver Stance" bullshit; stand sideways with your arm extended straight out from the shoulder; you make a smaller target that way and you're more stable, and it's easier to fire around corners.

My father knew a Colonel (his boss, actually) who could fire one shot to get on target, then turn and talk to you while firing the rest of the magazine -- and still be on target. When he aimed the whole time, at 50 feet he could cover his entire pattern with a half dollar piece. They used to shoot competitively, so they aren't the average, but you should know there ARE people who can do things like that.

Finally, when I lived in the Southwest, I met and went shooting with people who practiced "instinctual shooting" -- a method of shooting which uses our natural ability to point an index finger at a target -- to fire from the hip. They would practice using bottles about twenty feet away; this is about how big a person is at 50 feet (and smaller than your head at 20 feet).

They were excellent shots.

I guess the bottom line is, maybe Englishmen need more practice! Come hang out with us. You buy the beer, we'll buy the ammo, meet us in the cinder pits outside town and we'll teach ya, Grasshopper...

Are the police allowed to still use these Tasers on you, if you tell them (truthfully or otherwise) that you have a Pacemaker fitted?

Just a thought.

My tatty old, but extremely heavy, leather bike jacket has a layer of aluminized film as an insulator - an insulator against cold, that is.

It conducts electricity extremely well though...but I'm not going to take the heads off parking meters until the cops tase me as a test...

Mine's the 8.6kilo, aluminium lined, heavily padded one....

More fun to get one probe in each leg....ZAP!

PULL DOWN GUN vs TASER

See http://PullDownGun.narod.ru

"Laser, cause it's the closest icon to an electric spark we have here"

Not sure which icon you meant to use, but the one you ended up with is a black helicopter...

As for the Yank that thinks it is easy to hit a head at twenty yards, would you mind telling me how often you get the chance in real life to shoot at a stationery target that is twenty yards away or less?

When I was in the Army we were told that the effective range of the Browning pistol was twenty metres, so if you wanted to do the job properly chuck a grenade: that had a lethal range of thirty-five!

So what's the IT angle - just remembered: already said by a few others, but water is more of a semi-conductor - imagine what would happen if you topped up a car battery with something that was indeed a 'good conductor' ? !

> What about the anarchist octegenarians?

Funnily enough, there are protests over in Ireland over budget cutbacks withdrawing free Medical Card support for over-70's. A lot of people are upset. I heard an interview with one pensioner today who was saying "I don't care if they call us anarchists, this is disgraceful, etc." I suppose my point is that you can't discount the possibility that the government will radicalise even pensioners with badly thought out legislation. Now if we could only get granny riled up over ID cards, Terrerist databases, mobile phone tracking, etc. Maybe too much to ask, but if we could source some conductive yarn they might at least be able to knit us some taser-proof jumpers.

Perhaps a clarification.

*Water* in and of itself isn't a great conductor of electricity. But that all changes when you start putting in *electrolytes*. And as it so happens, the human body's composition happens to contain a noticeable proportion of *salt*--which becomes an electrolyte when dissolved in water.

That was my idea! I was going to call it Mithril after the LOTR vesticle thingie. I was thinking more along the lines of copper thread in a fine mesh woven into a cotton garment or whatever. I was also thinking more of protecting the public from those loonies who call themselves the police these days. You'd sell millions of 'em.

I also looked forward to all the youtube videos of some dude saying "Don't taze me bro'" and the police tazing said dude, only for said dude to stand there laughing at 'em. Mind you, then they'd just gun him down where he stood so meh.

I also thought about how you could stand there and say, "Human evolution has taken a step forward, and I'm it - you can taze me if you want but I'm impervious." And then watch the police stare in horror as their electric toy gun did you no harm whatsoever, which of course would give you vital time to kick 'em in the nadgers and scarper.

But of course, these bastards have stolen my idea, typical.

This icon will be my trademark for Mithril but don't ask me why...

against tasing accidents. So accidental discharge leaves no lasting damage.

Disgusting!