Jason Delgado
The House and Senate agreed Tuesday to provide the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) with $1.5 million to replace its aging arsenal of Tasers.
The allocation will provide 1,800 new Tasers, 300 holsters and instructor training. A Taser is a less-lethal electrical weapon commonly employed by the military and police.
“The current CEW (conducted electrical weapon) equipment is aged and the warranty has expired with no options to extend,” says an explainer in the Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Freedom First budget proposal. “Funding this issue will help law enforcement have reliable equipment that protects them, as well as reduces the risk of injury to suspects.”
The money, FHP explained, is needed to replace out-of-warranty Tasers they purchased in 2015. FHP originally requested $3.8 million for the project.
The Senate, however, proposed $1.5 million — despite DeSantis and the House recommending lawmakers fully fund the request.
Budget committees settled on the figure Tuesday in the latest House Infrastructure & Tourism Appropriations Subcommittee budget offer.
Troopers in Florida are equipped with the Taser X2. The device — produced by Axon in Arizona — fires two electrically-charged probes capable of piercing clothing.
Tasers and electrical weapons are “designed to disrupt a subject’s motor and sensory nervous system by deploying battery-powered electrical energy sufficient to cause neuro-muscular incapacitation (NMI) and override voluntary motor responses,” according to a 2021 FHP policy manual.
Taser technology has advanced rapidly in recent years. In April 2021, Axon CEO Rick Smith predicted the technology will replace the need for police to carry firearms within 10 years.
“We’ve got to outperform the police pistol. … I think we’ll get there, where, by 2030, we’re going to have nonlethal weapons so good, it will actually be a faster time to incapacitation more reliably than a police pistol,” Smith said in an interview with Forbes.
Axon also produces police-worn body cameras and online evidence storage.
Moving forward, FHP plans to transition to the TASER 7. Axon describes it as its “most effective” TASER yet.
Featured below is a Taser X2 promo clip provided by Axon.
