By Jay Savage
ninemsn
The Taser has migrated into the schoolyard, with US teens using the powerful stun guns on their peers and posting footage of the attacks online.
Tasers, which are legal in all but seven states in the US and have killed several people in recent months, have been adopted by young bullies who then boast about their exploits on sites such as YouTube.
And it's all happening in the name of fun.
One video called 'getting tazered' is shot in a school locker-room and shows a nervous boy being shoved into the middle of a circle formed by his heckling peers.
Another teen emerges from the right and jolts the boy with a Taser, egged on by the pack.
The shock catapults the boy into the air, and he lands horizontally on the ground — making no attempt to get up — as his peers cheer loudly.
Many of the videos carry crude descriptions of their subjects, with titles including 'Ginger kid gets tasered and humps wall' and 'Fat Kid Tasered'.
In another video, 'Asian Kid Stun Gunned 05 Bonus', a 150-volt injection of electricity from a Taser leaves one girl crying — prompting a flood of responses on the video's message board.
Many of the 45 user messages deride the girl on the basis of race and for being unable to withstand the pain caused by the attack.
"150,000 volts? Try 625,000! The stun gun you guys used is actually intended to just cause pain, but not to immobilize," wrote Yoshimura3712.
Another wrote: "I swear you b****** complain because I got tazed with a four times [sic] the power of that little tazer and when I [got] tazed it didn't hurt at all so don’t b**** at all,"
Dr Barbara Spears, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of South Australia, said young people who passed off these videos as fun were trivialising the seriousness of the problem.
"It is hardly 'fun' for the victim — no bullying is," Dr Spears said.
"Bullies often use this sort of discounting language… and the victims often go along with it initially, usually out of fear of escalating intimidation and humiliation."
Dr Spears said bullies typically shirked accountability for their actions while depositing the material online allowed them to retreat even further from the consequences.
"This is not just kids having an after-school fight and filming it for YouTube, but they are using weapon-like objects to deliberately inflict harm," she said.
Last week the Arizona-based company Taser International unveiled a new device that combines the Taser with an MP3 player, saying the technology affords people a less cumbersome way to protect themselves while on the move.
The new multi-faceted Taser would be marketed towards women, the company said.
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