After reading the probably-bogus story about a guy who shocked himself with a stun gun, Boing Boing reader Courtland shared this story with me:
I have a first-person story to tell, and this is true because I was there. I witnessed it.
I worked for about four years at a great electronics store in Houston, Texas, called Electronic Parts Outlet. At EPO, we mostly sold surplus electronics, but if you needed anything for ham radio, etchning your own circuit boards, a new speaker for your car, or everything to build a new computer, we had it. Along with the odd pair of Russian tank crew night vision goggles, satellite-band exciters, and once in a while, stun guns.
We carried, for a while, this stun gun that took only a 9-volt battery, but through the magic of transformers, that would ramp up to ten thousand volts or so. (I forget the actual value, but it was really high.) Just pulling the trigger was really loud, but it was not an actual Taser: the leads stayed in place, no pins or wires shot out of the device.
A customer comes in, and wants to see the device. My coworker Lauren advises the man, "Well, ok, but you do know there's a battery in it, right?" Yeah yeah, he knows. He knows! He knows all about these things, he assures us. He grabs the stumpy unit, looks it over real good, and applies the dull metal nubs to the thigh of his pants. I figure several thousand volts can penetrate khaki or denim or what-have-you, but he pulls the trigger anyway, since he's the expert, after all.
His entire leg pulls right on up, like a flamingo. He falls over to that side.
In all the commotion, I forget if I heard him yelp or anything, but I do recall that he looked severely embarassed, and angry, and he loudly muttered something about how he would sue us, and with that, exited the store at high speed. The best part was, amazed customers standing around who saw the whole thing volunteered to be witnesses as to this guy's total idiocy.
I don't know if my story has anything to do with this other story, but this is only one of the many crazy customers we had back then.
Ah…
We had a great electronics store, and that episode is pretty graphic, but my favorite story was the guy who wanted to buy a laser… no, not a laser pointer, no, not the guts of old barcode scanner guns, this particular fellow wanted something strong enough to slice two-by-fours. No, sir, we don't stock that. Try down the road, at NASA.
Previously on Boing Boing:
• UCLA cops taser student who won't show ID
• ULCA taser-cop has a history of sadistic violence
• UCLA chancellor Abrams blames student for tasering
• Testing Tasers on swine
• Pepper spray ring and mobile phone stun gun
• Mod a disposable cam into a stun-gun
• Police use stun guns on greased, naked student
• Forensic video-cameras included in next-gen stun-guns
