ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a key myth around projectile electric-shock weapons: that they provide an alternative to firearms. This is critically important in its own right—but is also important, I argue, because it reveals a set of underlying assumptions about technologies. After setting out the myth of electric-shock weapons as an alternative for firearms, and the various beliefs that underpin it, in the second part of this chapter, I challenge this myth. In the third part of the chapter, I move onto address the underlying assumptions about the role of technology in policing. In order to do this, I set forward my own account of the adoption of the weapon, inspired by Callon's notion of ‘translation’; a classic concept in Science and Technology Studies. In so doing, I put the notion of ‘mission creep’— the process by which objectives around a technology are changed, and a common critique of TASER—on a firmer theoretical footing. Yet I also suggest that while some degree of mission creep has occurred, it may not be in the way that is often implied. I conclude by discussing the implications of this account for our understanding of projectile electric-shock weapons, for technologies more broadly and for Callon's theory of translation.
