ELECTRICITY 101
Electricity is a form of energy that always tries to complete a
circuit. To get there, it will take the easiest and shortest path back
to the source – that includes going through people or objects.
We tend to think of electricity
as a harmful force to our
bodies. If lightning strikes you
or you stick your finger in an
electrical outlet, continuous
lethal currents may pass
Mother and daughter experience
through your body and stop
a 20 million volt Van De Graaff
Generator at Boston’s Museum
your heart.
Of course,
of Science.
smaller currents of electricity
that move small amounts of electric charge are harmless.
Doctors and patients use small pulsed currents applied to the
body for muscle and pain therapy. In fact, small pulses of
electricity created within your body are essential to all body
functions. You need electricity to do just about anything.

THE BODY'S ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
When you want to make a sandwich, for example, your brain
sends electricity down a nerve cell, toward the muscles in your
arm. The electrical signal tells the nerve cell to release a
neurotransmitter, a communication chemical, to the muscle
cells. This tells the muscles to contract or expand in just the
right way to put your sandwich together. When you pick up
the sandwich, the sensitive nerve cells in your hand send an
electrical message to the brain, telling you what the sandwich
feels like. When you bite into it, your mouth sends signals to
your brain to tell you how it tastes.

DISRUPTING THE SYSTEM
The basic idea of a TASER™ device is to disrupt this
communication system by passing a pulsing electric current
through the attacker’s nerves that control his or her skeletal
muscles. Each pulse carries enough charge to cause the
muscles to contract. By causing a rapid series of
contractions, the attacker’s brain signals cannot
communicate with the skeletal muscles and the attacker’s
intended movement is stopped. The TASER device uses a
high-voltage to cause the needed electric charge to jump
short air gaps and push through the attacker’s clothing.
Charge in motion is called electric current. The TASER
device produces between 2.1 and 3.6 milliamperes of
current in very short pulses timed to affect the skeletal
muscles.
It does however, dump a lot of confusing information into the
attacker's nervous system. The charge combines with the
electrical signals from the attacker's brain. This is like running
an outside current into a phone line: The original signal is
mixed in with random noise, making it very difficult to
decipher any messages. When these lines of communication
go down, the attacker has a very hard time telling his muscles
to move.

In this way, the different parts of your body use electricity to
communicate with one another. This is actually a lot like a
telephone system or the Internet. Specific patterns of electricity
are transmitted over lines to deliver recognizable messages.

TASER International

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17800 North 85th St

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Scottsdale, AZ 85255

Static discharge (doorknob):
35,000 to 100,000 volts
TASER system: 50,000 volts
Van De Graaff Generator:
1 million to 20 million volts
Copyright TASER International, 2005, all rights reserved. TASER and
X26 are trademarks of TASER International. ADVANCED TASER is a
registered trademark of TASER International.

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www.TASER.com

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M 800.978.2737

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F 480.991.0791