What is the difference between a Stun gun and a Taser?

What's the difference between a Stun gun and Taser? That's an easy question to answer. They both use an electrical shock but they deliver that electricity in much different fashions.

Stun Guns:

You see the stun gun must be touched against the attacker for it to work. You can see by the pictures below that stun guns come in varying models but they all work exactly the same. High voltage and low amps.

The electricity passes through the two prongs and when touched against someone it "completes the circuit" causing electricity to pass into the persons body.

One good thing is that even if the attacker is touching you the shock will not pass from him into you when you nail him with the stun gun. This is very helpful since the stun gun has to be used up close the odds are good he might get his hands on you.

The voltages vary greatly on models going all the way up past a million volts now. I am field testing the difference in effectiveness for the different voltage stun guns.

The effects on the body when stunned is simple. It causes the muscles to contract and burn up their stored energy in an extremely rapid fashion. This causes muscle cramps and if exposure to the shock from the stun gun is long enough (3 or more secs) it causes complete muscle failure.

This means that if you zap him for say 4 or 5 seconds, odds are good he is going down like a bag of hammers and when he does get back up he will be dazed.

When using the stun gun, you need to touch it against the person but you don't have to get skin. In other words, they can have a coat on and it should still work. I tested this on myself and I'll post the video soon. But it still works through clothes and coats.

The biggest drawback of stun guns are that they must be touched up against your attacked which means he must be close which increases your odds of injury during the attack.

Tasers:

Unlike stun guns, Tasers fire out two probes that have barbs on the end of two copper wires. Those barbs stick to the skin and clothes and the copper wires allow the electricity to flow to the probes.

The Taser looks much more like a gun, at least the M-18 pictured left does. The C2 shown below is much more high tech and sleek in its design.

The both work the same for the most part, except the C2 Taser when fired spits out little tiny papers with the serial number of your Taser so it can be tracked by police.

The voltage for the Taser, all current models, is 50,000 volts. The amps, like with a stun gun, are low. If not it would kill whomever you used it on.

The Taser is designed to be fired up to 20 feet which is nice. It is much better to take action before he gets close enough to lay hands on you.

After being fired you can manually deliver the shock or use it as designed. Which is to turn the fire switch on and throw down the Taser which allows you to run for help.

The Taser will continue to deliver an extremely painful shock to the attacker for a full 30 seconds, which will be the longest 30 seconds of his life.

If you use your Taser in defense of yourself and lose it, just get a police report and Taser will replace it with a new one for free. This is a great policy. It is meant to encourage you to use it properly by deploying it and then throwing it down and running away for help. Now you don't need to worry about losing it.

Here is a video of me being zapped with a Taser for only 5 seconds.

The downside to the Taser is that if your attacker is up close it is less effective. You need to get a good "spread" on the probes and if they are in closer than 6 feet it won't be as effective. It can be used without the cartridge for up close defense.