Q: What are the biggest challenges in convincing law enforcement agencies to embrace the use of non-lethal weapons to replace the bullet? https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/lbzd8a/i_am_rick_smith_the_founder_and_ceo_of_axon/

We live in a country with hundreds of millions of privately owned firearms. And police have to deal with people armed with them every single day. So the critical factor will be creating non-lethal weapons that are undeniably more effective and just as reliable.

To be very clear: We aren’t there yet. Our best non-lethal weapons are not as reliable as firearms yet.

But imagine that Captain Kirk’s Phaser was available. It worked faster, more reliably, and with more shots than a gun. Most rational people would choose the more reliable weapon that doesn’t kill.

That’s a pretty tall order. But I have a pretty good idea how we get there (I have the luck of seeing what’s happening in R&D and charting the course).

The second part will be proving it. That will take several years of field data showing that the newer technologies are actually out-performing in the real world.

I imagine we will need to get to a position where researchers can look at 1,000 body camera videos of police shootings with conventional firearms, then compare that to 1,000 body camera videos of the TASER 9 or TASER 10

(yes, I think we get there in 2 or 3 product revs from today’s TASER 7 model).

This is one reason we invested so heavily in body camera tech — and more recently in our Axon Standards use-of-force-reporting system. You need the data to learn how to design the next generation to perform better.

Then you need the data to prove it’s hitting the performance milestones needed before you would ask someone to literally bet their life on it.