Take for instance the recent whopper of an error in USA Today regarding Tasers. As we all know, police use of Tasers has been under attack from Amnesty International and the ACLU. They say that Tasers kill, even though the overwhelming evidence is that a Taser has never killed anyone.
But if they were as powerful as USA Today recently claimed, then just about everybody ever exposed to a Taser burst would be pushing up daisies.
In an infographic published on June 3, McPaper told the world that the X26 packs a punch of 2,100 amps to 3,600 amps. The report compared the Taser to electric chairs, which pump 6 to 20 amps; the third rail of the New York City subway, which is about 4,000 to 10,000 amps; and lightning, which is about 10,000 to 100,000 amps.
Is a Taser really more powerful than an electric chair? Of course not. USA Today miscalculated the power of the X26 by, get this, 1 million. The actual punch of the Taser is 0.0021 to 0.0036.
The moral of this story is never trust journalists. Most are dumber than a philodendron.