science · 07 February 2009 · 15 years ago
death
Died 7 Feb 2009 at age 88 (born 6 Apr 1920).
John Higson (Jack) Cover Jr. was an American inventor and aerospace engineer who invented the Taser stun gun weapon from an inspiration after reading of a man briefly immobilized by an electric fence. He worked in his garage and by the late 1960s had created a device resembling a flashlight that used gunpowder to fire darts able to deliver an electric shock to a target within 15 feet. He named it with the acronym Taser from the initials of the words in Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle adapted from a favorite science fiction book from his childhood, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle. He started the company Taser Systems Inc. in 1970. It was classified as a firearm because of its use of powder, but a revised design, offered to Cover in 1993 by Rick and Tom Smith, that used compressed gas to project the dart removed that restriction. The Los Angeles Police Department was an early adopter in 1980.
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