How to make a cheap Taser-proof vest
by WSQT Guerrilla Radio Friday, Dec. 21, 2007 at 2:06 AM
wsqtradio@hushmail.com

I was sickened watching CNN footage of people being pepper sprayed and Tasered (the combination can set you on fire!) in battle before the gates of City Hall today. Pepper spray defenses are well known, but Taser defenses are less well known, so here's one concept nearly certain to work.

A Taser-proof vest is simply any ordinary vest with aluminum window screen or any other elecrically conductive material sewn to the outside(so the vest keeps the wires off your skin). You would probably then want to sew a shirt to it to conceal the protective layer so cops don't just aim the Taser elsewhere like a gun at someone in a bullet-resistant vest.

As a pirate radio transmitter builder, my electrical and electronic knowledge can help me explain how a Taser works-and how a Taser-proof vest works,

A Taser works by shocking you with a very high voltage, low current series of shocks. As a result, the diversion of even a small amount of current through anything but your body "hogs" the available current, lowering the voltage effectively to zero.

Unlike house current, the voltage is applied between the two probes and not between either probe and ground. If you held one prove in your hand, you would simply force that side to zero voltate while the other goes to full voltage over ground, with no current flowing.

As a result, there is no way for good, solid contact between the probes and your metallic layer to give you a worse shock, unlike, say, a lamp cord. This makes the vest safe to use.

As your enemy fires the Taser at you, the darts pierce your clothing, and possibly your skin. The attached wirtes then deliver that low current, high voltage shock.

When you are "vested up," however, those probes must pass between the wires of the screen and probably will tough them directly, causing all the current to pass through the screen and none through your body. Even is one probe somehow manages to pass perfectly between the screen wires, it will take very little voltage to jump such a tiny gap-too low to give you anything like a normal Taser jolt. You might still feel that(and the needles!), but it won't take you down. In any event,using two layers of screen will prevent that.

Foil would work in your vest too, but would rapidly break up as you wear the vest more than once. I use it in homemade thermal bags for food, and it cracks up pretty fast.

Just imagine all those cops at City Hall next time if everyone is wearing vests and has googles and breathing protection at the ready!

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