Bob McCarty Writes

I learned today that a man in Arizona has filed a patent application for a type of taser-proof clothing which, apparently, he thinks will be more effective for a would-be victim of the electric shock device than, let’s say, wearing a Don’t Taze Me, Bro! t-shirt. But really, can taser-proof clothing really beat the simplicity of a t-shirt?

The abstract for Gregory Russell Schultz’s patent application describes the clothing this way:

An energy weapon protection device to be worn by a live potential target includes a generally flexible main panel having three main elements, a generally flexible, generally planar electrically non-conductive outer insulator panel, an electrically conductive inner conductive panel and an electrically non-conductive insulating backing panel. The inner conductive panel is mounted on the insulating back panel in generally parallel alignment and the outer insulator panel is mounted on the inner conductive panel in generally parallel alignment thereby forming the main panel, and the main panel is operative to receive an electrical pulse from an energy weapon through the outer insulator panel into the inner conductive panel which completes the electric circuit for the energy weapon and the insulating backing panel generally preventing electric current from passing therethrough from the inner conductive panel such that the live potential target is protected from the electrical pulse generated by the energy weapon.

Maybe it will be more effective at fending off un-asked-for electric jolts, but I’m willing to bet taser-proof clothing will be radically more expensive and way more complicated than your average Don’t Taze Me, Bro! t-shirt — which, by the way, is available today.