Jack Cover, 88, Physicist Who Invented the Taser Stun Gun, Dies
By BRUCE WEBER
By BRUCE WEBER
Cover, the physicist who invented the Taser
stun gun, the police weapon that subdues its targets with jolts of electricity, died Feb. 7 in Mission Viejo, Calif. He was 88 and lived in San Clemente, Calif. The cause was pneumonia brought on by Alzheimers disease, said his wife, Ginny. The scientific inspiration, Ms. Cover said, was a newspaper article about a man who had inadvertently walked into an electrified fence and survived, though he was temporarily immobilized. When he read that had happened, he knew an electric current could be used without danger, Ms. Cover said.
Mr. Cover named his invention as a tribute to another inspiration, the Tom Swift science fiction novels he read as a child, one of which was Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle. He created an acronym from Thomas Swift Electric Rifle, adding the A, he explained to The Washington Post in 1976, because we got tired of answering the phone T.S.E.R.