Wouldn’t it be nice….
Simon Roper, 37 year old sales executive driving his Mercedes saloon, continued along the third lane of the freeway, despite the signs saying the lane was closed ahead. Finally the bollards forced him to look for an opportunity to move into the slowly moving lane to his left. There was nothing clear-cut, so he chose a ‘target’ vehicle, got a bonnet length beyond it and started to move over. The other driver was wise to this tactic and was not making eye contact, and certainly wasn’t creating a gap… a familiar standoff, in which both drivers try to pretend that they will defend their position, even if there’s contact between the cars.
Then the line accelerates briefly leaving a gap behind the target vehicle, and Roper, ever the opportunist, hits the brakes and gets his bonnet into the gap.
John Fisher watching the situation develop in front of him, is annoyed with himself for allowing the Mercedes a chink of daylight, and realises that he’s got to concede and let the driver in. He’s particularly annoyed that such aggressive driving should be rewarded, so he opens the glove compartment, takes out his ‘Drazer’, takes a bead on the back of Roper’s head and pulls the trigger.
Roper just sits there smugly thinking about the few minutes he’s shaved off his journey time, and how there’s always someone who caves in and vindicates his driving tactics.
The next day, Roper gets a text message from the police saying that he’s received 20 hits and that he must present himself at a correctional institution within 24 hours.
Society has realised that the problem with US style gun laws is that they allow human beings to own and use guns. Human beings are impulsive creatures, and often use guns in a fit of pique, over say an argument over a parking slot…. what lawmakers would describe as ‘a disproportionate response’. The Drazer allows the user vent their irritation in a non-destructive and more democratic way. Essentially, it give the user a vote… an opportunity to say “You’re behaving like an asshole” but without actually killing the object of their ire.
The Drazer requires that the user add a voice comment, to justify the action just taken; so that both the nature and pattern of anti-social behavior can be documented. The Drazer is in fact a major step towards democratising both law making, and law enforcement. And perhaps of equal importance, it allows the John Fishers of this world to take some action, and dissipate the feelings of impotent fury or frustration… dangerous whilst driving, and most inappropriate to carry into the home or office.
Little more than an extension of cell phone technology, everyone would have a microchip implant that detects the Drazer hits and communicates them to a central computer. A person who receives 20 or more ‘hits’ in a month is considered to be behaving in an antisocial way and spends a week in a correctional facility. If they re-offend within six months, they get two weeks and so on. Regular offenders will go to jail for a year or more. There are restrictions on use too… the user’s own implant detects each use, and if a user is considered too ‘trigger-happy’, he also is considered to be anti-social, and will also spend time in a correctional facility. Subsequent hits on the same target will be both disallowed and added to the ‘trigger-happy’ statistics.
The implant has GPS capability and if the person fails to present themselves to the correctional facility when requested, they will be apprehended and face at least a year in jail.
From “The Times”, May 14th, 2028
“Sociologists have been taken aback by the success of this scheme. Although statistics for crime on property seem largely unaffected by the Drazer, crimes against people are significantly down, and antisocial behaviour almost eliminated. Initially, Drazer use was high and it took about five years for Drazer statistics to settle down, but it’s now generally considered that it’s no longer the deterrent value of the Drazer that’s important, so much as the fact that the pattern of antisocial behaviour has been broken. The chips in our heads are perhaps subliminal reminders that antisocial behaviour is no longer acceptable, and things that were once commonplace, even fashionable like ‘happy slapping’, hooliganism, muggings, hate-crime, as well as the consequences of drinking, and generally of behaving in an offensive manner, have all but disappeared.”
