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TWST: What is Stinger Systems?
Mr. Gruder: Stinger Systems is a leader in stun technology, and the
company was founded in 2000. Its initial products were all stun based,
and based on the same type of circuit. It was a consistent circuit in
the three-product set they initially offered. The first product that it
had was the typical handheld stun device called the Ultron. That circuit
was engineered to fit inside a prisoner restraint product called the
Band-It. Band-It slides on the arm, the leg or both of a prisoner during
transport. So if the prisoner acts up in a courtroom environment or
during transport, the Bailiff or the Sheriff can press a remote-
controlled button and remotely send a shock to the suspect. We also have
a product called the Ice Shield, which is an electro stun product that
is a crowd control shield that can come in either convex form in large
or small shields. The officer behind the shield can push a button and
emit a current or electric shock. There are 14,000 of those products
throughout the world, including in places like the US Marshals and the
US Prison system. And we engineered that to fit into a projectile stun
gun. That gun right now is called the Stinger. The Stinger has several
patents either granted for it or pending. The Stinger projectile stun
gun is the only stun gun available that will fire more than two darts.
Two darts are needed to create a circuit in the body, obviously one of
positive and one of negative polarity. In a one-dart method, you are not
going to be able to create a circuit to take down the suspect. So we
have devised a way to fire four darts simultaneously, utilizing two
cartridges, which we have a patent granted for. That patent allows
Stinger Systems to be the only company to fire more than two darts. Some
of the features that we incorporated into the Stinger projectile stun
gun, aside from the four darts, are off the shelf batteries, a recessed
cartridge so it can't get knocked out in a battle or in a holster, and a
recessed safety, so the safety tunnel cannot break off. After all, these
are just plastic shells, so we wanted to make sure that nothing could
break off on it. In addition, we have one of the most important features
' a manual trigger. Our competitor fires for five seconds automatically.
We consider that a potential liability. We also consider that dangerous
for the officer and for the suspect because the officer cannot control a
situation. In fact, having a five second automatic burst makes our
competitor's product the only product in the world on an officer's duty
belt where you cannot control a situation until that five seconds is up.
In addition to that, if the suspect got shot in the wrong area, such as
the eye or the crotch, the officer could not stop the current flow
unless they turned off the safety. In a stressful situation, most
officers would not have the composure to do so. So we have a manual
trigger that allows the officer to direct a current as needed, and we
have seen many occurrences where a suspect is dropped in one to three
seconds. And there is really no reason to issue additional current
beyond that. So we are focused on officer and suspect safety or just
being able to have a product that gets the job done quickly and
efficiently without having any potential liability associated with it.
In the late summer, early fall, we are also going to be coming out with
another model of the product called the WASP. This will be a smaller
model that will be a single cartridge two-dart gun that will be the same
size as our competitor's x-model. We have several new features that we
have incorporated that we believe are going to be much more competitive
than Taser International's products, not only in terms of price, but by
incorporating the same features such as a manual trigger, off the shelf
batteries, and recessed cartridges. But we are also going to have
something very clever ' an auto eject button for the cartridge or the
magazine that will make sure the officers don't have to put their hands
in front of the cartridge while ejecting the cartridge.
Tickers included in this excerpt: STIY
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
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not make stock recommendations.
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