"Don't taze me, bro," was the famous plea made by 21-year-old Andrew Meyer, a student at the University of Florida, just before police zapped him with a Taser.

Meyer was being obnoxious at a forum in September 2007 that featured U.S. Sen. John Kerry. Still, being obnoxious doesn't seem to us to be reason to be shot with a Taser, which is, after all, a potentially dangerous weapon.

There is a time and a place to use Tasers, and a recent study seems to show the Durham police department is hitting the right balance.

The DPD was recently equipped with Tasers. An in-house study reported by The Herald-Sun's Keith Upchurch showed that officers have used the weapons 118 times since 110 Tasers were put into use last summer and 125 more were added later.

Even better is when a Taser is effective without being fired. In the first three months of this year, police reported 97 incidents of "voluntary compliance," in which the mere threat of a Taser made the subject easier to get along with.

As DPD Lt. John Shelton said, that's a positive outcome all around. "That's a potential physical force encounter, a potential foot chase [that's avoided]," he said. As physical force ramps up, the risk of injuries to civilians and police officers increases.

Also, Shelton said there were four incidents this year in which an officer would have been justified to use lethal force, but he or she used a Taser instead. That's four incidents in which a suspect (or an officer) might have been wounded or killed, but a Taser ended the confrontation safely.

"Tasers are safer than bullets and can be a very effective law enforcement tool, but they are still dangerous weapons and should be treated as such," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of ACLU in North Carolina.

We hope the Durham police will continue to track and report Taser incidents. That's one good way to ensure the proper balance is being struck.