Further Thoughts of the Providential Invention Known as the BolaWrap

   Further thoughts on the great invention know as the BolaWrap -- for it is a great invention. You have a person fleeing arrest? Capture him like the South American gauchos would capture animals. They would toss cords, weighted at their ends, that wrapped around the legs of the animals, bringing them down.

   Inventor Woody Norris looked at the gauchos and their bolas, and thought, Hey, we might just have something here. This might just be a way to stop fleeing criminals. We'll no longer need to shoot them dead. We can just throw a bola cord at them, wrapping around either their torso or legs, and their fleeing is brought to an end. 

  So, Norris took a "technology" that was used by the ancient indigenous peoples of South America, and it became the latest technology in how to stop a fleeing criminal. Strands of Kevlar shoot out, wrap around the party fleeing arrest, and down they fall, stopped short in their tracks.

  First off, I thought the BolaWrap a godsend, a tool police agencies should be rushing to purchase. And, I still think it a tool every police agency should have -- and use. But, I've had further thoughts. I'm guessing it is expensive, overpriced. Wrap Technologies has a patent, I'm sure, and become the exclusive source, so they can ask what price they will. Second, the device has its shortcomings. Reloading isn't easy. You fire once at the victim and if your shot goes amiss, no time to reload. It should have been designed to have at least two shots. Now, in a world of free competition, someone would simply come along and improve the product and make it right. But, in the world in which we live, where we allow such monopoly, if Wrap Technologies doesn't change their BolaWrap, no one else can.

   This is a technology that is greatly in need. Our nation is roiling in protest against wrongful police killings. Wrap Technologies needs to go back and straighten out the shortcomings of the BolaWrap. And, it needs to make sure the price is affordable so all the BolaWraps necessary can be purchased by all of our police agencies. Yes, I do not know for sure the price is exorbitant, but I'll bet you it is. 

   And, if we could change our laws to make competition possible, that would help.

   In the meantime, we need to be encouraging use of the BolaWrap. More than 150 agencies nationwide do have it. How often they employ it, I do not know. They are using it primarily to stop those with mental disabilities and such, I believe, not seeing the BolaWrap as being effective enough against dangerous criminals who might turn and shoot them. If I had sway, I'd have them use it more. If I had say, I'd have them explain why they didn't use it each time they instead used lethal force.