I find myself wondering just what planet some of these self-appointed "police watchdog" folks live on.

In the wake of a local man being hospitalized after deputies used a Taser to try to subdue him in Vista {Editor's note: He died Wednesday}, some of the Monday morning quarterbacking was at a ludicrous pitch this week.

Kevin Keenan, from the local office of the American Civil Liberties Union, told this newspaper that "the irony is that the people officers might want to use these on most are the ones they shouldn't be used on."

Actually, the irony is that people who don't know the first thing about police work are usually the first ones to offer advice on how best to do it.

Is the Taser a panacea for the dangerous work the police do? Of course not.

Are the cops perfect? No more than the rest of us.

Do we have the right to supervise the way the police go about protecting us? Absolutely.

Are some of the people who criticize the police the loudest a bit daft? You decide.

One Dawn Edwards of some group calling itself the "Bay Area Police Watch" up in Oakland told this paper that when police see someone is mentally ill, the police should call in mental health experts to handle the situation. "Why use a Taser when you can see a man is not lucid or in his right mind?" she asked.

Umm - well, usually it's because the person is acting in a violent manner and the police don't have 30 minutes or an hour to wait for a shrink to be awakened, then get in a car and get to the situation. And how much good is a counselor going to do when they know nothing of the person's medical condition or history?

Look, we give the police broad powers to act in our collective authority, and back that authority with lethal weapons. That carries a grave responsibility, and those few police officers who abuse said authority must be held accountable. And arguments that the cops cover for their own are hard to dismiss.

But this "blame the cops" mentality prevalent among so many of the self-proclaimed "watchdogs," in which any officer accused of misconduct is considered guilty as charged and never mind the facts, is as wrongheaded and inane as the attitude of those who blindly support the police.

And the calls to further restrict Taser use, if implemented, will only result in more shootings.

Because unlike the Monday morning quarterbacks who seem to confuse real life with an episode of "CSI," police officers have to make life and death decisions in a matter of seconds. We years ago took away their billy clubs and saps because these nonlethal tools violated our sense of decorum and propriety. Now we want to take away their high-tech nonlethal alternatives?

Unless you can take away the reality that it is police we call when danger threatens, it's hard to see how stripping the police of nonlethal tools will result in anything but more lethality.

Which will, of course, give the police critics that much more to bray about.

- Contact columnist Jim Trageser at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.