TORONTO — Tasers are not a replacement for guns; they’re a replacement for talking, said author Naomi Klein at a town-hall meeting last night.

“If it happened in a cell, we would call it torture and if it happens on the street we should not be afraid to call it torture,” said Klein, who is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

The discussion on the police use of shock and stun guns was held at the University of Toronto in response to Toronto police Chief Bill Blair’s request that 3,000 officers be armed with electroshock guns.

“Why talk when you can shock?” she said. “Tasers are not a replacement for guns. They’re a replacement for everything else …they’re a replacement for talking; for negotiating.”

Of the 310 people in North American who died after being shocked with a Taser, people were often intoxicated or high on some kind of drug, such as cocaine.