Taser Shocks USA Today

The stun gun maker is going after USA Today:

Stun gun maker Taser International Inc. said on Friday it had filed a lawsuit against Gannett Co. Inc. , accusing the USA Today parent of libeling its weapons.

The Scottsdale, Arizona-based company said the lawsuit, filed in an Arizona state court, targets a USA Today article on June 3 which it said misrepresented the electrical output of Taser weapons and compared them in photographs with electric chairs, lightning and electric train tracks.

A representative for Gannett, which is also the parent company of the Arizona Republic newspaper, was not immediately available for comment.

Taser accused Gannett of publishing a series of misleading articles about its products, which disable victims with a 50,000-volt shock.

"Over the course of this biased campaign, more than $1 billion dollars of shareholder value has been erased," Taser Chief Executive Rick Smith said in a statement.

Taser shares have lost 11.5 percent over the past month and 68 percent so far this year.

This is pretty clearly biased reporting on USA Today's part, and given the damage to the company's stock price, Taser needed to do something about it. I wonder if other manufacturers may consider similar suits?