Jack Cover, the original inventor of TASER, passed away from pneumonia at age 88 on February 7th. Below you can find a press release in English from TASER.


As many of your are aware with today’s press release announcement, it is with heartfelt emotion that I inform you that the original TASER inventor, John H. “Jack” Cover, passed away due to pneumonia this past Saturday, February 7 at the age of 88.

Cover was a physicist who in the 1960’s read about President Lyndon Johnson’s Blue Ribbon Crime Commission report that urged the development of non-lethal weapons development to combat airplane hi-jacking, riots and civil unrest occurring at that time. Around that same time, Cover, who was the Chief Scientist for NASA’s Apollo Moon Landing program while at North American Aerospace, read a Los Angeles Times story of a hiker who survived after several hours “frozen” to a fence that was connected to a downed high-voltage power line. Cover’s research into an electrical based weapon that focused on pulsed high-voltage but low-power current eventually led to the first generation of TASER® technology.

Because of these two incidents, Jack’s mind began an incredibly long and arduous journey of developing an effective non-lethal weapon. In his research, Jack began testing pulsed high-voltage but low-power current upon himself and was able to create the first TASER® device, which used electrical impulses as a deterrent and non-lethal weapon. He eventually named his invention after his favorite childhood fictional character named Tom Swift, which was written by Victor Appleton. Jack created an acronym from the book entitled, “Tom (A.) Swift and his Electric Rifle” creating the word TASER® as we know it today. Tom Swift, by the way, used his imagination to win the day as well as his electric rifle to get out of daunting situations and is the source of our registered trademarked name of TASER International today.

As we should all know, Jack’s original TASER system used gunpowder to deploy its two probes. Rick and Tom began working with Jack in 1993 to develop the first non-firearm TASER ECD for the general public’s personal protection using compressed air instead of gunpowder. The result of long hours in the garage-shop down in Tucson, AZ and later in 1994 at our first Scottsdale Airpark office, we began the production of the first TASER devices that we are all familiar with today as the predecessor to our ADVANCED TASER® M-series, TASER® X26™ and TASER® C2™ systems.

As some of you might remember, we were very fortunate to have Jack visit our Headquarters back in June 26, 2006, when we dedicated our main atrium in his honor.

In Jack’s memory we have decided to donating money to the Alzheimer Association to help further their research efforts.

I have begun the first donation challenge of $10 to employees and to law enforcement members, who to this day, can thank Jack Cover for helping the world to become less violent. If you think about it, none of us would be here today without Jack’s entrepreneurial spirit beginning in 1996.

I set up a “tribute” page on the on Alzheimer’s Association website with some more info and a photo album on Jack.

Donations can be made at the http://act.alz.org/site/TR/Events/Tributes-AlzheimersChampions?px=2899727&pg=fund&fr_id=1060 dedicated as a honor for him.

Photos are located at: http://act.alz.org/site/TR?type=fr_fund_photo&fr_id=1060&px=2899727&sid=3070&fr_edit_mode=PREVIEW&pg=fund

Rick, Tom, Ray and myself knew Jack very well back in the founding days and we’ll miss him.