The police believe tasers are an important non-lethal crime fighting tool. The Columbia City Council approved using $30,000 of federal grant money to purchase the new tasers, which cost $800 a piece.

But not every one is happy about the decision. The activist group Grass Roots Organizing is calling on the city council to change its mind.

Jeff Stack of Fellowship of Reconciliation also feels the tasers are not needed.

"Under no circumstances we will support the city to buy taser weapons," said Stack.

Columbia police say they take taser use seriously. Each officer has to undergo 8 hours of training.

Patrolman Jason Baillargeon is in charge of that training. Baillargeon has been tasered twice, so he knows how it feels.

"I was a class a personality I was not able to fight through it," Ballirgeron said

The president of the Missouri NAACP, Mary A. Ratliff, says tasers can be misused.

"African Americans are more prone to be stopped as shows in racial profiling. That being that they will be used against African Americans more times. That is the group that will be most affected," said Ratliff.

Police say that won't happen here.

"That's a comment that is insulting to the police department much less that they could be used against a black individual. Like we would go out and do it," said Captain Stephen Monticelli.

Tasers may be controversial, but the Columbia Police say they save lives. They say they used tasers 10 times last year to prevent suicides. They say tasers keep officers safer,too.

Around 90 percent of law enforcement agencies in Missouri use tasers. The Columbia Police Department has used tasers 29 times so far this year.