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On the coffee table, Shafman spreads out Taser's C2 "personal protector" weapons that the company is marketing to the public. It doesn't take long before the women are lined up, whooping as they take turns blasting at a metallic target."C'mon!" she said. "Give it a shot."
Shafman isn't an employee for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International. She's an independent entrepreneur selling Tasers the way her mother's generation sold plastic food-storage containers.
As a single woman who lives alone, she said she's the perfect pitchwoman for Taser as it makes a renewed push to sell weapons to families.
The company agrees. Taser officials like Shafman's homespun sales tactics so much they planned a living-room set at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and asked Shafman to hold a Taser party for buyers and dealers....
Shafman said she has sold about 30 guns a month at $349.99 since her first Taser party Oct. 15. She doesn't get a commission from Taser. Instead, Shafman said she gets a discounted dealer rate for the units and keeps the difference.
Though it packs the same electric punch, the C2 — launched in August — is smaller than the bulky personal stun guns Taser developed years ago, and its sleek exterior makes it look more like an electric razor than a weapon. They are legal in every state but New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan, Wisconsin, Hawaii and Washington, D.C.
Shafman said many of her customers love that the C2 is small enough to fit in their purses and comes in a variety of colors. When it comes to choosing weapons, she said, a lot of women want them in pink.