Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies will start carrying Taser electronic stun guns Thursday, roughly two years after the sheriff’s office first bought the weapons.

The use of the controversial guns – technically known as electro-muscular disruption weapons – was delayed while sheriff’s officers worked on writing a policy for using them.

Here’s how the guns will – and won’t – be used, according to the new policy:

¢ Deputies will be authorized to use the guns under three scenarios: When someone shows “active or aggressive” resistance; when the officer thinks it’s necessary to use the gun for self-defense or to protect someone else, including protecting someone from harming himself; and when use of lesser force isn’t likely to safely bring someone under control.

¢ Unless there are compelling reasons that can be articulated, deputies won’t be allowed to use the guns on people who are handcuffed, extremely old or young, physically disabled, driving a motor vehicle or holding a gun.

¢ The following uses are forbidden: using them on noticeably pregnant women – unless deadly force is the only other option – using them to “lead or prod” a person or awaken an intoxicated person, or using them in a “punitive, retaliatory, vengeful or indiscriminate manner.” Tasers also cannot be used on people who have come in contact with flammable material or who are likely to fall from a high place if shocked.

Sheriff Ken McGovern said that, ideally, the guns would never be used. But he said they provide deputies a new way to defuse a violent situation without anyone getting seriously hurt.

“We think what we have is a pretty good tool for our folks and for protecting the public,” McGovern said.

The guns deliver an electric jolt to the body that temporarily interrupts the messages from the brain to the muscles. The shock can be delivered from a distance by firing air cartridges that shoot pronglike devices, or the gun can placed directly on a person’s body in a setting known as “Drive Stun.”

The human rights group Amnesty International has released reports linking the guns to deaths, and in some areas police have been accused of being too quick to use the weapons as a way to gain compliance.

McGovern understands that the weapons are controversial, but said his department’s policy has enough safeguards.

Deputies won’t be allowed to draw or display the gun “unless the conditions create a reasonable belief that its use may be necessary.” If feasible, officers should give a verbal warning before firing.

The guns are not to be fired intentionally at a person’s head, neck or groin. “Drive Stuns are excluded from this targeting requirement,” the policy says. Deputies also have been instructed to limit the number of “applications” given to one person to no more than three.

The office owns 10 Taser-brand X26 guns, with six assigned to the patrol division, two to court security officers and two to the Douglas County Jail.

The department is requiring that each time an officer uses a gun, he or she document it by filling out a “use of force” report. The reports will be reviewed by supervisors but won’t be released to the public, Sheriff’s Lt. Doug Woods said.

Supervisors will be required to download data from each device before the end of a shift that documents whether the weapons have been used.

Deputies received six hours of training with the guns in recent weeks, including a voluntary chance to get zapped by the gun. Woods was among those who volunteered, and he said it convinced him of the guns’ usefulness.

“Nothing I’ve ever experienced was like it,” he said. “It’s not like you lose control of your muscles, but your muscles tense up to the point that you’re basically immobile.”