researcher, began developing the Taser in 1969.[13] By 1974, Cover had completed the device, which he named after his childhood hero Tom Swift (book "Thomas A. Swift's electric rifle", by "Victor Appleton", a house pseudonym of the Stratemeyer Syndicate).[14] The Taser Public Defender used gunpowder as its propellant, which led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to classify it as a firearm in 1976.[15][16] The backformed verb "to tase" is used sometimes