Waiting for TASER

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At least TASER (Nasdaq: TASR) management thinks shares of its company are cheap -- sort of.

During a second quarter in which the stun gun maker and two-time Rule Breakers recommendation reported its first per-share loss since 2006, management spent $12.5 million to repurchase 1.8 million shares.

Interestingly, they may have been buying some shares from longtime board member Bruce Culver. He's sold 136,000 shares since June 1. His last sale -- executed on June 30 -- was, according to this Form 4, to cover a margin call. Talk about weird. What was he betting on?

We can't know. What we do know is that it's tough to blame Culver for selling; TASER has underperformed recently. Look at yesterday's Q2 results: Revenue fell 18%. Operating income fell 85%, and that's after excluding the impact of a $5.2 million litigation charge.

Even our more than 11,000-strong Motley Fool CAPS community has mixed feelings about the stock:

Metric	TASER
CAPS stars (5 max)	***
Total ratings	1,099
Bullish ratings	1,014
Percent bulls	92.3%
Bearish ratings	85
Percent bears	7.7%
Bullish pitches	259
Bearish pitches	27

Data current as of July 25, 2008.

"Legal issues," wrote CAPS All-Star indiobravo in a bearish pitch made last month. "If deadly weapons are not so seriously taken by some law enforcers, these weapons will be party time."

Fair enough. But legal issues alone are no reason to avoid a stock. Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), and PotashCorp (NYSE: POT) have all faced legal challenges over the past 12 months, according to Capital IQ.

To me, the TASER technology is inevitable -- a safer alternative to deadly weapons made by Smith & Wesson (NYSE: SWHC) and Sturm, Ruger (NYSE: RGR). What's troubling is the thing rocker Tom Petty called the hardest part: the waiting.

Get your clicks on related Foolishness:

• TASER was tempting in April.
• But tagged in June.
• Is It Time to Cut Our Losses?