Jack Cover, the physicist who invented the Taser stun gun, the police weapon that subdues its targets with jolts of electricity, died Feb. 7 in Mission Viejo, Calif. He was 88 and lived in San Clemente, Calif.

The cause was pneumonia brought on by Alzheimer’s disease, said his wife, Ginny.

Mr. Cover (pronounced KOH-ver), who worked as an aerospace scientist and was affiliated with NASA’s Apollo moon landing program, came up with the idea for a nonlethal weapon for use in law enforcement in the 1960s as a response to emergencies in the news, including airplane hijackings.

The scientific inspiration, Ms. Cover said, was a newspaper article about a man who had inadvertently walked into an electrified fence and survived, though he was temporarily immobilized.

“When he read that had happened, he knew an electric current could be used without danger,” Ms. Cover said.