“bear” or dog spray is not the same thing as pepper spray. BTW, pepper spray is not very effective against dogs.
Recently in my town, a would-be kidnapper tried to block a woman from driving away with his car.
She got frightened and took out her cell phone to call cops. Once he saw that, he took off.
Most true crime prevention occurs long before pepper spray or mace even becomes a factor.
Better to head off trouble long before it heads YOU off.
That’s the way the women I know who’ve gotten by stuff like this operate in REAL LIFE as opposed to testosterone fantasies on this forum.
pepper spray is good stuff; much better than mace/CS based military stuff.
in the army you have to huff CS gas on a regular basis and it pretty much sucks ass, but its not nearly as painful as pepper spray.
i’m all for anyone carrying pepper spray. you can’t accidentaly kill bystanders and you don’t have to worry about a huge legal hassle just for defending yourself.
IMO the best kind is the aerosolized stuff that sprays in a cone or the foam sh!t. the little squirt gun spray is lame.
anyone that uses it should probably take a sniff 'cause when you hose somebody down with it, you’re likely to suck some in as well. get an idea of what its like ahead of time.
A weapon is only good if it can be brought to bare quickly enough, that’s why I like something like umbrellas, they’re legal in all 50 states, cops don’t hassle you for carrying one, and I can bring it on a plane. If you have OC spray it better be in your hand. You better know a few moves to keep the attacker at bay until you can trigger it.
I agree with HuangKaiVun about cell phones. Communications are a good part of a self defense system.
“Most true crime prevention occurs long before pepper spray or mace even becomes a factor.”
Very true.
Demi Barbito has a good article on OC Spray at his website, you can see the link in the street self defense forum of KFO.
I thought this post was about pepper spray in a tactical fashion, not about how a cell phone replaces the need for pepper spray, something which I just don’t buy into, if a attacker REALLY wants to attack a women, a cell phone won’t mean squat.
Cell phones are good tools for communication, both hopefully preventative and to clean up the aftermath, everyone should have one, but when the crap hits the fan, you better have something of more merit to dish out right then, instead of just calling the cops and closing your eyes.
Like Rogue said, tools are only as good as your ability to deploy them, which with every encounter that could be different, I say its better to have, then to have not and need it.
A good motto by Hock is to cheat first, cheat last and cheat always, unarmed skills IMHO are a last resort, for both men and women.
what BJ (sorry) said
Pepper spray is great. It is totally legal here in N.Y. (the telescoping batons are not, if you use one against an attacker you will be charged with armed assault). It comes in different concentrations, from the make their eyes water to make them wish they had never been born. The higher concentrations will actually dilate the blood vessels in the eyes so much that it becomes physically impossible to see. The even higher concentrations are for bears, and yes it will drive them away also.
Yes, it is important to have in your hand BEFORE anything goes down.
Yes, a cell phone is nice for calling the police, so that your blinded and rolling on the ground in pain and crying his eyes out attacker goes to jail. Or calling your friends to come beat on this jerk while he is helpless…Just kidding.
It is a tool, nothing more. Kung Fu can also be seen as a tool, not evil in itself but definitely not good in the wrong hands.
I carry pepper spray so that nobody gets really hurt. It can change a testosterone match into a crying match in no time.
So, how long does one container last? 3 seconds? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 30 seconds?
IronFist
pepper spray
I think pepper spray can be a good self defense tool, but, like others have already pointed out, you really should train with it. Set up some training, as others have mentioned. Have people randomly jump out at you and see if you can tag them with it. Have someone tackle you and see if you can pull it out and use it. Try it in the rain, try it in windy weather. Use a very small water gun instead of the spray, if the person doesn’t want to be sprayed with the mace, hehe. I’ve been sprayed with it several times, twice willingly, to see the effects, and twice non-willingly. I used to carry around the stream-style of pepper spray, and I had a friend spray it in my eyes from about 10 feet away, just to see what it did. It hurt alot, but it didn’t incapacitate me completely. I could still see a little, but I wouldn’t have been able to attack as hard as I normally would. Another friend of mine had the mist type of spray, the kind that just kinda lingers around in the air. I had her spray that in my direction from about 5 feet away, and I walked into it. It didn’t bother my eyes near as much as the stream spray, but I definitely choked on it more that with the spray. I was gagging for a while after that one, but, again..it didn’t completely diminish my ability to attack. I also was at a protest one time and was sprayed by some skinheads(Did I mention how much I dislike skinheads, racist or anti-racist?), but it wasn’t too bad. I think they may have had the tear gas instead. Some of the other people were crying and nauseated from it, but I was allright besides a little bit of eye irritation. I was also sprayed with it at a show one time. It was a punk show, a riot broke out(Skinheads started this one..gggrrr), about 100 people or so just brawling and fighting. I was on the outside trying to grab people as they got near me and separate them, and someone sprayed some spray in my general direction. It made my eyes tear up a bunch, but I was allright after about 15 minutes of tearing it out. What’s my point in telling these stories? It’s not gonna completely disable some attackers. Like guohuen pointed out with the Ted Bundy mention, spray and run, that’s your best chance, don’t wait around to see what it does. If you carry spray and haven’t felt it’s effects, I suggest you take a cannister of it, have plenty of water nearby, and have someone spray you right in the face to see what happens. It’ll hurt, but, you’ll be prepared in case some of it comes your way.
Forgot a good link I found
What if you close your eyes or turn away will it effect you?
Also what if the person is wearing glasses or contacts it will be useless right?
No, it won’t be useless.
If you’re wearing contacts or glasses, it will be worse.
Cap Oil is, well, an oil, and it gets on everything. Contacts are bad–just traps the crap in your eyes.
I think the people doubting the power and strength of pepper spray have never seen the effects of GOOD pepper spray. 
OC Spray is way beyond mace, its a inflamatory, makes the eyes seal shut.
Good stuff.
There are a lot of myths about pepper spray.
-
One of them is that it effects all people in the same way.
Some people will have a severe reaction of the pepper spray. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they will in incapacitated. It just means they will swell up a lot afterwards. There is a myth out there that spraying someone in the face will cause the attacker to fall to the ground begging for Jesus to come and take away the pain while they scratch out their eyes looking for relief. This is not the case.
In most police academies, it is required that the recruit is sprayed in the face, and then has to draw their weapon and fire at a target. Some even make them do this, and go back to a designated location and call for help.
I have seen demonstrations where a person wearing a FIST suit (like red man or other contact suits) sprays a person in the face and the person has to continue fighting for 10 seconds. Chances are, they can do it.
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The second is that all pepper sprays are the same.
Most sprays are junk, are watered down, or shoot a poor stream which looks like a 90 year old man taking a wizz. Spend $15-20 and buy Fox Labs of Punch II spray.
- To the people above who don’t think women (or men??!) should carry OC, and suggest personal alarms, cell phones, etc… you should be hanging your head in shame if you really consider yourselves “martial artists.”
Here’s a better test. Your wife/mother/sister is attacked by a rapist. Her options are
- sit back and enjoy it.
- blow on a whistle
- dial 911, wait on hold, and try to give a good description of the attacker while being sodomized.
- pepper spray/knife/shoot the SOB and survive the encounter.
This whole “they might take the weapon away” BS is just BS and represents a pitiful mentality.
Spray them in the face until you’re out of spray.
Kick them low and hard.
Smash the now empty canister against their temple.
Leave.
Originally posted by Lust
What if you close your eyes or turn away will it effect you?
Also what if the person is wearing glasses or contacts it will be useless right?
Lust,
this highly depends on the person. OC is nasty stuff, and while closing your eyes will certainly help, the OC will get caught in mucus membranes, and you’ll still inhale a lot of it.
This is why I suggest fogger sprays over streams, as it gets all over the face and clothing. It is pungent, sticky, orange and nasty.
It’ll probably keep you away from a good hot and sour soup for a few days as well.
more chance of it blowing onto you tho
I would think that fog would be really good for a condensed crowd of multiple attackers where cone is more shoot two targets at a time, while stream needs direct mouth and eye hits.
blowback sucks, but if you’ve trained with it and are prepared for it, shouldn’t be bad.
if you’ve never shot it until TSHTF, then you will be in for a slightly unpleasant surprise.
I still don’t think it should be allowed to women. Girls I know/know of would give it to their brothers (who in many cases are thugs and criminals). They would just use it for criminal acts. I wouldn’t wanna get hit by that **** just coz someones brother or boyfriend got hold of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I would want that my gf could have someting that she could defend herself with but I just don’t think the whole ‘pepper spray to evryone’ would really work here.
Oh and wu_de36
"you should be hanging
your head in shame if you really consider yourselves “martial artists.”
I do consider myself a martial artist. Who the **** are u to say I should hang my head in shame??
Who’s a better martial artist? The coward who has to carry weapons to feel safe, or the normal guy who just relies on common sense and street smarts?
On topic again -
Exactly how long can u ‘spray’ the ‘spray’..? 
:rolleyes: 
I mean how long does it work?