Are there self-defense products? Self-defense products include pepper spray, stun guns, lethal key chains and handguns. There are products and tools that are available for self-defense. Some are better...
There are products and tools that are available for self-defense. Some are better than others, but they help. Your mind is actually your best weapon; and the overall awareness of your situation, your circumstances and where you are. The overall awareness is your best tool and that is something that comes by just being taught. You need to be taught what to look for, what to see, how far to look ahead, and how to walk around corners. All of these things are important because you don't necessarily have a weapon with you at all times, but you can always be paying attention. So, if you are able to avoid the confrontation altogether, there is no other safer way to be. In another words, you are so aware that you spot these guys looking at you and you take a different course of action because you see them. Therefore, you are preventing the potential attack that could have happened. So, there is no way to guarantee what could happen, but you can certainly lessen the odds of being attacked, just by paying better attention. On top of that, I would love to see women and men carry pepper spray because it is the probably the best overall self-defense tool that is legal almost everywhere in the country.
There are reasons behind carrying pepper spray. For example, if you fire pepper spray at a bad guy and accidentally cross-contaminate your eight year old who is in front of you, but you get away, in an hour the eight-year-old will be fine. No damage will be done. If you have a handgun and the same thing happens, when your child gets shot, you may very well have just killed your own child trying to defend both of you. I am not against handguns; I am just saying that not everybody is meant to carry a handgun. Whereas even a 10-year-old could spray pepper spray and get themselves out of the potential situation.
Another very good weapon is the stun gun. But the stun gun is a very close-quarters weapon, meaning that you have to be at arms length to use it as opposed to carrying pepper spray. You see stun guns in the news when the police use it when arresting people everyday. The stun gun is a good weapon but they don't work on everybody, where as pepper spray works on most of the people. A big guy, like me; if you hit me with a stun gun I am going to keep coming at you because I know what it feels like and I know the effects. I am going to work through the pain. Weekly, our company deals with buyers who are ready to spend $60 for a stun gun and I will talk them into buying a $15 pepper spray and the stun gun or just a spray. We try to be as honest as we can with the customer as far as what is going to be the most effective weapon that his wife or girlfriend or daughter could carry. They see the movies with the stun gun, where you hit the guy and he drops to the ground; they don't work that effectively. They take time to work. They do serve a purpose but at the same time, as I have been preaching to you all along, the pepper spray gives you distance, it allows you to take on multiple attackers, and it works on most people. We sell the stun guns because people want them. But as far as the real self-defense goes, pepper spray really gives you the distance and the ability to deal with multiple attackers whereas a stun gun may or may not deter them. It is easy to use in the sense that you push a button, you turn off the safety, you squeeze it and they crackle. Stun guns are okay in close quarter situations. If you are being pushed into a car by a man and all you could reach is your stun gun and you pull it out and shoot him at his balls, he is going to fall on the ground. At the same time, if somebody is approaching you and you've got a stun gun, you can crackle it and that sound is a deterrent, but it's not a guaranty that the guy is going to respond. He may say "I am not afraid of that" and he may still come after you. If the same thing happened with a pepper spray, after you warn him as he continues to approach in a threatening manner, you could spray it and again if it's a really good spray it's only going to take one or two seconds and that guy is going to be done and you can run out of there. That is the best way to handle it. The main thing is keeping yourself safe at all times and being aware of your surroundings.
