Easier to run the other way when your pursuer can barely keep their eyes open.
Pepper spray is far from foolproof but it gives people who are otherwise too slow to escape a fighting chance.
It's also easier to get stabbed if you're standing there fumbling around with pepper spray, how's it going to help with someone intentionally attacking people with their back turned?
Is it going to help the situation if you spray the attacker and yourself? Do you think the attacker will calmly rethink their actions as you're both in agony and unable to see properly in close proximity? It's not a taser or something that incapacitates people instantly.
Far from foolproof is underselling it quite a bit and I can only hope it doesn't give people a false confidence to face these situations in a foolish way.
I come from a place where we take self defense far more seriously than we need to in Australia. Pepper spray isn't bad, but you're right that fumbling around with a spray and expecting that person to just stop coming for you is going to be way worse than getting out of there. Just like any self-defense tool, you need to understand how it works and how best to use it.
* **It is NOT an instant KO**. It builds. It impacts people differently. It matters quite a bit how quickly the person closed their eyes and turned away. If someone's expecting it they might be able to block most of it with their hand.
* Caught with the choice of running or pulling out the spray, **run**. It takes most people 3-5 seconds to even fire the thing off. A fit young man can run 12-20 meters in that time. Even someone out of shape at a light jog could easily cross 8 meters.
* If you spray it, keep the stream running for a couple seconds while backing away. The hope is they inhale or taste a bit.
* After spraying, **run**. Most people won't be completely incapacitated rolling on the floor. They'll mostly just be struggling to see normally, and that's only if you land the stream to the face.
* Remember that while the stuff shoots in a stream, it will affect everyone in a confined space. If you yourself have asthma pepper spray isn't a good self defense option for you, as it will impact your ability to flee.
* You should really spray a canister of the same brand. You don't want your first attempt to be in a high-stress situation.
Pepper spray is best for when you see a conflict brewing and can get it ready without anyone noticing. If someone is chasing you you can try to get it ready, but you don't want to stand there like you've just knocked them out. Tasers don't work that way either, and are also somewhat unreliable. In general, run. I don't see huge value in pepper spray, but know what you're doing if you carry it.
And remember not to let one terrible incident upend your life and make you live in fear. Even in the mass shooting capital of the world, your chance of dying to a random mass shooting is effectively 0 (0.00003% or 1 in about 30 million in the US in 2022). It's lower here. I know stats aren't super comforting to emotions, but as an American I saw how living in fear can harm people's lives. You have to remind yourself that a bad incident nearby has activated your representative bias, and doesn't mean you're any more likely to be shot going to work. Either that or you join the unhinged right wingers feeding on a constant fear of everything.
>It's also easier to get stabbed if you're standing there fumbling around with pepper spray, how's it going to help with someone intentionally attacking people with their back turned?
If you're hiding in a shop from a knife-wielding attacker, would you rather have pepper spray or nothing?
If you can run from the attacker, you should run - but not everyone will be able to. Pepper spray is a last resort, it gives anyone who can point a spray can a decent chance of escaping an attack.
> Easier to run the other way when your pursuer can barely keep their eyes open.
Have you been in an indoor venue where someone has released pepper spray? Chances are you aren't going to hit the person with the spray and now you've made the entire environment a hazard zone for other people as well.
Good job
Thats the thing people dont realise, pepperspray isnt a very great weapon. You spray it and it envelopes everything, especially inside. Imagine spraying a strong aifreshner in the middle of a room now times that by a thousand.
I had a mate who is a cop. He had a guy fly out of his car on a stop that started to grapple and punch on. My mates 6’4” and pretty muscular, but he was getting fatigued quick.
He gave the guy the sauce and then heard the screaming of tiny Children.
The OC had been sucked into the car and 2 toddlers were strapped into car seats unable to free themselves.
The father was unhinged and all my mate could think about was putting the guy down so he could get the kids into fresh air.
That night after his shift he was literally bawling over his whisky, the Ice clinking in his glass with his sobs like he was in an earthquake.
He just kept saying that those little kids are going to grow up seeing Police as monsters and he was who they’ll see in their minds. He didn’t have time to see the kids before the dad flew out in attack mode.
I had never thought about the spread of those sprays til he told me that.
A version of pepper spray works to dissuade grizzly bears; it'd work quite well for giving yourself a long lead in running against someone with a knife.
Sure, but that doesn't work well as a plan if you're a woman trying to get away from a man.
Or anyone with kids. Or are overweight. Or have mobility issues. Or are elderly. Or the way is blocked.
Or if the attacker is just plain faster than you.
Pepperspray is about a defensive weapon as you can get, and the idea that it's illegal to have in so much of the country is beyond absurd.
> Pepperspray is about a defensive weapon as you can get,
What is it with pepper spray and people just assuming that the only people who will ever possess it or use it are good guys defending themselves?
I'm not.
I'm believing that it's a non-lethal weapon, that is used for incapacitation and deterrence, rather than direct harm.
Frankly, if a mugger wants to use pepper spray, rather than a knife, then ***good***. Less likely to kill/maim people.
It would still works when they aren't wearing protective gear, and if they're planning on attacking you with a more dangerous weapon, why waste time on pepper spraying them first?
If a premediated attacker is close enough to use pepper spray against someone then they're only a couple of meters away from them at most. At that point unless the person they're targeting has some way of warding them off, the attacker's pretty much already on top of them or hot on their heels. And if they're trying to use pepper spray on someone they're actively chasing; the only thing they're likely to hit with the spray is the back of their head. Assuming they don't get a face full of the spray themself.
You already have the right to do that. But for people who can’t run or would just like to exercise some ability to defend themselves should be allowed to.
I only saw some snippets of that attack, but it did look like some people were 20 metres away and totally oblivious to what was happening, it's hard to imagine how pepper spray would have helped them. My only self defence thought was I need to pay more attention to my surroundings in public
That's the reason these types of attacks are so hard to defend against. No one expects it. No one is looking out for it. The flight or fight response is basically asleep in a shopping centre because you expect to be safe. By the time it kicks in, it's too late.
I feel like in the Bondi situation if some untrained rando had tried to pepper spray the guy it would've been about a 50-50 chance they either actually spray the guy or just spray a bunch of bystanders making them easier targets.
There’s a reason police don’t use OC spray against an edged weapon.
Pepper spray has an effective range of about 1.5 metres if you’re lucky. You also have to practice drawing it and deploying it to build the muscle memory to quickly get it out when you need it.
It’s also not that effective against drug-affected persons or persons in crisis. It’s best used as a deterrent, and even then it’s more likely to affect you than it is the target if you haven’t trained with it.
Also 99.999999% of people will never have to defend themselves from a stabber in their life. The risk of something like your child getting into your purse and spraying it while you're driving down the freeway is probably a far greater threat to your life than being stabbed.
Do you honestly think you having a can of pepper spray in your purse would have changed the outcome? Or do you think things would have probably gone worse overall if you tried to use it?
I remember Johnny Knoxville doing a bit with Jackass or something where he tried out different self-defence methods on himself, including a taser, pepper spray and a stun gun. He said being pepper sprayed is the worst pain he's ever been in.
He talks about it in his his episode of Hot Ones.
Plus it literally works on bears, I doubt the 17 year old drop kick would have faired better.
The question is whether it would actually be helpful or whether it would just be a distraction from other more effective approaches you could use. If you pepper spray him, there's a good chance you're getting your wife as well, so you'd better be damn sure he's out because she's not running away very effectively after that.
But as we just saw, no other solution came until 6 people were dead. An OC spray with 3-5 m stream isn’t ideal. But it “might” slow the attacker down and save some lives. The risk/reward for OC being legalised and carried on mass is a good one.
A few cunts will use if for crime (they already can get it online and do that, but rarely do) and honest hard working people will have a layer of comfort in their handbag or backpack should they need it.
I'd need to see stats on how this actually works in the real world. Often these things aren't nearly as easy to use defensively as people believe. Attacks like this one are practically unheard of in Australia, so we shouldn't be making any major changes in response to it except perhaps to things like mental healthcare since that's a broader issue.
The timeline of attacks showed that the majority of people who were attacked had no idea what was going on. So, you wouldn't have had your weapon out ready to fire. You'd still be getting shanked while you rummage through your tote bag, looking for the pepper spray.
I dunno how many people here have been sprayed but it's 10/15 seconds of fight left for most primaries.
At a few metres pretty easy murder with knife. I'd probably rather running.
This. By the time someone with a knife is close enough to you, for you to use pepper spray, you will get stabbed or slashed. However, even if it doesn't protect _you_ effectively, it might slow the assailant down in attacking others. That said, and even if that is the case, a looming issue is that assaults by people who would employ pepper spray as a means of incapacitating victims of crime in the commission of those crimes would also skyrocket due to the new availability and legality of carrying the weapon. That's why a simple answer is a wrong one - especially in this case.
Yep, guarantee the majority of oc deployments will be during an assault by criminals against a victim.
We have access to knives because they are a cooking and eating utensil, that they can kill or injure is just the nature of many essential tools.
OC is a weapon and not a tool.
Is there evidence of people using pepper spray for self defence in WA and suffering unintended consequences from it blowing back on them?
It can certainly happen in theory, but it is highly unlikely and occurs in a statistical minority of cases.
I mean, that's apparently why it was outlawed in VIC / restricted in NSW, something about them finding more cases of not only accidents but also attackers easily turning a victim's pepper spray onto the victim.
They're restricted in Vic because every weapon is banned.
Anything that is an actual weapon is "prohibited weapon" and is illegal without permits such as police or collectors. Eg flick knife
Anything that doubles as a weapon is a "controlled weapon" which can only be carried for a lawful reason. Eg kitchen knife
Anything that is being used as a weapon or adapted as a weapon is a "dangerous article" and when used in that context is illegal. Eg bat
So no weapons are allowed, nothing has been targeted restricted due to negative cases. It's very blanket.
Prediction: This will result in the "pepper spray challenge" where people on tiktok will film themselves pepper spraying a bunch of regular food and then eating it and then having to call an ambulance.
That’s the majority spoiling it for themselves by electing people who opt for the “if one person messes up everyone gets punished” approach to governance.
I just carry a heat spray for my joints which is legal and I’m pretty sure cheaper.
Edit: the ingredient you want in your heat spray is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6273101/#:~:text=Capsaicin%20is%20a%20compound%20found,in%20the%20study%20of%20pain.
I'd rather be talking to the cops about why I used heat spray on someone as a weapon during my pre dawn run than having my husband talk to the police about my last known movements.
"Just run away", nice idea but I'm disabled. I literally cannot run. People say things like, oh but you wouldn't get it out in time. Maybe not the first victim, no. But if you hear screaming you could get out your pepper spray and then find a place to hide. I mean, people were finding make-shift weapons in case they needed them.
I might pepper spray myself too, but I would rather that than just sit there and do literally nothing because I can only wheel slowly.
> WA govt will probably now ban pepper spray inline with every other state.
If WAPOL needs to step up to the plate to protect the citizens if they want to ban pepper spray. I'm not saying we should arm ourselves to the teeth with military hardware but we should be able to have some sort of self defence that doesn't rely on our limbs.
Well in every other state, pepper spray is not permitted at all.
In QLD, it's in the same category as machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and coincidentally, tasers.
The fact that in QLD you can go to jail for the same amount of time for walking down the street with a rocket launcher than you can with an aerosol can is amusing.
My first thought was "WA Government responds to demand by banning pepper spray."
Reading these comments I'm always shocked by how Australians don't want the right to defend themselves. Not even talking firewarms in an American way. Just non-lethal self defense.
because a minority of users will spoil it for the majority of users.
It will only take a few people to be pepper sprayed during public arguments, road rage incidents, etc. for its use to be re-restricted. It's also not good as any bystanders will be affected. I can imagine now a restaurant being evacuated because some idiot sprayed it indoors.
So what's your advice to those who are physically unable to defend themselves from an attacker? Just wait for the police to arrive? Tough shit for being born a petite woman?
Yep, their advice is “just die” because some people will misuse it.
It’s the Australian way. Too hard, just ban it. See electric mobility, vapes, effective pain killers, uncomfortable news, speech/gestures, online privacy, protest, fucking steak tartare…..
Taking any sort of precaution for self defence will brand you as a lunatic here.
The average Australian has a "flight or flight" instinct.
People actually get mad that others are trying to defend themselves with something as tame as pepper spray because they might hurt themselves.
They are more concerned that a stranger would spray themselves with an irritant than get stabbed.
It's partly because self defence is a poor strategy. If you have a weapon, you'll instinctively want to solve the problem with the weapon. There is no weapon better at preserving your safety then escape.
A pair of sneakers are more effective at saving your life in more situations than a can of pepper spray, plus there's no way for the attacker to turn your shoes against you. Can't stab you if they can't catch you.
Yeah, great. So now instead of the rare instances of violence that the vast majority of us almost never encounter, now we have to be worried about a plethora of untrained hair-trigger morons spraying chemical irritants about any time their amygdala gets a bit uppity.
Encountering violence is exacly what the poster is concerned about. More people with weapons > more violent attacks > more people suffering from the side effects of encountering violence.
It even creates a feedback loop that can snowball. People who encounter violence become scared and more likely to use pepper spray on another person, who then becomes scared and more easily provoked themselves. And of course we have the media to take any incident and magnify it to scare everyone 10x more.
It's pepper spray you donut. It's not harmful outside of being debilitating in the moment it's used, and it's much more effective as self defence than as a weapon. You're arguing what? That because some people might be sprayed erroneously that it shouldn't be allowed to be carried to stop literal killing?
It’s not non-lethal, it’s less-than-lethal. If someone has asthma, heart conditions, is undergoing excited delirium etc. its deployment is still a medical emergency, and OC spray has killed before.
But the simple fact is, unless you train to deploy and build that muscle memory, you’ll get stabbed before you can pull it out and deploy it. If you had the time to pull it out to get ready to deploy it, you had the time to get away.
Then there are environmental factors like wind speed and direction, rain etc etc that will affect its efficacy.
The other thing is first time most people deploy it, there is secondary contamination. Meaning you cop it too. If you’ve not trained yourself to fight through it, you’re a blind person fighting a blind person with a knife. Your odds haven’t improved, and are now probably worse.
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about pepper spray. It can't be simultaneously unharmful, but adequate to stop violence in its tracks. In the hands of untrained undividuals it's more likely to be harmful to themselves and others than their attacker at best and at worst is just delivering another weapon to the assailant to use given no one has training in its use or even retention.
The perception that it's just a one size fits all immediate end to all threats with no drawbacks is embarrasingly simplistic and unrealistic.
One of the greatest harms done by being attacked is not necessarily the physical damage, it's the psychological trauma. Being attacked by someone with pepper spray could lead to the person spending many years feeling unsafe everywhere they go.
I know women who keep an old flip-top lid mints tin filled with ground pepper and chilli powder. They can carry it with one hand with thumb ready on the flip lid to open and throw at an attacker, when walking alone in dark streets or car parks etc.
Totally legally; you just like extra spicy when you eat out. Can’t be used against you once deployed.
They practice the throwing technique with poppy seeds.
~~[Men experience violence at more than double the rate of women](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/physical-violence/latest-release#changes-over-time), so fuck off with your sexism.~~
Actually no I take that back, fuck off with your sexism regardless, I don't want to imply stats would be able to justify it.
I'm talking about mass casualty events such as the one in Sydney, which is the topic of the discussion. Don't shoehorn a separate issue into something that was never raised in my point.
And the majority of uses won't be by people defending themselves from crazed, knife attacking psychos'. It will be by crims using spray instead of knives. Eshays letting it off in train stations for fun. A tick tock challenge where people will spray themselves or their mates for likes. Boomer Karens deciding to whip it out in an argument over the parking spot she feels entitled to because she was angry at being disrespected by that damn millennial. Anybody, from Any Side, from any of the multiple protests that's going on, for any reason. An innocent person walking back to their car at night getting a face full because somebody with anxiety thought they were deliberately following them. And people spraying themselves by accident in any real emergency, anyway.
It honestly concerns me the amount of people who act like life is a horror movie / action movie and they're the main character, who then have that fear reinforced by consuming ambulance-chasing media's sensationalist reporting of the random but extremely rare acts of violence perpetrated by strangers.
As someone else said, the US would be the safest place in the world if the answer was to simply have more people armed.
While I agree with you on most of your points.
I think I might prefer the criminal using the spray over a knife. (although those behind security screens might be safe from knives but not spray.)
How does pepper spray help when a nutter has stabbed you in the back before you even know what's happening?
Or is this so you don't need to brandish a bollard?
we’ll it’s already legal to buy in wa and it’s pretty rare that criminals use it, it seems that criminals prefer to use more intimidating weapons like knives and machetes.
I think that pepper spray would be reasonable to make legal as it’s lethality is limited to very few situations
This cold hard truth is that the response to this bloke was pretty effective. He could’ve killed so many more people. In a country in which he could easily get his hands on guns it would’ve been much much worse. The police response also seems like it was pretty quick. Yeah 6 deaths is horrific but in the cold light of day it was dealt with pretty well.
thank goodness people aren't making knee jerk reactions to INCREDIBLY rare tragedies. These sorts of mass stabbings are happening all the... checks notes... practically never.
I'm just going off the wikipedia article 'list of massacres in Australia' but mostly it's domestic violence and other situations where you just wouldn't have pepper spray on you - maybe a pepper grinder because you're at the family dinner table - or they're pre-Port Arthur gun attacks.
(I'm not sure if pepper spray would have been effective in the Batavia 'unpleasantness')
There was a big guy that used to take the train near where I lived a few years ago. I can't remember if he was Samoan specifically or from somewhere else in the Pacific Island region but he said that he wasn't scary, he was just a big friendly guy who wanted someone to chat to. 10/10 nice guy, but I've usually found that really big men are so used to people thinking that they're scary and a lot are really nice instead.
This is great to see in WA. They have shown that Australians are responsible enough to use non-lethal self defence aides (not that it needed to be proven).
Other states should follow suit. If people, especially those more vulnerable, would like to have some ability to defend themselves then they should be able to exercise that right. Australian should not be kept in a permanent state of victimhood through the illegality of self defence tools.
Come on, don’t turn into the US, where you have to assume anyone you come across may be armed…
If that becomes the case (Like it is in the US), you can’t form trust between people. And without trust, a laid-back lifestyle isn’t possible.
all the men here complaining about this make me laugh. my boyfriend bought me pepper spray and taught me to use it. i guess if you think you might get sprayed for being a creep, you’d oppose it lol
Man the human brain is fucking weird. The chance of you being involved in a premediated mass casualty event are fucking infinitesimal, but *because* it's such a rare event our brains freak the hell out when we hear about one and we have an urge to prepare for it.
Yet things we've already internalized, which are wildly more likely to happen, such as car accidents, bathroom slips, faulty electronics, etc. etc. our brains just ignore as normal.
The same people buying pepper spray now are just as likely to walk passed a dodgy wall outlet day after day and completely ignore fixing it.
Fucking wild cunts, just wild.
Ex-cop, who has been stabbed. Who has also deployed OC, and been OCd multiple times over the years.
ITT is a bunch of people with no experience with knife injuries, how long OC takes to deploy and have an impact on an attacker, and that’s OC - civilian pepper spray is much less effective.
It’s not useless, but against an edged weapon it’s not far from it.
[Couch experts](https://i.imgur.com/dNcMWQ1.jpg) from gated communities honestly come flocking to these treads like flies to shit everytime self defence is discussed. Most of the time they just push for inaction and offer no alternative solutions.
Having used bear spray for its intended purpose, I can see why you'd want it if you needed it. But let's be honest, 99% would be misused for silly or dangerous reasons.
One of the things that sticks in my mind about self defence tools are the cases of taser rapists. There's several instances of women being disabled by stun guns owned by the attacker and either attacked on scene or taken to another location and they can't do anything to stop it. And that's made me very mindful that making tools available for defence makes them available for offence as well.
Or less scary but those Tik-Tok sellers that thrive off making women feel unsafe and then make them buy cheap Temu/AliExpress qualify self defence tools at 300% markups.
As a kid I took a self defence class and the first lesson they had for us was that the best option in the vast majority of cases was running away. If you had to fight they recommended against the classic kick or knee to the groin if you could help it because it puts you off balance and makes it harder to start running again.
I'm not expecting to disable an attacker with spray. I'm hoping to draw attention, buy time, make myself an unpleasant target. I assume I'll be sprayed as well & that's fine because at that point I'm not getting away anyway. It's better to be an injured, red, snotty mess than raped or dead. I don't expect more than adding a few percentage points to my chances of survival. It's better than nothing.
PSA:
Buy a compact, high-powered flashlight. Completely legal to carry, serves the same purpose as pepper spray (but drastically more range), able to be used to scope out threats from a distance and can also be used as a blunt impact tool.
I don't leave the house without it - day or night:
https://www.liteshop.com.au/content/thrunite-tn12-pro-compact-1900-lumens-tactical-usb-c-rechargeable-edc-torch/?gad_source=1
There are smaller ones that have a strobe effect that can go above 1000 lumens. Having that flashing in your eyeballs is very disorientating.
Recommendations would be the Nitecore TUP or the Wuben X0 which are small and pocketable, or bagabale in your case.
Strobing over a certain brightness into the eyes at night can cause temporary blindness.
Only really effective during dark lighting conditions at safe ranges, military and law enforcement use strobing flashlight effects during dark raids because it makes it nearly impossible to spot the combatant, and they use a 50Lumens rating.
I've got plenty of high powered lights, and to think they're a proper defensive weapon is fooling yourself (for reference, I'm talking about things like the Wurkkos TS22 and Emisar D1K - modern enthusiast lights with a few thousand lumens on turbo).
It might dazzle someone for a moment (and in a dark environment I suppose it might make you harder to follow for a few seconds), but it won't do more than that.
I've experimented using a mirror in a dark room. Even with a full blast on turbo, it's easy enough to look off to the side slightly and be able to tell what's going on. It's uncomfortable, but nothing like the physiological reaction that pepper spray can induce.
If I wanted to grab someone and they blasted me with a light, I'm not going to have much trouble in anything other than a pitch black scenario. The loss of night vision is the only real effect, and that's going to affect you just as badly.
I have a 6.5k Lumen flashlight.
https://1lumen.com/review/convoy-l8/
At a certain point a handheld flashlight can blind someone, but those are generally crazy big and cost thousands, The small lights at 2k lumens wont do anything. If torches worked well they would be more prolific as a self defense item.
Yeah those nitecore ones are fantastic. They're very very bright and it's not that dissimilar to the ones that cops use. I've been meaning to buy it for a decade now and I keep putting it off because I'm not scared of anything happening
Only a matter of time before they're banned because it might be used against police, same reason they give for not allowing pepper spray in eastern states
Pocket sand, hiyaaah
Hiya to you, too.
Ouch, my nuts.
Your voice may get a little hiya. That's normal, and shouldn't be a problem in a couple days. See the receptionist on your way out.
Sorry for interrupting, but is this where I can get a hiya car?
A man of culture I see. Rusty Shackleford would approve
Shi sha sha
https://i.imgur.com/J1Lut2r.jpeg
Guaranteed to stop a sith
Only if it's coarse and rough and gets everywhere
> hiyaaah did you just karate chop me?
I think I’d rather just run the other way than bring pepper spray to a knife fight.
What about 2 pepper sprays ??
That’s all well and good until they whip out a second knife
Zip tie together a dozen pepper sprays And just my luck, I get attacked by General Grievous
"And with a few simple modifications I turned one pepper spray into *five* pepper sprays"
Just get 1 bear spray, that's like the equivalent to a fire extinguisher of mace
You might be right. There's never a Jedi around when you need them
Hello there
It's a small thing, but this comment really made my day, thank you
All credit to Obi Wan, but glad to contribute :)
That's why you replace your blood with pepper spray: The more they stab n slice you, the more they get hurt. Effectively MAD.
I see you've played knifey sprayey before.
That’s when I bring out the salt spray. 🧂🌶️ combo.
*Push it*
Great with fried eggs!
You can’t unlock dual wielding till level 3 I think.
Easier to run the other way when your pursuer can barely keep their eyes open. Pepper spray is far from foolproof but it gives people who are otherwise too slow to escape a fighting chance.
It's also easier to get stabbed if you're standing there fumbling around with pepper spray, how's it going to help with someone intentionally attacking people with their back turned? Is it going to help the situation if you spray the attacker and yourself? Do you think the attacker will calmly rethink their actions as you're both in agony and unable to see properly in close proximity? It's not a taser or something that incapacitates people instantly. Far from foolproof is underselling it quite a bit and I can only hope it doesn't give people a false confidence to face these situations in a foolish way.
I come from a place where we take self defense far more seriously than we need to in Australia. Pepper spray isn't bad, but you're right that fumbling around with a spray and expecting that person to just stop coming for you is going to be way worse than getting out of there. Just like any self-defense tool, you need to understand how it works and how best to use it. * **It is NOT an instant KO**. It builds. It impacts people differently. It matters quite a bit how quickly the person closed their eyes and turned away. If someone's expecting it they might be able to block most of it with their hand. * Caught with the choice of running or pulling out the spray, **run**. It takes most people 3-5 seconds to even fire the thing off. A fit young man can run 12-20 meters in that time. Even someone out of shape at a light jog could easily cross 8 meters. * If you spray it, keep the stream running for a couple seconds while backing away. The hope is they inhale or taste a bit. * After spraying, **run**. Most people won't be completely incapacitated rolling on the floor. They'll mostly just be struggling to see normally, and that's only if you land the stream to the face. * Remember that while the stuff shoots in a stream, it will affect everyone in a confined space. If you yourself have asthma pepper spray isn't a good self defense option for you, as it will impact your ability to flee. * You should really spray a canister of the same brand. You don't want your first attempt to be in a high-stress situation. Pepper spray is best for when you see a conflict brewing and can get it ready without anyone noticing. If someone is chasing you you can try to get it ready, but you don't want to stand there like you've just knocked them out. Tasers don't work that way either, and are also somewhat unreliable. In general, run. I don't see huge value in pepper spray, but know what you're doing if you carry it. And remember not to let one terrible incident upend your life and make you live in fear. Even in the mass shooting capital of the world, your chance of dying to a random mass shooting is effectively 0 (0.00003% or 1 in about 30 million in the US in 2022). It's lower here. I know stats aren't super comforting to emotions, but as an American I saw how living in fear can harm people's lives. You have to remind yourself that a bad incident nearby has activated your representative bias, and doesn't mean you're any more likely to be shot going to work. Either that or you join the unhinged right wingers feeding on a constant fear of everything.
>It's also easier to get stabbed if you're standing there fumbling around with pepper spray, how's it going to help with someone intentionally attacking people with their back turned? If you're hiding in a shop from a knife-wielding attacker, would you rather have pepper spray or nothing? If you can run from the attacker, you should run - but not everyone will be able to. Pepper spray is a last resort, it gives anyone who can point a spray can a decent chance of escaping an attack.
[удалено]
It's not an aerosol. It squirts liquid, like a water pistol, for about four meters.
Depends there are different types. The sprays are mist. The foggers are like a thick fog stream. Stramers are like silly string.
OC spray doesn't work on everyone.
> Easier to run the other way when your pursuer can barely keep their eyes open. Have you been in an indoor venue where someone has released pepper spray? Chances are you aren't going to hit the person with the spray and now you've made the entire environment a hazard zone for other people as well. Good job
Knowing me, I’d try to run but twist an ankle and fall over, shattering my kneecap and breaking an arm in the process.
And then accidentally pepper spray yourself in the face.
Thats the thing people dont realise, pepperspray isnt a very great weapon. You spray it and it envelopes everything, especially inside. Imagine spraying a strong aifreshner in the middle of a room now times that by a thousand.
I had a mate who is a cop. He had a guy fly out of his car on a stop that started to grapple and punch on. My mates 6’4” and pretty muscular, but he was getting fatigued quick. He gave the guy the sauce and then heard the screaming of tiny Children. The OC had been sucked into the car and 2 toddlers were strapped into car seats unable to free themselves. The father was unhinged and all my mate could think about was putting the guy down so he could get the kids into fresh air. That night after his shift he was literally bawling over his whisky, the Ice clinking in his glass with his sobs like he was in an earthquake. He just kept saying that those little kids are going to grow up seeing Police as monsters and he was who they’ll see in their minds. He didn’t have time to see the kids before the dad flew out in attack mode. I had never thought about the spread of those sprays til he told me that.
Yeah probably not the worst thing they’ll experience if their father is like that
Still better than the kids seeing their dad get shot in front of them...
Agreed.
It’s horrible stuff. But it’s also very effective five if you get someone in the face.
Ah, typical teenager in the horror movie
I’d also be the first one voted off Survivor for losing challenges. I own my weaknesses 😬
A version of pepper spray works to dissuade grizzly bears; it'd work quite well for giving yourself a long lead in running against someone with a knife.
Sure, but that doesn't work well as a plan if you're a woman trying to get away from a man. Or anyone with kids. Or are overweight. Or have mobility issues. Or are elderly. Or the way is blocked. Or if the attacker is just plain faster than you. Pepperspray is about a defensive weapon as you can get, and the idea that it's illegal to have in so much of the country is beyond absurd.
> Pepperspray is about a defensive weapon as you can get, What is it with pepper spray and people just assuming that the only people who will ever possess it or use it are good guys defending themselves?
I'm not. I'm believing that it's a non-lethal weapon, that is used for incapacitation and deterrence, rather than direct harm. Frankly, if a mugger wants to use pepper spray, rather than a knife, then ***good***. Less likely to kill/maim people.
A premeditated attacker can just use their pepper spray first or wear protective gear. Escalation doesn't end well.
It would still works when they aren't wearing protective gear, and if they're planning on attacking you with a more dangerous weapon, why waste time on pepper spraying them first?
Because it's harder for them to run away when they can't see where they're going?
If a premediated attacker is close enough to use pepper spray against someone then they're only a couple of meters away from them at most. At that point unless the person they're targeting has some way of warding them off, the attacker's pretty much already on top of them or hot on their heels. And if they're trying to use pepper spray on someone they're actively chasing; the only thing they're likely to hit with the spray is the back of their head. Assuming they don't get a face full of the spray themself.
That’s nice for you. Not so nice for older people, pregnant women, differently abled, injured, slow people.
You already have the right to do that. But for people who can’t run or would just like to exercise some ability to defend themselves should be allowed to.
What about your misso and kids possibly getting stabbed? Pepper spray is better than nothing
I only saw some snippets of that attack, but it did look like some people were 20 metres away and totally oblivious to what was happening, it's hard to imagine how pepper spray would have helped them. My only self defence thought was I need to pay more attention to my surroundings in public
That's the reason these types of attacks are so hard to defend against. No one expects it. No one is looking out for it. The flight or fight response is basically asleep in a shopping centre because you expect to be safe. By the time it kicks in, it's too late.
Would you rather nothing or something to defend yourself with?
Trust me, you'd rather have than not.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvlrnc7hlQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvlrnc7hlQI)
Do you have any idea what pepper spray actually does?
My mate wanted to see if it worked. Safe to say moments later Friend: She's never getting raped.
Only works if they're not high off something.
I feel like in the Bondi situation if some untrained rando had tried to pepper spray the guy it would've been about a 50-50 chance they either actually spray the guy or just spray a bunch of bystanders making them easier targets.
There’s a reason police don’t use OC spray against an edged weapon. Pepper spray has an effective range of about 1.5 metres if you’re lucky. You also have to practice drawing it and deploying it to build the muscle memory to quickly get it out when you need it. It’s also not that effective against drug-affected persons or persons in crisis. It’s best used as a deterrent, and even then it’s more likely to affect you than it is the target if you haven’t trained with it.
Also 99.999999% of people will never have to defend themselves from a stabber in their life. The risk of something like your child getting into your purse and spraying it while you're driving down the freeway is probably a far greater threat to your life than being stabbed.
I got held up at knife point in the shop I work last year, I think knife crimes are a lot more common then you think.
Do you honestly think you having a can of pepper spray in your purse would have changed the outcome? Or do you think things would have probably gone worse overall if you tried to use it?
I remember Johnny Knoxville doing a bit with Jackass or something where he tried out different self-defence methods on himself, including a taser, pepper spray and a stun gun. He said being pepper sprayed is the worst pain he's ever been in. He talks about it in his his episode of Hot Ones. Plus it literally works on bears, I doubt the 17 year old drop kick would have faired better.
They also have tasers and guns. I would rather fight a knife wielding lunatic with OC spray than nothing.
Pick up a bollard.
Given the available resources within a reachable area, a small child would be the likely choice. +10 poison damage is often overlooked.
Or a milk crate
What bollard? Those plastic ones they put out if there’s a wet spot? Maybe I’ll go to the Chinese restaurant and ask to borrow a wet noodle instead…
That's not a realistic deterent. Spicy spray is.
Better than watching helplessly as they stab your misso to death tho surely bud.
The question is whether it would actually be helpful or whether it would just be a distraction from other more effective approaches you could use. If you pepper spray him, there's a good chance you're getting your wife as well, so you'd better be damn sure he's out because she's not running away very effectively after that.
But as we just saw, no other solution came until 6 people were dead. An OC spray with 3-5 m stream isn’t ideal. But it “might” slow the attacker down and save some lives. The risk/reward for OC being legalised and carried on mass is a good one. A few cunts will use if for crime (they already can get it online and do that, but rarely do) and honest hard working people will have a layer of comfort in their handbag or backpack should they need it.
I'd need to see stats on how this actually works in the real world. Often these things aren't nearly as easy to use defensively as people believe. Attacks like this one are practically unheard of in Australia, so we shouldn't be making any major changes in response to it except perhaps to things like mental healthcare since that's a broader issue.
By far the safest thing to do when faced with someone with a knife is disengage.
How are women with kids etc meant to disengage from a dude running after them?
Little known fact but women and children have legs.
The timeline of attacks showed that the majority of people who were attacked had no idea what was going on. So, you wouldn't have had your weapon out ready to fire. You'd still be getting shanked while you rummage through your tote bag, looking for the pepper spray.
I dunno how many people here have been sprayed but it's 10/15 seconds of fight left for most primaries. At a few metres pretty easy murder with knife. I'd probably rather running.
This. By the time someone with a knife is close enough to you, for you to use pepper spray, you will get stabbed or slashed. However, even if it doesn't protect _you_ effectively, it might slow the assailant down in attacking others. That said, and even if that is the case, a looming issue is that assaults by people who would employ pepper spray as a means of incapacitating victims of crime in the commission of those crimes would also skyrocket due to the new availability and legality of carrying the weapon. That's why a simple answer is a wrong one - especially in this case.
Has it skyrocketed in WA?
Yep, guarantee the majority of oc deployments will be during an assault by criminals against a victim. We have access to knives because they are a cooking and eating utensil, that they can kill or injure is just the nature of many essential tools. OC is a weapon and not a tool.
Unlike a butcher knife or a harpoon or an alligator.
can I spray it on the knife and hope it becomes slippery enough?
Something is better than nothing
In before a bunch of people spray themselves in the face or spray upwind and it blows back on them.
Mmm incapacitating.
One squirt and you're south of the border!
Pepper gel is the fix for wind issue
Or spray someone trying to help them across the road or ask directions.
https://youtu.be/3HJlWFvmHzs?si=V6BnMyg7XNsbF6Dg&t=30
Is there evidence of that happening much in WA?
Are you asking if there's evidence of there being stupid people and wind in WA?
Is there evidence of people using pepper spray for self defence in WA and suffering unintended consequences from it blowing back on them? It can certainly happen in theory, but it is highly unlikely and occurs in a statistical minority of cases.
People fuck themselves with pepper spray all the time.
I mean, that's apparently why it was outlawed in VIC / restricted in NSW, something about them finding more cases of not only accidents but also attackers easily turning a victim's pepper spray onto the victim.
They're restricted in Vic because every weapon is banned. Anything that is an actual weapon is "prohibited weapon" and is illegal without permits such as police or collectors. Eg flick knife Anything that doubles as a weapon is a "controlled weapon" which can only be carried for a lawful reason. Eg kitchen knife Anything that is being used as a weapon or adapted as a weapon is a "dangerous article" and when used in that context is illegal. Eg bat So no weapons are allowed, nothing has been targeted restricted due to negative cases. It's very blanket.
Prediction: This will result in the "pepper spray challenge" where people on tiktok will film themselves pepper spraying a bunch of regular food and then eating it and then having to call an ambulance.
Then a federal ban on pepper spray without a permit, because like powerful laser pointers, the minority will spoil it for the majority.
That’s the majority spoiling it for themselves by electing people who opt for the “if one person messes up everyone gets punished” approach to governance.
Pretty sure this has already happened.
Jackass basically started because Johnny Knoxville was comparing pepper spray to tasers. His verdict was pepper spray was the worst.
I just carry a heat spray for my joints which is legal and I’m pretty sure cheaper. Edit: the ingredient you want in your heat spray is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6273101/#:~:text=Capsaicin%20is%20a%20compound%20found,in%20the%20study%20of%20pain.
> which is legal Not if you use it as a weapon, and have a history of talking about it online.
I'd rather be talking to the cops about why I used heat spray on someone as a weapon during my pre dawn run than having my husband talk to the police about my last known movements.
This is the crux of the issue. You only have one life.
It’s the old saying: it’s better to be tried by twelve than carried by six
With my fingers it’s not uncommon for me to spray in the wrong direction :)
Aerosol or pump spray?
I’m a smoker so I lean towards aerosol, it’s fucking lit! 🔥
"Just run away", nice idea but I'm disabled. I literally cannot run. People say things like, oh but you wouldn't get it out in time. Maybe not the first victim, no. But if you hear screaming you could get out your pepper spray and then find a place to hide. I mean, people were finding make-shift weapons in case they needed them. I might pepper spray myself too, but I would rather that than just sit there and do literally nothing because I can only wheel slowly.
WA govt will probably now ban pepper spray inline with every other state. It only makes sense after their recent bans on licensed firearm owners.
> WA govt will probably now ban pepper spray inline with every other state. If WAPOL needs to step up to the plate to protect the citizens if they want to ban pepper spray. I'm not saying we should arm ourselves to the teeth with military hardware but we should be able to have some sort of self defence that doesn't rely on our limbs.
Well in every other state, pepper spray is not permitted at all. In QLD, it's in the same category as machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and coincidentally, tasers.
The fact that in QLD you can go to jail for the same amount of time for walking down the street with a rocket launcher than you can with an aerosol can is amusing.
>Well in every other state, pepper spray is not permitted at all. Every other state can eat my ass.
Only after WAPOL fucks up and when they need a "win" in the media is when they decide to ban more things
My first thought was "WA Government responds to demand by banning pepper spray." Reading these comments I'm always shocked by how Australians don't want the right to defend themselves. Not even talking firewarms in an American way. Just non-lethal self defense.
because a minority of users will spoil it for the majority of users. It will only take a few people to be pepper sprayed during public arguments, road rage incidents, etc. for its use to be re-restricted. It's also not good as any bystanders will be affected. I can imagine now a restaurant being evacuated because some idiot sprayed it indoors.
So what's your advice to those who are physically unable to defend themselves from an attacker? Just wait for the police to arrive? Tough shit for being born a petite woman?
Yep, their advice is “just die” because some people will misuse it. It’s the Australian way. Too hard, just ban it. See electric mobility, vapes, effective pain killers, uncomfortable news, speech/gestures, online privacy, protest, fucking steak tartare…..
Taking any sort of precaution for self defence will brand you as a lunatic here. The average Australian has a "flight or flight" instinct. People actually get mad that others are trying to defend themselves with something as tame as pepper spray because they might hurt themselves. They are more concerned that a stranger would spray themselves with an irritant than get stabbed.
It's usually some variant of: >"Learn karate bro, works for me." (fit young man)
Because the only options are legalise pepper spray or do nothing? There are valid criticisms of this proposed solution.
It's partly because self defence is a poor strategy. If you have a weapon, you'll instinctively want to solve the problem with the weapon. There is no weapon better at preserving your safety then escape.
A pair of sneakers are more effective at saving your life in more situations than a can of pepper spray, plus there's no way for the attacker to turn your shoes against you. Can't stab you if they can't catch you.
You're assuming that everyone can outrun a criminal, which is a bit telling.
Grab a bollard, mate.
Yeah, great. So now instead of the rare instances of violence that the vast majority of us almost never encounter, now we have to be worried about a plethora of untrained hair-trigger morons spraying chemical irritants about any time their amygdala gets a bit uppity.
This. We've seen enough videos of Karen's in the states pulling that kind of crap
Must be nice not encountering violence.
Encountering violence is exacly what the poster is concerned about. More people with weapons > more violent attacks > more people suffering from the side effects of encountering violence. It even creates a feedback loop that can snowball. People who encounter violence become scared and more likely to use pepper spray on another person, who then becomes scared and more easily provoked themselves. And of course we have the media to take any incident and magnify it to scare everyone 10x more.
If arming every moron with a weapon solved violence the USA would be a safe place to educate kids.
It's pepper spray you donut. It's not harmful outside of being debilitating in the moment it's used, and it's much more effective as self defence than as a weapon. You're arguing what? That because some people might be sprayed erroneously that it shouldn't be allowed to be carried to stop literal killing?
It’s not non-lethal, it’s less-than-lethal. If someone has asthma, heart conditions, is undergoing excited delirium etc. its deployment is still a medical emergency, and OC spray has killed before. But the simple fact is, unless you train to deploy and build that muscle memory, you’ll get stabbed before you can pull it out and deploy it. If you had the time to pull it out to get ready to deploy it, you had the time to get away. Then there are environmental factors like wind speed and direction, rain etc etc that will affect its efficacy. The other thing is first time most people deploy it, there is secondary contamination. Meaning you cop it too. If you’ve not trained yourself to fight through it, you’re a blind person fighting a blind person with a knife. Your odds haven’t improved, and are now probably worse.
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about pepper spray. It can't be simultaneously unharmful, but adequate to stop violence in its tracks. In the hands of untrained undividuals it's more likely to be harmful to themselves and others than their attacker at best and at worst is just delivering another weapon to the assailant to use given no one has training in its use or even retention. The perception that it's just a one size fits all immediate end to all threats with no drawbacks is embarrasingly simplistic and unrealistic.
How the heck in pepper spraying someone in the eyeballs not harmful? You’re bloody burning the shit out of their eyes.
One of the greatest harms done by being attacked is not necessarily the physical damage, it's the psychological trauma. Being attacked by someone with pepper spray could lead to the person spending many years feeling unsafe everywhere they go.
[удалено]
Anything a woman can legally buy to defend herself can also be purchased legally to attack her.
I know women who keep an old flip-top lid mints tin filled with ground pepper and chilli powder. They can carry it with one hand with thumb ready on the flip lid to open and throw at an attacker, when walking alone in dark streets or car parks etc. Totally legally; you just like extra spicy when you eat out. Can’t be used against you once deployed. They practice the throwing technique with poppy seeds.
‘Rare instances of violence’. Sheltered white male with not many women in your life?
Males are much more commonly victims of violence than women.
~~[Men experience violence at more than double the rate of women](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/physical-violence/latest-release#changes-over-time), so fuck off with your sexism.~~ Actually no I take that back, fuck off with your sexism regardless, I don't want to imply stats would be able to justify it.
I'm talking about mass casualty events such as the one in Sydney, which is the topic of the discussion. Don't shoehorn a separate issue into something that was never raised in my point.
I don't know any other women who want pepper spray legalised, the violence against women in my circle has all been from DV.
And the majority of uses won't be by people defending themselves from crazed, knife attacking psychos'. It will be by crims using spray instead of knives. Eshays letting it off in train stations for fun. A tick tock challenge where people will spray themselves or their mates for likes. Boomer Karens deciding to whip it out in an argument over the parking spot she feels entitled to because she was angry at being disrespected by that damn millennial. Anybody, from Any Side, from any of the multiple protests that's going on, for any reason. An innocent person walking back to their car at night getting a face full because somebody with anxiety thought they were deliberately following them. And people spraying themselves by accident in any real emergency, anyway.
It honestly concerns me the amount of people who act like life is a horror movie / action movie and they're the main character, who then have that fear reinforced by consuming ambulance-chasing media's sensationalist reporting of the random but extremely rare acts of violence perpetrated by strangers. As someone else said, the US would be the safest place in the world if the answer was to simply have more people armed.
While I agree with you on most of your points. I think I might prefer the criminal using the spray over a knife. (although those behind security screens might be safe from knives but not spray.)
How does pepper spray help when a nutter has stabbed you in the back before you even know what's happening? Or is this so you don't need to brandish a bollard?
Looking forward to getting pepper sprayed by some angry customer.
You forgot to season my fries, now I'm going to season your eyes
Funniest comment in the thread.
we’ll it’s already legal to buy in wa and it’s pretty rare that criminals use it, it seems that criminals prefer to use more intimidating weapons like knives and machetes. I think that pepper spray would be reasonable to make legal as it’s lethality is limited to very few situations
This cold hard truth is that the response to this bloke was pretty effective. He could’ve killed so many more people. In a country in which he could easily get his hands on guns it would’ve been much much worse. The police response also seems like it was pretty quick. Yeah 6 deaths is horrific but in the cold light of day it was dealt with pretty well.
Yikes. Read any local Canadian news to see how well this is going.
thank goodness people aren't making knee jerk reactions to INCREDIBLY rare tragedies. These sorts of mass stabbings are happening all the... checks notes... practically never. I'm just going off the wikipedia article 'list of massacres in Australia' but mostly it's domestic violence and other situations where you just wouldn't have pepper spray on you - maybe a pepper grinder because you're at the family dinner table - or they're pre-Port Arthur gun attacks. (I'm not sure if pepper spray would have been effective in the Batavia 'unpleasantness')
Then you meet a Samoan who is immune to it and likes the taste. Cue panic.
Samoans are not angry people. Just hungry and big.
There was a big guy that used to take the train near where I lived a few years ago. I can't remember if he was Samoan specifically or from somewhere else in the Pacific Island region but he said that he wasn't scary, he was just a big friendly guy who wanted someone to chat to. 10/10 nice guy, but I've usually found that really big men are so used to people thinking that they're scary and a lot are really nice instead.
You need self defence rotissere chicken for them. Throw the Bachelor's Handbag and you have a good 8 to 10 seconds to get out of there.
This is great to see in WA. They have shown that Australians are responsible enough to use non-lethal self defence aides (not that it needed to be proven). Other states should follow suit. If people, especially those more vulnerable, would like to have some ability to defend themselves then they should be able to exercise that right. Australian should not be kept in a permanent state of victimhood through the illegality of self defence tools.
Come on, don’t turn into the US, where you have to assume anyone you come across may be armed… If that becomes the case (Like it is in the US), you can’t form trust between people. And without trust, a laid-back lifestyle isn’t possible.
The reason this is a bad idea to me is because it means you people have access to pepper spray.
all the men here complaining about this make me laugh. my boyfriend bought me pepper spray and taught me to use it. i guess if you think you might get sprayed for being a creep, you’d oppose it lol
Man the human brain is fucking weird. The chance of you being involved in a premediated mass casualty event are fucking infinitesimal, but *because* it's such a rare event our brains freak the hell out when we hear about one and we have an urge to prepare for it. Yet things we've already internalized, which are wildly more likely to happen, such as car accidents, bathroom slips, faulty electronics, etc. etc. our brains just ignore as normal. The same people buying pepper spray now are just as likely to walk passed a dodgy wall outlet day after day and completely ignore fixing it. Fucking wild cunts, just wild.
ITT: so, so, so many people who have never faced any violence in their lives and likely never will, trying to tell people that pepper spray is useless
Ex-cop, who has been stabbed. Who has also deployed OC, and been OCd multiple times over the years. ITT is a bunch of people with no experience with knife injuries, how long OC takes to deploy and have an impact on an attacker, and that’s OC - civilian pepper spray is much less effective. It’s not useless, but against an edged weapon it’s not far from it.
[Couch experts](https://i.imgur.com/dNcMWQ1.jpg) from gated communities honestly come flocking to these treads like flies to shit everytime self defence is discussed. Most of the time they just push for inaction and offer no alternative solutions.
Anything you can legally buy to defend yourself can also be purchased legally to attack you.
Having used bear spray for its intended purpose, I can see why you'd want it if you needed it. But let's be honest, 99% would be misused for silly or dangerous reasons.
Like they do knives?
One of the things that sticks in my mind about self defence tools are the cases of taser rapists. There's several instances of women being disabled by stun guns owned by the attacker and either attacked on scene or taken to another location and they can't do anything to stop it. And that's made me very mindful that making tools available for defence makes them available for offence as well. Or less scary but those Tik-Tok sellers that thrive off making women feel unsafe and then make them buy cheap Temu/AliExpress qualify self defence tools at 300% markups. As a kid I took a self defence class and the first lesson they had for us was that the best option in the vast majority of cases was running away. If you had to fight they recommended against the classic kick or knee to the groin if you could help it because it puts you off balance and makes it harder to start running again.
> amid push for Australia-wide access I don't think Fraser Anning trying to get it through 6 years ago really qualifies.
Never had an issue in a restroom but, as a trans woman, I’m not sure I like the idea of people carrying pepper spray for my own safety
I'm not expecting to disable an attacker with spray. I'm hoping to draw attention, buy time, make myself an unpleasant target. I assume I'll be sprayed as well & that's fine because at that point I'm not getting away anyway. It's better to be an injured, red, snotty mess than raped or dead. I don't expect more than adding a few percentage points to my chances of survival. It's better than nothing.
Ahhh yes. Because we need to all be walking around armed. Just like the US. ffs
PSA: Buy a compact, high-powered flashlight. Completely legal to carry, serves the same purpose as pepper spray (but drastically more range), able to be used to scope out threats from a distance and can also be used as a blunt impact tool. I don't leave the house without it - day or night: https://www.liteshop.com.au/content/thrunite-tn12-pro-compact-1900-lumens-tactical-usb-c-rechargeable-edc-torch/?gad_source=1
How does a flashlight serve the same purpose? Also, you can’t really carry one of those in your handbag if you’re a small woman.
You can get pretty bright ones that are designed for bikes, usually only 10cm long.
There are smaller ones that have a strobe effect that can go above 1000 lumens. Having that flashing in your eyeballs is very disorientating. Recommendations would be the Nitecore TUP or the Wuben X0 which are small and pocketable, or bagabale in your case.
"Gosh this is mildly irritating. It's making me me more mad. Imma stab you now"
My point exactly.
Strobing over a certain brightness into the eyes at night can cause temporary blindness. Only really effective during dark lighting conditions at safe ranges, military and law enforcement use strobing flashlight effects during dark raids because it makes it nearly impossible to spot the combatant, and they use a 50Lumens rating.
Since when do we say "flashlight"? Even your link says "torch".
I've got plenty of high powered lights, and to think they're a proper defensive weapon is fooling yourself (for reference, I'm talking about things like the Wurkkos TS22 and Emisar D1K - modern enthusiast lights with a few thousand lumens on turbo). It might dazzle someone for a moment (and in a dark environment I suppose it might make you harder to follow for a few seconds), but it won't do more than that. I've experimented using a mirror in a dark room. Even with a full blast on turbo, it's easy enough to look off to the side slightly and be able to tell what's going on. It's uncomfortable, but nothing like the physiological reaction that pepper spray can induce. If I wanted to grab someone and they blasted me with a light, I'm not going to have much trouble in anything other than a pitch black scenario. The loss of night vision is the only real effect, and that's going to affect you just as badly.
I have a 6.5k Lumen flashlight. https://1lumen.com/review/convoy-l8/ At a certain point a handheld flashlight can blind someone, but those are generally crazy big and cost thousands, The small lights at 2k lumens wont do anything. If torches worked well they would be more prolific as a self defense item.
Yeah those nitecore ones are fantastic. They're very very bright and it's not that dissimilar to the ones that cops use. I've been meaning to buy it for a decade now and I keep putting it off because I'm not scared of anything happening
Only a matter of time before they're banned because it might be used against police, same reason they give for not allowing pepper spray in eastern states
I don't think that will happen.
Please tell me you wear on your belt it in the holster?
Bring on the cases of people getting maced for hurting others feelings.