Don’t Put Your Faith in Pepper Spray!

By: Mike Daniel

Making good decisions and identifying danger at a distance—situational awareness—are good things. The article points out the value of actually hitting one’s target and notes: “Our goal is to hit the bad guy’s eyes to disable him long enough for us to get to safety.”

You don’t say.

Implicit in that goal, and presumably the class, is the milquetoast desire not to very much hurt someone trying to beat, rape, or kill you, and only for long enough to escape and call the police. It’s rather like Joe Biden’s advice to shoot armed attackers in the legs in the expectation that doing so would immediately render them helpless instead of merely somewhat less mobile but still able to kill you.

Taking a class in using pepper spray might be thought akin to taking a class to learn how to apply shampoo. Methods of keeping it out of one’s eyes would surely be a major part of the class.

This harkens back to my police days when I developed the Sober Police Officer In Training—SPOIT—rule. Based on decades of practical experience, it observes that techniques and less-lethal weapons that work beautifully on sober police officers in clean, dry, well-lit, climate-controlled gyms will inevitably fail in the real world. “Less lethal” because the police have learned what used to be called “non-lethal” weapons like batons, Tasers and even pepper spray, even when used as recommended, can kill.  

Such things work in SPOIT conditions because cops don’t want to be injured, other cops applying the techniques and weapons don’t use full force because they don’t want full force used on them when it’s their turn, and because breaking bones or putting fellow officers in the hospital is generally frowned on. Criminals filled with rage, lust, drugs, and simple insanity react differently.

During my police career, I carried pepper spray but virtually never used it because every cop knows when they do, everyone in the immediate area, including themselves, is going to be dosed, and then they’re struggling with a crook while everybody’s eyes are stinging and watering, their noses are running, and they’re sneezing. Afterward, you’re going to need a shower and a fresh uniform, and you’ll be cleaning the chemicals out of your leather and other gear for days.

Everyone should understand the police have no legal obligation to protect any citizen, nor can they be sued for failing to protect anyone. Cops love to catch bad guys in the act, but that’s very rare indeed. And the old saying is true: “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.” In some places, that’s hours.

Martial arts are good things. They teach confidence, alertness, useful skills, coordination, and situational awareness. But they’re of little use to women against most men, and particularly against those bent on rape and murder. Movies where slight women defeat multiple male attackers are choreography, not combat. A 5’4” female karate black belt may be something of a match for a 6’ male, but no one should bet their life on it.  There are reasons, including weight, size, reach, power, and aggressiveness, that men don’t compete against women in karate or other martial arts.

Pepper spray can work—on some people sometimes—but it has real limitations. It’s all but useless in wind or precipitation and is range-limited. Women, particularly, should stay as far away from attackers as possible. If they get into grappling range, it’s all over. Using pepper spray puts women within easy lunging distance. While it’s true some people might be momentarily dissuaded by pepper spray, most are only inconvenienced, and those with evil intentions tend to become more enraged and more determined to harm their chosen victim.

What about knives? Knife fighting is a martial art in and of itself, and police practice the Tueller Drill, which teaches that an average person armed with a knife can cover a minimum of 21 feet to stab an armed officer before the officer can draw and place a single round on target. Knives, too, are a poor choice for most women as using them requires being within grappling range of an attacker. They also require strength, skill, reach, aggressiveness, and speed. And, of course, the range limitations of pepper spray put one well within that 21-foot danger zone.

Any legitimate martial art teaches it’s always best to avoid a fight, which is where situational awareness enters. It’s the practiced ability to live outside the arms-length bubble inhabited by most people. It’s an awareness of what is happening—or might be about to happen—around you, so you can simply walk or drive away, or if that’s not possible, put yourself in the best possible tactical position.

A woman confronted unaware will almost certainly be within grappling range, and even if women are able to grasp, orient, and spray, hitting the target in the eyes, the reality is that, unless their attacker is one of the few immediately and temporarily somewhat disabled, the women are going to be beaten into unconsciousness or killed within seconds by an enraged attacker slinging tears and snot in every direction.

There are companies that market pepper ball guns, which somewhat extend the range, but why would one want to carry something the size of an actual handgun whose effects are iffy at best?

Those willing to acknowledge the existence of evil understand they may find themselves fighting it at any time and place. Stopping evil requires more than a naïve desire only to hurt it a little while it’s trying to kill you. There’s no morality in being seriously injured or killed for such mistaken beliefs.

The obvious solution, beyond developing and practicing situational awareness, is carrying an effective handgun with which one is trained, competent, and confident. It’s also vital to know the laws of self-defense and the laws regulating deadly force, which vary slightly from place to place. Generally, one may use deadly force if a reasonable person in like circumstances would believe they are facing an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death. That reasonable person doesn’t have to wait for the first blow, stab, or shot. He or she can act to stop the attack, not kill the attacker. It’s not a semantic distinction. If the attacker whom the gun owner lawfully resisted dies, that was the attacker’s choice. (NOTE: If you carry a weapon, you have the responsibility to know the applicable gun laws in your location.)

That’s the ultimate problem with less-lethal weapons. They can kill. People have died from a single Taser jolt, from pepper spray, and from baton blows to the head or neck, but those weapons can’t be counted upon to stop any attacker. Until we have Star Trek Phasers with “stun” settings, the only practically carried weapon that has the highest probability of quickly stopping a deadly force attack is the handgun. It’s the only weapon that makes a woman equal or superior to a man.

The police commonly carry pepper spray and Tasers, but they know they may have to go to their handguns within seconds if those less-lethal options fail. No one, and particularly not women, should fail to understand that dynamic.

Are pepper spray and pepper spray classes useless? No, but people shouldn’t delude themselves into thinking pepper spray is universally effective in a deadly force encounter. Don’t Put Your Faith in Pepper Spray!