What about a taser? Are they effective for a woman to use to gain time to run away?
I don't like tasers much. The kind that shoots the probes so you can have some distance are single shot deals. The hand-held kind with two attached electrodes almost require hand-to-hand combat skills and are too easy to take away.
>>> What about a taser? Are they effective for a woman to use to gain time to run away?
In addition to what another FReeper posted to you, that one-time use of the shooting prongs assumes that both prongs reach skin - situational as to how many layers of clothing are worn by the assailant, plus a good shooting angle. That’s why you often don’t see it deployed by police in a confrontation unless there’s already a ring of LEOs surrounding the unruly perp, all set to take turns in case the first taser shot misses or gets pulled out before rendering the bad guy non-combatant.
And as to the hand-held with contact prongs, you’re already at grabbing range before you can use it. Perhaps not a bad last resort so long as the assailant never sees it coming, but what if his first contact is violently destructive?
A taser is better than nothing, so I don’t want to disparage your self-defense tools. Just understand their limits. To me the Number One most effective tool is situational awareness, listening to your instincts & acting thereon to avoid a hinky situation/area in the first place.