Posted on 03/26/2011 6:24:27 AM PDT by marktwain
Sometimes when you are working on a project you sit back holding your spray can and realize while you've done some good work, it just needs another coat.
It was a Friday night, shortly after 10:00 p.m.; I was sitting in the family room with my wife watching a TV program about a mathematician that helps the FBI solve crimes. The phone rang; there was a young woman on the other side that was clearly in distress. With a pen and pad in hand I started taking notes on what had occurred. When my telephone goes off in the late hours, it is most often because somebody found themselves in a self-defense engagement and used force in defense of themselves or someone else. Tonight would be no different, but this time I started laughing and during the conversation. My wife thought I was losing my mind.
On the other end of the phone was a young woman who was clearly in distress. She was speaking quickly and it sounded as though she was trying to choke back some tears. She began telling me the story of what happened, and as is often is the case, I asked her to skip some details and provide me with some very specific information. Once this information was provided I had a clear picture of what had happened. I knew right then and there she would be okay.
Missy, Jessica and Bob were heading to a friend's surprise birthday party. They did not want to arrive too early so they stopped at a local bar to talk and enjoy a cocktail before moving on. While inside, a jerk began hitting on Missy. The jerk's advances were unwelcome and Missy made it clear that she wasn't interested. The jerk was drunk and continued his advances. Bob and Jessica tried to intervene, but it was apparent that the jerk was not going to give up, and it was best they leave the bar and move on to the surprise party. So out they went. Bob was distracted as he left the bar and did not see the jerk coming up behind him towards the two girls.
When Missy turned around to look for Bob, she sees the jerk lumbering towards her and he starts calling her some very unpleasant names. She is now frightened and begins to shake. The jerk then begins to threaten her. Missy is smart. She carries a firearm in her purse and since she knew she was heading to a bar and to a party where alcohol would be consumed so she thought it was best to leave her purse in Jessica's trunk. As she approached Jessica's car, she thought about asking Jessica to open the trunk so she could retrieve her firearm to "encourage" the jerk to move onto easier prey. Then she gave some thought to the other tools available to her. In her jacket pocket was a very small wallet containing some cash, credit cards, her ID and a keychain. Attached to that keychain was a small canister of pepper spray. She reached into her jacket removed the pepper spray from its pink pleather holster, and sprayed him in the eyes and face. The jerk collapsed like an unset jello mold. He began screaming obscenities. Now Missy is pissed. While the jerk is on the ground on all fours trying to cover his face, she "gives him a second coat".
This is probably the funniest thing that I've ever heard on that emergency line. Missy, Bill and Jessica were now in the car with the doors locked. No one had called 911. Missy kept me on the phone while Jessica called 911 from her cell phone. While Jessica was calling 911, a bouncer from the bar came out and insisted that Missy get out of the car so he could speak with her. I told Missy to stay in the vehicle as the bouncer had no authority to instruct her to do anything, and she was safe in the locked car. She was to sit in the car until law enforcement arrived. Within a few minutes, three patrol cars rolled up to the bar and immediately took the jerk into custody since he thought it would be a good idea to resist their advances and to call them obscene names as well.
The police then questioned Missy, Bill and Jessica. The officer assured Missy that she did the right thing and that everything would be just fine.
That was the end of the evening for the jerk. He was brought to jail for a number of charges including disorderly conduct. Then the police told Missy that she was free to continue with her evening. She was thrilled. She really had no idea what would happen to her, and in her heart she honestly thought she would be arrested as well.
Had she discharged her firearm instead of her pepper spray, there is a good chance she would have been arrested. I will not speculate on the outcome of that scenario, but use this experience in Missy's life to once again show the value of having multiple tools in one's self-defense tool box. OC spray (pepper spray) certainly has its time and place, and one enormous benefit of hitting somebody with OC spray is that at the end of the day everyone goes home (eventually).
When the police rolled up at the bar, they saw two upset women and a guy lying on the ground screaming while trying to breath. The gals relayed a story of unwelcome advances and his attempt to follow them to their car. In the end the officer simply told the jerk that he picked on the wrong girl.
I don’t know if mace and pepper spray are the same thing or not, but some 30 years ago, my friend shot a puff of that stuff into the air, in front of a Dairy Queen. We were all about 16 or so. The three of us got just a slight whiff of it and we were down on the ground for 5 minutes. Her little gag almost ruined a few people’s vanilla cones. I couldn’t image being shot in the face with that stuff!
Do YOU follow women who shoot your down in bars out to the car?
I’d pepper spray you too. And I’m a guy.
Using pepper spray is a legally-defensible less-than-lethal use of force. Pepper spray is carried by LEOs who use it all the time, so there's lots of court cases where its use has been defended.
If wasp spray to the eyes causes any sort of lasting damage to the perp, be prepared for a lawsuit that will take away everything you have. You would have been better off to have shot him, especially if you're in a Stand Your Ground state.
Pepper spray was my going away gift when I was young and leaving my small, safe suburban NY home for D.C.
Bean bags are a joke.Ask Brian Terry.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/murdered-border-patrol-agent-brian-terry-was-armed-with-beanbags/
You might also try a can of old fashioned oven cleaner with lye. Will eat right through clothing and cuse significant burns. Will also cause permanent blindness so don’t use unless you mean it
“Wasp and Hornet spray is super effective at disabling any aggressor,I keep a can in a bookcase next to my door.”
You may want to reconsider that:
http://personalprotection4u.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-recently-received-following-email.html
http://findinfoworld.com/blog/2011/02/02/self-defense-tools-wasp-spray-vs-pepper-spray/
At Home Depot or the equivalent they sell a spray that allows you to spray wasp nests from like 20 feet away so you don't have to go near them, or if their in the eaves in your two story house or whatever. You get a whole aerosol can for like 6 bucks. MUCH cheaper and MUCH better standoff range than "official" personal protective sprays.
“If you were looking to buy multiple cans of the most effective and legal self-defense spray made, what would you buy?”
Fox Labs 5.0
Plus...if you have a can of wasp spray in the car and you end up using it on a [human] pest, it just looks like you used what you had to hand.
Let the true believers here produce the police report or a verifying newspaper article. I'm not doing their work for them.
Or....if they like the story, I'm happy for them. I'm an agreeable cupcake.
Leni
Good grief..You forgot to add the sarcasm tag.
“Where did you get this info? Have you seen a demonstration? I am very curious.”
It was used in a Farrah Faucett movie. I don’t remember the name of it.
I should have noted that it states on every can that use for other than its intended purpose is illegal. BUT! which would you rather do, be robbed, hurt, killed or use whatever is handy to protect yourself?
No-brainer to me.
Why doesn’t it pass the smell test with you? No amount of “leg work” will enable any Freeper to understand why *you* doubt the veracity of the incident mentioned in the article.
What you said. The whole story seems either made up, or ‘enhanced’
What’s the best brand of pepper spray?
For what it's worth, I asked the same question as a separate post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2695011/posts
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