Posted on 04/25/2023 11:02:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof posited the idea in a recent piece that people who are worried about people breaking into their homes should get bear spray for self-defense instead of a firearm.
Kristof wrote about the idea after home shootings involving Ralph Yarl and Kaylin Gillis.
Elsewhere, brutes send their victims to the E.R.; in America, they send them to their graves. Foreigners admire our popular culture, our technology, our lifestyle, but are bewildered by our refusal to rein in guns.
In the 1990s when I was Tokyo bureau chief of The Times, Japanese people regularly spoke to me about a 1992 incident in which a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student, Yoshihiro Hattori, was shot dead in Louisiana after knocking on the wrong door. The homeowner said he thought the boy was a burglar and ordered him to 'freeze'; Hattori perhaps didn’t understand 'freeze' or misheard the man as saying 'please.' In any case, the boy moved, and the man shot him with a .44 magnum.
"I backpack, and it's well known that bear spray is more effective against a charging grizzly than a handgun. Probably also more effective against a home invader. Think of it as harm reduction," he tweeted.
We could even encourage worried homeowners to buy bear spray for protection. I backpack, and it's well known that bear spray is more effective against a charging grizzly than a handgun. Probably also more effective against a home invader. Think of it as harm reduction.— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) April 22, 2023
"We accept inconveniences to reduce auto fatalities: seatbelts, speed limits, no riding in the backs of pickup trucks. So why don't we accept tradeoffs to reduce gun mortality? In MS, it's easier to buy an AR-15 than to adopt a Chihuahua. Why should that be?" he further tweeted.
Kristof was predictably mocked for the idea of using bear mace:
You do realize that indoors, bear spray would affect the intruder and the homeowner?
If you don’t understand what you are talking about, just set this one out and let the adults handle it.— Cavalry Doc (@desertveteran) April 23, 2023
While painful, bear spray is weaker than pepper spray - designed for use on an animal with 1000x more sensitive sense of smell.
Legally, you can be in jeopardy if you use bear spray as a self-defense tool .
Poor survival advice against asocial violence.https://t.co/imvsbtBKGQ— Joel (@joelgaines) April 24, 2023
You've obviously never fished in Alaska, where every other fisherman has a 454 Casull on their hip because of grizzlies and brown bear, not spicy perfume.— LeeRoyJenkins® (@NunyaBiznnes) April 24, 2023
Surely some … but probably not “most” …
“I backpack, and it’s well known that bear spray is more effective against a charging grizzly than a handgun.
Has that author EVER actually USED bear spray?
Maybe one of those little keychain night stick thingies would be equally recomended against bears and home invaders?
Next it will be a Super Soaker with some soapy water.
/s
sure, if you want to piss off a bear instead of killing an intruder.
What if the guy is shooting a shotgun at you from the bottom of the stairs? You walk out there and spray? I think I’d rather spray buckshot.
And, to be honest, I could care less what a foreigner thinks about us.
Wasp spray works well, but has been banned for use against attackers in some areas.
All my ammo is coated with bear spray.
There are five rules for a gun fight. The first rule is that a gun beats no gun.
If your fellow democrats would quit shooting people, gun deaths would fall to nearly nothing overnight.
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I backpack, too (well, not as much as I once did). There was usually a handgun or two in our merry band.
This clown talks about “Harm reduction”? In a perfect world, bad guys die. The more, the better. Bullets in bad guys are like clorox in the gene pool.
Reducing legal access to guns increases gun related mortality, does not reduce it.
One should not discount the satisfaction received from hearing the howls of pain from the home invader thrashing around in your front yard after you unload two barrels of rock salt into his torso.
Yup. But that has nothing to do with my original comment.
The moment that some thug has an allergic reaction to bear spray and dies, the NYT will be calling to ban bear spray. Their position is that you can use any method to repel a criminal as long as it doesn’t hurt them.
I released bear spray my house and all I got was this new carpet, curtains and wardrobe.
Will I be required to wear Burglar Bells to alert the robber to my presence and not startle him?
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