I was listening to a local radio show recently when the discussion turned to the utility of knives and various other tools for self-defense. The producer had given one of the hosts a knife for his birthday, explaining that he thought everyone should carry a knife for self-defense. While he obviously meant well, I cringed a little at the thought of just handing out knives to people regardless of training (or, specifically, it’s distinct lack). Yes, knives are powerful tools for self-defense, but if you lack training to use it, a knife can be as much a liability as a benefit in an altercation.
As radio show discussions often do, the conversation devolved into callers recommending various moronic substitutes for self-defense products. It frustrates me to no end that there are people in the world who recognize the need for self-defense, but who think it is somehow more morally correct, more civically virtuous, to employ an improvised weapon whose overt purpose is more innocuous. It didn’t take long for some idiot in the audience to recommend a household cleaner product — in this case, Lysol.
I have to admit that Lysol is a new one on me. I’ve heard people recommend wasp spray and oven cleaner, and even the old hairspray-and-a-lighter trick, but never simple disinfecting spray. Even in my home state of New York, where everything is illegal, pepper spray is not. Why you would carry a household spray, or recommend one, over purpose-designed pepper spray for self-defense is an absolute mystery to me.
I’m not a huge fan of pepper spray. Just firing a Kimber Pepper Blaster produces enough noxious odors that your tongue will start to burn when the discharged weapon is held at arm’s length. I dislike the fact that pepper sprays are messy, imprecise, volatile, and prone to leaking (especially when subjected to temperature changes, such as locked inside a hot car). I hate that when you use pepper spray in self-defense, you’re likely to end up breathing some of it. I hate that you can never really predict where every drop of the stuff is going to go. I hate wondering if I’m likely to inadvertently release the stuff when I’m carrying it on my person in my pocket.
And it’s still a better choice than household cleaners.
Just how a person would choose to tote around a can of Lysol rather than a much smaller keychain pepper spray unit is never explained by the imbeciles who recommend this tactic. Have you ever met anyone just walking around with a can of Lysol? Can the average woman’s purse, no matter how huge, accommodate one? And how, when attacked, are you supposed to deploy this giant, slick-sided cylinder?
Even if you walked around all day with a can of the stuff in your hand, ready to go, using it presents other problems. Cleaning products are extremely unreliable for self-defense. Either they do little to nothing or, worse, they permanently blind your attacker. Think you’re having a bad day when you get mugged? Try explaining to a judge or a jury why you dumped a can of wasp and hornet spray — or worse, oven cleaner — into the assailant’s eyeballs, burning them out forever. You’d be surprised how little understanding juries have for that kind of thing. That’s not to mention the level of premeditation you’re demonstrating by staging a caustic chemical for “self-defense” before the fact.
So, consider the options. On the one hand, you have pepper spray, which is likely legal and which is a socially acceptable form of self-defense product. It does no permanent harm, it’s compact, it’s easy to carry, and its results are reasonably predictable, even if it is not always effective. On the other hand, you have the unpredictable results of a household chemical that is difficult to carry, awkward to explain, and which presents particularly troubling legal liabilities. Depending on the product, it may do gruesome bodily harm in a way that our legal system will interpret as malicious and gratuitous. Which would you, a reasonable citizen, choose to carry?
For the love of God, stop recommending household cleaners and bug spray products for self-defense. It’s time to put this myth to bed once and for all. And then to drag it out of bed and throw it into a deep hole. With a stake through its heart. Before covering it in dirt. And cement.
I mean, come on.
Obviously the “Lysolers” don’t want to hurt the person who is attacking.
There is also a disparity of force issue in some cases. With this new systemic racist agenda everyone is pushing some super crazy young black woman attacked an elderly couple in the grocery store. There was an age difference of over 60 years there. I am sorry, but if you are 20 years old and run around attacking people who are 85 or 90 years old, and get blinded by someone who is 65 or 70 years your senior, that’s just too ___ ___ed bad. I don’t think a judge is going to sentence old people to prison for defending themselves from princess crazy. Thankfully the police finally arrived before anyone was too badly hurt and hauled off this lunatic. IT HAPPENED INSIDE OF A GROCERY STORE, SO THERE IS A VERY WIDE SELECTION OF AEROSOL CANS OF NASTY STUFF TO CHOOSE FROM! (Just remember to pay for it.) She started out on the cashier, then the head cashier and then management, and then she moved on to attacking the weakest random shoppers she could find. She eventually got Tased, handcuffed, spit hooded, hogtied, and hauled off to jail, just because she was black, or at least that was the reasoning within her warped little mind. I do NOT think any jury would have been overly impressed by her behavior on those security videos. Personally, the ONLY time I would ever advocate spraying anyone with Easy Off Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner is within the confines of your own home in the case of home invasion or an aggressive burglar, who legally becomes a robber when violently confronting the homeowners. We have no stand your ground laws in my state, so my first legal option outside of my home is to attempt to leave, run away, take cover, get help, de-escalate, and if all of that fails, I ain’t shooting pepper balls. I do remember a time when certain younger women and girls carried around a giant pleather purse with the largest can of Final Net hairspray imaginable stowed away inside it. Those cans were enormous, as in more than 32 oz of hairspray. It was like carrying a fire extinguisher around. Invariably they would always pull out that can and proceed to crop dust their hair on public transportation, causing half the people on the bus or train car cough and the other half to wipe tears from their eyes. I’d imagine they might be immune to Lysol by now. Jerry Curl kind of in fashion back then too. Ah yes, I can still see the greasy gooey handsets on the payphones, and the goo slicks on the windows of the city buses. All you needed was a good spark and someone’s head would be engulfed in flames. I carried nun cucks back then. They were amazingly effective and you could choose to inflict some pain, without doing any physical damage at all, or not hold back and send someone to the orthopedic surgeon by way of the emergency room. I had acquired quite a selection of knives and balisongs that I had collected with those nun chucks. I got a couple of cheap hammers and some clubs that way too. I also got one nice old Plumb hammer that I still have. Sometimes they would back off and throw the hammer at me, which was quite easily swatted away with the nun chucks, or caught within the chain section. It was actually more legal for me to carry around handguns than nun chucks, right up until last year when that law finally changed. I never did cut loose on anyone with nun chucks. That was the beauty with those. You could use just enough power & force to disarm and or dissuade an attacker without causing any serious injuries or death. My brother even tested that theory one day. I don’t know why. His hand hurt like crazy but nothing was broken.
I get it – I really do. I live in an extremely violent country and the man walking into my shop with a gun must be prepared to use it – read kill me – so if I blind him in self defense, it must be the lesser of two evils. But I will endeavour to find a really good pepper spray.
In some ways I agree, however, in a life threatening event- where you reasonable feel that you life is in immediate and or imminent danger of severe injury or death-KUNG FOO works in movies.
GUNS and knives vs Kung Foo-maybe steven segal, LOL.
Pae Mai- well he will kill you.
Use what is available in an event-to protect your life. Which is better, killing with a knife or firearm, or blinding and disarmining assailent -to live and learn from there mistake.
Note: Any self defense method to protect your life- Is Premeditated.
Pepper spray, Bear Spray, Mace, household chemicals, Guns Knives- use in defense, You will need a lawyer, and a fair and impartial jury & Judge & GOD. GOD BLESS.