Perhaps the pain might not stop some people, my understanding that if you get it in your eyes the capilaries swell and temp. blind the person, which makes it hard to keep the attack up, also restricting airways.
In general how effective is bear deterrent pepper spray compaired to the human stuff?
You are assuming that assailants are sane, instead of drugged up, drunk, or plain old stupid.
I’m sure some muggers are going to have a crisp plan of action, but there are a more than a fair share of just general malcontents who are too stupid or jacked up on something to have a plan at all. Remember, if they were clever, they’d probably not be mugging people in the first place.
Mace is the name of the company that produced the self-defense product.
As to why it’s called mace? I’ll relay the story told to me when I underwent OC pepper spray training for the first time. The instructor said something to effect that when you look at the product on a microscopic level, the chemical looks like little spikey balls. Like a mace. That was a long time ago, and I make no claim that that’s accurate, so take that FWIW.
Again, it depends on the person. It really just doesn’t affect some people as much as others, even when getting it in the eyes. I used to give pepper spray training at one of my former units and have sprayed a few dozen people in the face and eyes as part of that training. I’ve also been witness to the same training for quite a few more people, and with some folks, they just aren’t that affected. They can continue to see and function with little difficulty, compared to most others.
In my initial training, we were told that OC may be less effective on people with darker skin. This coincides with my observations in training. In fact, the one guy I sprayed who was the least affected was black. He was barely affected and had no trouble seeing during the exposure.
As with anything, YMMV.
Oh, sure, I wasn’t trying to downplay that it actually works… I know it does.
I got hit with it one time during my juvenile delinquent phase by on of four arresting officers who were apparently mad that I refused to comply with their verbal orders to climb out of a window so that they could arrest me. The OC worked, but not until after I was already cuffed and in the back of a police cruiser.
In retrospect, yes, I suppose I was the kind of idiot who gets hit with OC. Then again, a group of officers spraying a non-compliant juvenile in the process of performing an arrest has little to do with a college coed considering the use of OC in self-defense.
My anecdote on what it does when it has accidental discharges was just me offering an anecdote in response to Joey P’s speculation on what it might feel like if it detonated in your pocket.
I had one go off in my pocket!
All I felt was a moderately painful burning sensation. When I got the chance to look at it (a couple of hours later) my skin was a livid red, it took a couple of months before the scaring faded.
If she can legally do it in ND she may want to also carry a small expandable baton. I carry one of these off duty. Smaller than a regular expandable it slips nicely in a pants pocket. Both the ASP (or Mace) pepper sprays & the baton are about the size of a cigar and slip nicely next to each other in a pocket. It’s small but effective for strikes to the knee, elbow, or ribs. But she should really get training from a qualified instructor before carrying it.