I was looking at some personal protection equipment for a female friend with a stalker, and I saw a lot of tiny (pen-sized, cell-phone sized) stun guns with huge voltage rating, powered by tiny batteries. There’s got to be a trade-off here – so what’s the dope?
Off the top of my head, I’d say that the tradeoff is recharging. You can get great voltages out of little batteries using capacitors, but tiny batteries would be out of amperage very soon, maybe even after one shock.
I believe the major drawback is the tiny distance between the two contacts. It will sting, sure, but it won’t cause any major muscle contactions if the current only travels 1cm through your skin.
That’s the big advantage of the Taser over stun guns. The probes are widely spaced to affect the most muscle groups.
What they said.
Plus, take into consideration that “stun guns” (contact electroshock devices) are actually pain compliant devices - they don’t really do much to assailant, apart from causing some discomfort (presumably enough to cause him stop assault). But it won’t really work against somebody very motivated. As for female self-defence I would advice OC spray over stun gun. Not much better, but it has three significant advantages: works from distance (few feet, but better than direct contact), last longer (half to one and half hour, not few seconds when it’s activated) and at least partially incapacitiate assailant (partially blinding him through inducing tears).
A real honest-to-Vishnu shooting Taser is pretty effective most of the time. The hand-held stun guns are less so and have the disadvantage of requiring use at contact range. The very best I think you could hope for from one of those pen-sized ones is that it might be painful enough to make an assailant let go of you for a fraction of a second. There are better choices available.
I was in a training class at one time and one of the cops had one with a really high voltage rating. He told everybody that they were useless, and demonstrated them on classroom participants. They were not only NOT disabled, but many of them said it actually tickled. This was 10 years ago, so stun guns may be better now, but somehow, I doubt it.
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Yeah, I’d rather go for the mace permit card if you think you’re actually going to need something. You get to stand well out of arm’s reach, and it’s pretty darn effective. My cop buddy accidently sprayed a bit on his arm, and he teared up.