I am gently informed that since I have vented my spleen regarding the use of stuff in the place of pepper spray, I should wrap up the series by doing an article on OC/pepper spray.
Very well.
Let us first get the legal stuff out of the way: while pepper spray is lawful in all 50 States and the District of Cockwombles Columbia1, individual areas may have restrictions as to size of the dispenser and/or formulation of the spray itself. Check with a local lawyer before you start buying your spray.
Second — yes, I know it’s “just spray” — you still need training on it. I heartily recommend Chuck Haggard over at Agile/Training & Consulting, but Sabre runs classes as do many of the CCW instructors out there. Do your research and find one.
As to my qualifications to speak on this matter — I’ve been certified on Capstun, Def-Tec, and Sabre Red. In my law enforcement career I’ve used — and gotten snouts-full of — Punch, Fox Labs, Mace, Capstun, Def-Tec, ASP, Sabre Blue, Sabre Green, Sabre Red, and Vexor.
So.
Buy your pepper spray from a company with a good track record of Quality Control on container design; good Quality Control on container filling; and — very important — good QC on formula creation. There’s nothing quite so disheartening as trying to hose down two fighting cowboys and have your Capstun dribble down your knuckles. Or having Waldo the Wonder Biker lick the Def-Tec off of his upper lip, and comment conversationally: “Think you got a bad batch there, LT.”
I, personally, trust and recommend Sabre products2 and ASP products, and people whom I know and trust recommend POM, so I do also, but I have no exposure to POM.
Do not buy boutique cans, even from good manufactures. For personal carry your pepper spray should come with a simple, push-button actuator, covered by a flip safety. Period. No twist actuator, no trigger, nothing fancy. Just a push-button. Outside of a Key Defender, I’ve never had good luck with the OC disguised as a pen, or lipstick, a whistle, or anything else. You want some variety of the Mk6:
The Mk3:
Or the Mk4:
Get the stream version. If you have respiratory issues, or you’re going to be carrying your spray somewhere with a large percentage of folks with respiratory issues, you might consider getting the gel version, but I’m not real fond of the cone or fog version. Cone/fog pepper spray is really more of an Area Denial Munition3, and when it’s deployed, everyone — including you — gets a dose of Spicy Hate.
When you have to deploy your pepper spray, you grip the can like a hammer, and use your thumb to push the button.
You DO NOT delicately grasp the can with your thumb and fingers, and use your index finger on the button.
When spraying, just … give him a dose. Don’t bother trying to count a “half-second burst”, or a second, or whatever. Spray him. And when you do, get as much of his face as you can.
Have a back-up plan4. Anyone can be taught to fight through the effects of OC/pepper spray, and given how ubiquitous the use of OC/pepper spray has become in law enforcement, jails, prisons, and the military, odds are that if you have a professional critter he may very well have multiple previous exposures to Spicy Hate, and know how to fight through it. Be prepared for it to have less of an effect than you might be expecting.
If he does hit his knees … unass the AO. Don’t play with your food; don’t hang around admiring your handiwork — leave. Vamoose. Scram.
If you are unfortunate to get a dose of your own medicine, sucks to be you. HOWEVER — the only decontamination for pepper spray exposure is baby shampoo and water to get the excess spray off of your skin; then air + time.
That’s it. Walk around. More water isn’t going to help, milk isn’t going to help, and mixing Maalox — or any other antacid — with water bloody well isn’t going to help either5. Wash off any spray still on your skin, then walk around, exposing the affected areas to fresh air, suffering, until it’s gone.
Hmm.
That should be a quick and dirty primer on OC/pepper spray.
TL;DR: Talk to your lawyer first; get training second.
Ian
Yes. It is. Don’t make me post forty-squillion legal links again.
In proper cans. We’ll get to this.
Lady hears someone try to quietly force her front door, gets a Mk 4-size can of Sabre Red pepper spray that her daddy had given her out of her bedside table, catfoots over to the bedroom door, and absolutely fills the hallway to said bedroom with an entire 3oz can of fog, before bunkering down behind her bed with a Stevens 311 20-gauge and calling 911.
PD is hauling butt to her address when they pass a 1980s-era Punkmobile nose-down in a bar-ditch, rookie peels off to check on the driver.
About halfway through checking under the furniture for a critter, rookie calls and asks for a sergeant to meet him at the accident scene.
Sergeant responds, and the first thing he notices -- aside from the snot-rocket hanging down the front of the driver's shirt -- is the lovely tobacco aroma of high-grade Oleoresin Capsicum on, or about, the driver's person.
This is what us retired cop-types refer to as "a clue".
Critter is yanked in for questioning, and it seems that he was headed down the hall to where the jewelry was (apparently he had a record for sex crimes, so take his statements with a boulder of salt); he was maybe breathing a little excitedly, eyes maybe a little wide, and when the first swipe of spicy treat hit, he may have taken a startled breath.
See my post on saps.
Makes for damned fine corneal abrasions, though. Idiot jail cadets.
As an OC Instructor qualified under Chuck Haggard, I approve this message. OC is a great tool in the proper context.
personally, I'm a big fan of the gel. It's what we used in BPD, we had the spray in Uncle's nuclear powered canoe club, and if the mutt is wearing glasses, or even worse, safety goggles, it doesn't work worth a shit. The gel, if you lay it just above the glasses runs down behind them, and works just fine.
Short story about application:
We had a senior officer, with around 15 years on the force, respond to a noise complaint in Section 8 housing. During his dealings with the individual, as they were talking through a patio sliding door, he made a huge error. He relaxed.
He placed his right (gun, in his case) hand on the door jam. Yeah, I can hear the winces from here. As you guessed, this 10-28 decided that "this interview is over" by slamming the door shut. He almost got free.
Almost.
The door got shut severing his right index finger at the base. He immediately calls for help, of course, and since this is literally across the street from where the department office was at the time, response was immediate and full.
When we got there, our officer was in a full fetal cradling his hand and crying. His finger was still twitching inside. Mutt is nowhere to be found.
So we roll a band aide box, and go inside--After announcing ourselves.
We clear the place, and find her in the shower. Seems she got some blood on herself, and wanted to shower it off!
So we tell her to get out of the shower, while covering her with our pistols... and she refuses.
Lead officer again tells her to get out of the shower.
"No" and continues to shower.
Out comes the can, he shakes it up, and says "last chance, get out, or I will pepper spray you."
She turns and says "no" and gets hit in the face with gel before she can turn back. (now I should mention the shower is HOT.
Well, she turns back into the water flow and it runs down her front. She's now screaming, and washing vigorously. (this does not help her)
Lead officer again commands "get out of the shower NOW."
No response, and no compliance. He checks to make sure the cover officers are covering her, then reaches in and turns off the shower. She turns to scream at him, while reaching to turn the water back on, and he empties the can all over her front.
She left in the second aid car, strapped to a gurney to be decontaminated at the hospital before being sent to KCSO jail, and to the best of my knowledge is still in Western State, un-prosecutable in the DA's opinion, due to mental instability. The injured officer never returned to duty, the finger was reattached, but he only regained about 20% use, and the city would not allow him to go back to work with only one functioning trigger finger.