It is illegal to ship pepper spray to NY State but it is not illegal to possess it in NY State, at least wrt state law (local laws may prohibit it in some counties, towns or cities). I know it is legal in NY City, and available for purchase at gun stores and pharmacies (and possibly elsewhere).
Anyways, I went with the “I don’t worry about the threats it is intended to address” tho I have considered using it on some of my houseplants (spider plants in particular) to stop my cats from eating the plants and then puking…
@Seeds
Three mean queens come.
Two rude dudes come.
Three mean queens with tanks and clanks come.
Two rude dudes with bricks and sticks come.
Tanks and queens and sticks with dudes, sir!
Dudes are mean while clanking bricks, sir!
I don’t like this clanking game! I won’t be rude, it’s such a shame!
Yes. I carry pepper spray. I can’t carry a gun because a) I’m not old enough to purchase a handgun b) guns are expensive and I can’t find anything but a minimum wage job where I barely make enough to pay all my bills and don’t really have the money to put up for a gun c) I can’t take a gun to my job, and that’s the one place I go to where I feel unsafe. I have to take public transit to get home, sometimes in the late night or very early in the morning when it’s still dark. It’s better to have pepper spray which has some potential in deterring someone from hurting/killing/harassing me than to not have anything at all.
If I were to carry it, it would be while I run, for protection against uncontrolled dogs. I used to live in an extremely rural area, where I would sometimes be menaced by dogs which did not obviously belong to anyone – just free-ranging, property-line-oblivious, aggro farm/feral mutts. I started carrying a citronella-based spray after one nipped at my leg, but never discharged it.
Where I live now, bad dogs’ owners are usually present, for all the good they do. At least there’s someone to whom to give the stinkeye.
A gun strikes me as a bad solution to this issue, and I personally think everyday carry is super wrongheaded for a whole suite of reasons anyway, which, obviously, a lot of people do not find persuasive.
But: “funny” story! Once I took a Utah concealed carry course, and a lady seated next to me was there because someone else’s ill-mannered mutt had once attacked hers at a dog park, and she was determined to kill the next dog that did that!
The instructor was like “uh, yeah, uh, you would, uh, there would not be a legal justification for doing that…” but she was resolved to her idea, and he did not dissuade her, and it was an interesting/unsettling example of how informed/disciplined any given CCW license holder might be, which is to say: not very.
@matthew A cheap alternative for dealing with dogs is a regular water spray bottle loaded with vinegar. Legal everywhere. A 50/50 solution is recommended when training very unruly or aggressive dogs, you set it on stream and spray it directly at the nose of your dog, avoiding the eyes, when he is out of control. It was very effective in training Simba, who would frenzy on lead in an effort to fight other dogs and weighed 165lbs, and if restrained by raw strength would turn on his handler – me. He also wore a citronella collar that would spray him automatically when he growled, but the vinegar was more effective. The vinegar solution broke frenzy and created a sneeze, sneeze, ew, yuck, WTF reaction, much preferable. In your situation I’d load pure vinegar, set it on jet, and aim for the whole face.
@matthew@moondrake Moondrake’s suggestion with a small super-soaker type squirt gun. Regular squirt bottles might be a bit difficult to use and hit with on a dog charging you. Super soakers have more range and put out some more volume of liquid. My bicycling friend settled on one of these and has used it successfully.
A very mild white vinegar solution works well on snarky cats too.
I think it’s sad that as soon as I saw this item I immediately thought of buying it for my sister. She’s had to deal with a lot of creeps and the thought of her getting hurt chips at me
I had a small bottle like this of pepper spray. My BF used it on a neighbor who had been repeatedly menacing him. It was almost funny, after he sprayed it the guy said “What’s this” and looked only slightly irritated and wandered off to wash his face. A tiny spray bottle like this is pretty useless. It did make him stop yelling though.
My nickname used to be “Big Mike”, I can be intimidating. I also earned a Black Belt. I don’t go into bad neighborhoods, so - I don’t need pepper spray.
I’m the kind of person who you might think should carry some sort of self-defence thing. I live in a big city, and I’ve been the victim of an attempted mugging (some punk-ass kid tried to grab my phone out of my hands on the subway. He succeeded in breaking a nice pair of headphones, and that’s it.), an attempted home invasion (drunk and/or high homeless guy got into my apartment building because someone left the inside door open), and lived over a coffee shop that was robbed at gunpoint (by a disgruntled ex-employee IIRC). These are the only incidents I’ve had in nearly 35 years of urban living.
But I don’t have any self-defence stuff beyond what you would normally expect to find in a home. And I don’t ever plan to. Honestly, you’ll do fine, even in the worst of neighborhoods, if you walk around with your head up, and maintain some awareness of your surroundings. If you look like an easy target, you’re more likely to become one, regardless of whether you’re packing pepper spray or a PPK.
If i were worried, I’d just carry a gun. I carry neither.
A small pistol is better, if entering a questionable area…
I would just grab the hot sauce from my quick release holster and splash it in the attacker’s face.
It is illegal to ship pepper spray to NY State but it is not illegal to possess it in NY State, at least wrt state law (local laws may prohibit it in some counties, towns or cities). I know it is legal in NY City, and available for purchase at gun stores and pharmacies (and possibly elsewhere).
Anyways, I went with the “I don’t worry about the threats it is intended to address” tho I have considered using it on some of my houseplants (spider plants in particular) to stop my cats from eating the plants and then puking…
@baqui63 They never learn.
Why would I carry pepper spray that might stop a threat, when I can carry my pistol that will?
@liljackill perhaps when less than lethal force is needed
My body mass and shabby cloths are all the deterrent I need.
@hchavers A lack of personal hygiene would also work.
Nah, I’m terrified that some bruiser would disarm me and spray me in my dumb weak piehole.
I keep reading this as “Would you, could you carry pepper spray?” as in “Would you, could you in a van? Even with a scary man?”
@Seeds
Three mean queens come.
Two rude dudes come.
Three mean queens with tanks and clanks come.
Two rude dudes with bricks and sticks come.
Tanks and queens and sticks with dudes, sir!
Dudes are mean while clanking bricks, sir!
I don’t like this clanking game! I won’t be rude, it’s such a shame!
Yes. I carry pepper spray. I can’t carry a gun because a) I’m not old enough to purchase a handgun b) guns are expensive and I can’t find anything but a minimum wage job where I barely make enough to pay all my bills and don’t really have the money to put up for a gun c) I can’t take a gun to my job, and that’s the one place I go to where I feel unsafe. I have to take public transit to get home, sometimes in the late night or very early in the morning when it’s still dark. It’s better to have pepper spray which has some potential in deterring someone from hurting/killing/harassing me than to not have anything at all.
If I were to carry it, it would be while I run, for protection against uncontrolled dogs. I used to live in an extremely rural area, where I would sometimes be menaced by dogs which did not obviously belong to anyone – just free-ranging, property-line-oblivious, aggro farm/feral mutts. I started carrying a citronella-based spray after one nipped at my leg, but never discharged it.
Where I live now, bad dogs’ owners are usually present, for all the good they do. At least there’s someone to whom to give the stinkeye.
A gun strikes me as a bad solution to this issue, and I personally think everyday carry is super wrongheaded for a whole suite of reasons anyway, which, obviously, a lot of people do not find persuasive.
But: “funny” story! Once I took a Utah concealed carry course, and a lady seated next to me was there because someone else’s ill-mannered mutt had once attacked hers at a dog park, and she was determined to kill the next dog that did that!
The instructor was like “uh, yeah, uh, you would, uh, there would not be a legal justification for doing that…” but she was resolved to her idea, and he did not dissuade her, and it was an interesting/unsettling example of how informed/disciplined any given CCW license holder might be, which is to say: not very.
@matthew holy Moses…I mean, I got a few issues, sure, but no lying-awake-plotting-dog-revenge-scenario issues.
@matthew A cheap alternative for dealing with dogs is a regular water spray bottle loaded with vinegar. Legal everywhere. A 50/50 solution is recommended when training very unruly or aggressive dogs, you set it on stream and spray it directly at the nose of your dog, avoiding the eyes, when he is out of control. It was very effective in training Simba, who would frenzy on lead in an effort to fight other dogs and weighed 165lbs, and if restrained by raw strength would turn on his handler – me. He also wore a citronella collar that would spray him automatically when he growled, but the vinegar was more effective. The vinegar solution broke frenzy and created a sneeze, sneeze, ew, yuck, WTF reaction, much preferable. In your situation I’d load pure vinegar, set it on jet, and aim for the whole face.
@matthew @moondrake Moondrake’s suggestion with a small super-soaker type squirt gun. Regular squirt bottles might be a bit difficult to use and hit with on a dog charging you. Super soakers have more range and put out some more volume of liquid. My bicycling friend settled on one of these and has used it successfully.
A very mild white vinegar solution works well on snarky cats too.
I think it’s sad that as soon as I saw this item I immediately thought of buying it for my sister. She’s had to deal with a lot of creeps and the thought of her getting hurt chips at me
@legendornothing As well it should.
I had a small bottle like this of pepper spray. My BF used it on a neighbor who had been repeatedly menacing him. It was almost funny, after he sprayed it the guy said “What’s this” and looked only slightly irritated and wandered off to wash his face. A tiny spray bottle like this is pretty useless. It did make him stop yelling though.
@Fuzzalini Tiny bottles aren’t necessarily useless… there are different levels of spray. Some… they will walk away. Some… it’ll drop them.
BUT I have encouraged my wife (who works at a school) and daughter to carry pepper spray.
I carry a gun but I sometimes get pepper spray for my daughters and nieces. Well… not actually pepper spray… cs gas.
My nickname used to be “Big Mike”, I can be intimidating. I also earned a Black Belt. I don’t go into bad neighborhoods, so - I don’t need pepper spray.
I’m the kind of person who you might think should carry some sort of self-defence thing. I live in a big city, and I’ve been the victim of an attempted mugging (some punk-ass kid tried to grab my phone out of my hands on the subway. He succeeded in breaking a nice pair of headphones, and that’s it.), an attempted home invasion (drunk and/or high homeless guy got into my apartment building because someone left the inside door open), and lived over a coffee shop that was robbed at gunpoint (by a disgruntled ex-employee IIRC). These are the only incidents I’ve had in nearly 35 years of urban living.
But I don’t have any self-defence stuff beyond what you would normally expect to find in a home. And I don’t ever plan to. Honestly, you’ll do fine, even in the worst of neighborhoods, if you walk around with your head up, and maintain some awareness of your surroundings. If you look like an easy target, you’re more likely to become one, regardless of whether you’re packing pepper spray or a PPK.
I carry a gun. Pepper spray sounds like something you’d put on food.