"I LET MY WIFE SPRAY ME"
August 7, 2015 12:02 PM   Subscribe

You have about 5 to 10 seconds of coherence (barely) after contact, and after that, your only concern is pain. Even with my prior experience, I was completely incapacitated. If I were an earnest attacker, this would deter my attack immediately. My wife is not a trained combatant, and she hit me with a glancing spray across my cheek and that was enough to stop me. (Ideally one would draw a line from ear to ear for max. effect) Amazon.com reviewers' pepper spray stories are painful and hilarious to read.
posted by Foci for Analysis (51 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
F'n Greg Nog beats me to the joke. Dammit! I gotta work on my speed game.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:24 PM on August 7, 2015


I've thought about getting some, particularly after I was mugged, robbed and injured while bike commuting on a local trail last week. I have a lot of concerns.
1. I was attacked by kids with gun. I can't imagine trying to spray them, and if they noticed my spray might they just get angrier and shot me or use it on me?
2. I don't know if I'm fast enough to deploy it without having it taken from me and used against me
3. Wouldn't I have almost have to ride my bike with it in my hand already?
4. I worry that I'd be tempted to use it on some asshat who, though perhaps deserving of bad karma, might not be so deserving of being sprayed
5. It would so suck if it didn't work.
posted by cccorlew at 12:34 PM on August 7, 2015 [10 favorites]


I would love to see the swaggering hot sauce fanboys who brag about how they swig Satan's BallSweat* right out of the bottle try some of this.

*may or may not be an actual hotsauce.
posted by dr_dank at 12:36 PM on August 7, 2015


Reminds me of the time I tasted the teeniest, tiniest drop of Bitter End -- a chewing deterrent spray for dogs. It was... powerful.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:41 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


cccorlew -- that sucks. I also bike commute and started packing liquid heat because of asshats. It has reduced my indicents of deciding they need to be sprayed because #4. For making me want to keep wanting to never deploy it its been worth having.

Nothing besides not getting shot is much worth getting shot over. Well wishes...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:41 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


nice to know that no matter how hard I try I can't get 'socialized as a dude' out of my system because my first reaction to this was I WANNA TRY IT I'M TOUGH AS HELL I BET I COULD TAKE IT
posted by griphus at 12:42 PM on August 7, 2015 [23 favorites]


MetaFilter: fanboys who brag about how they swig Satan's BallSweat.
posted by sexyrobot at 12:44 PM on August 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


I have a lot of concerns.

I do as well. I don't doubt pepper spray worked great on people who weren't already amped up on adrenaline and perhaps more, but I've worked in the criminal justice system long enough to have seen lots and lots of cases of the spray being utterly ineffective. And I especially agree with your points 2 and 3 as well.

I keep pepper spray in my car under the driver's seat mat as a just in case desperation item, but I think the best defense on a bike or in a car is to try to get away as fast as possible. If I walked on foot a lot I might carry it. But it is not a sure thing when the chips are down.
posted by bearwife at 12:45 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


nice to know that no matter how hard I try I can't get 'socialized as a dude' out of my system because my first reaction to this was I WANNA TRY IT I'M TOUGH AS HELL I BET I COULD TAKE IT

I carried it in college, a big cop-grade canister from the gun store, and I had to stop showing it to my male friends because they would ALWAYS start putting their finger on the trigger and aiming it at their own faces.

This stuff came with a warning that spraying from closer then three feet could result in permanent blindness.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:45 PM on August 7, 2015 [11 favorites]


nice to know that no matter how hard I try I can't get 'socialized as a dude' out of my system because my first reaction to this was I WANNA TRY IT I'M TOUGH AS HELL I BET I COULD TAKE IT

When I had my appendix out, they were like, "Okay, here's the anaesthetic - count backwards from ten and breathe normally." And I was like OH YEAH WELL I'M GOING TO COUNT DOWN TO NEGATIVE ONE HUNDRED OUT OF SHEER FORCE OF WILL and I got to about eight and woke up in a different room and the surgery was over.
posted by neuromodulator at 12:45 PM on August 7, 2015 [64 favorites]


'That shit don't work on me!' he said, passing out on the ottoman.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:49 PM on August 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


This stuff came with a warning that spraying from closer then three feet could result in permanent blindness.

yes but those warnings are for people who aren't special and different, they don't apply to men who, despite their firm rationalist convictions, know that destiny has something grand in store for them. gimme that
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:50 PM on August 7, 2015 [48 favorites]


how else will the Reverend Mother know I'm the Kwisatz Haderach
posted by griphus at 12:53 PM on August 7, 2015 [65 favorites]


I've accidentally sprayed myself twice- one being up wind from the direction I was spraying. Oops, that sucked. Once I decided to spray it at the ground, and there was a huge cloud of blowback - and for some reason, I did this in my car, with the door open, filling my car with the blowback. I couldn't do anything but cough and drink water in the parking lot for 20 minutes or so.

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, other than I can't be trusted to safely carry pepper spray.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:54 PM on August 7, 2015 [10 favorites]


I've been pepper sprayed (I was in the wrong place at the wrong time) and while quite unpleasant it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Of course I was quite drunk at the time so that may have reduced my discomfort a bit.
posted by MikeMc at 12:56 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Tear gas: immeasurably worse.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 1:07 PM on August 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


how else will the Reverend Mother know I'm the Kwisatz Haderach

Just shout at her from the place she dare not look.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:11 PM on August 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


When I was in High School: early 90s, NYC, my friends and I found a wonderful shop in Chinatown which, among the standard throwing stars, knives, and batons, carried a glorious substance in a spray can called Sabre. This was a key-ring sized spray dispenser of pepper spray + CS tear gas. One boring day of skipping school we decided we would see what happened if someone received a face full of this substance. I wasn't the intended subject, so I heartily agreed that this was a valuable experiment which should be performed posthaste. Objectively, I can say there is little more to see than the standard excessive production of mucus, writhing, clutching of one's face and crying.

...

Through a series of events from some mean spirited fellow "researchers" and perhaps a healthy dose of karma, however, by the end of that "scientific" foray, I am (perhaps unfortunately) able to relate my personal experience. The physical pain, inability to open one's eyes, and the requisite expulsion of copious amounts of mucus, were expected, but surprisingly, and disappointingly, my lasting memory of this exposure was that, for a span of two to three minutes, I honestly and fervently prayed for the sweet release of death. The relentless burning... both from inside and outside of my face and head, was quite intolerable.

It is so far, and hopefully the only, time where I would've gladly chose to die than to continue to exist in that state of physical pain. I have had my leg set under no pain killers, injured myself on bikes and skateboards hundreds of times, been involved in a few car accidents, burned myself to varying degrees many times, have have had migraines which sent me to the ER, and had a moth burrow itself, alive, in my ear canal for about 30 minutes... with each frantic attempt by the moth to escape sending an electric, painful.... Loudness cascading through the entirety of body and psyche.

Still none of these added together led me to the driveling mass of mindless desire to cease my existence quite like a face full of CS tear gas + mace sprayed into my face.

A++ 5 stars.
posted by Debaser626 at 1:15 PM on August 7, 2015 [28 favorites]


After reading the reviews with all the examples of "I bought this [for my daugher/myself] before [she/I] went to college, it firmed up my belief that I would much prefer a world where women don't fear for their safety.
posted by plinth at 1:16 PM on August 7, 2015 [12 favorites]


Made $40 and a six of Miller High Life while in college by agreeing to get sprayed "to see what it was like". In hindsight, I would actually do it again for $50 and a six of Pilsner Urquel.
posted by AugustWest at 1:16 PM on August 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


Remember that cop at University of California at Davis who sprayed the stuff directly into peacefully protesting students' faces?

Yeah. That asshole.

The outrage was well-deserved.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 1:17 PM on August 7, 2015 [12 favorites]


In my 20s, when my love affair with Tabasco was in its first bloom, I realized that the glass bottle had a serious defect: in foods you couldn't stir—like, say, a chicken breast—some bites would contain way too much hot sauce and others would contain none.

Clearly, I could come up with a better solution. At the dollar store, I purchased a small spray bottle (the kind stylists use to wet your hair) and painstakingly emptied an entire bottle of Tabasco into it. For lunch, I made a salmon filet, and tested my invention with four or five healthy sprays across the fish.

It worked perfectly, evenly coating the salmon in a fine mist of hot sauce. I was inordinately proud of myself, a pride that lasted at least ten seconds before my eyes started burning and my throat swelled up and the tears appeared on my grinning cheeks. I had set out to invent a better method of applying hot sauce; I had succeeded in inventing a self-administered DIY pepper spray.
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:29 PM on August 7, 2015 [61 favorites]


now I will tell a story in which I was very stupid; these are of course my favourite.

so I was extremely high and trying to look totally sober while returning something in a store in spain and I took out what I thought were eyedrops but which were actually horrible contact lens cleaner drops with a bright red tip to remind you not to put it in your eye because it is the most painful thing in the universe

And it was the most horrible feeling but my incredibly high brain was like "ok just act normal and it will be fine, just DON'T MAKE A SCENE" so I stood there with absolutely no reaction while tears poured out of one bright red horribly irritated eye. the salesgirls in the store all took their cue from my aggressive ignoring of my bright red swollen Sauron eye of fire and just carried on like everything was normal.

the moral of this story is that if i got maced in public i assume i would try really hard not to flip out because there is nothing i hate more than Making A Display Of Oneself.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:33 PM on August 7, 2015 [28 favorites]


I suppose this is not quite the same thing. I was hiking in the Mission Mountains in Montana, carrying bear spray on my belt. I kept compulsively touching the can, spinning it in its holder. Shortly after touching my face, I asked my wife (well, now she's my wife) if she smelled something fruity, I don't know, maybe peppery? A second later, I was prone and clawing my face. It didn't last long, though, and wasn't unbearable (sorry). I know it was an indirect application and I certainly wouldn't do it for fun but I'm pretty unconvinced it would've stopped an enraged or hungry grizzly.
posted by firemouth at 1:44 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Back in college, I was poor. This meant, among other things, that I couldn't afford to replace my contacts as often as I should have, and that I worked in a pizza place.

So one night I made a pizza with jalapenos, opened the oven door to slide it in, and the sudden blast of heat deformed one of my lenses enough that it literally just popped out of my eye and fell toward the floor. To my amazement I actually managed to catch it with my free hand, get the pizza in and the door closed, then just instantly popped the lens back in. Thus introducing jalapeno juice into my eye.

It was an incredibly painful experience, and it sounds like a walk in the park compared to this. I can't imagine...
posted by Naberius at 1:45 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just shout at her from the place she dare not look.

Knowing where the SABRE Red Pepper Spray - Police Strength - Compact, Red Case & Quick Release Key Ring (Max Protection - 25 shots, up to 5x's more) is-- that's the first step in evading it.
posted by maxsparber at 1:47 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm quite surprised by the "not as bad as I thought" and "utterly ineffective" statements here.

Before I gave some cans to family members in worrying situations, I felt the need to make sure it worked: just spray it into the air and walk slowly into the cloud. I didn't get very far at all. To me, the debilitating aspect wasn't the horrible pain or difficulty breathing, but the swelling and watering eyes that made me essentially blind.

Of course nothing, even firearms, is effective 100% of the time at stopping an attacker immediately. I made the decision then based on the original FBI studies which (an article I read then claimed) concluded that the new spray stopped attackers more reliably than a (average accuracy from among those that did not miss) shot from their duty sidearm.

Unfortunately, in looking for that study now, i find out it was badly tainted. Apparently the staffer in charge of the research was accepting money from the manufacturers through his wife. Worse, there might be more chance of a permanent or lethal result that was then claimed.

So I guess my conclusions are based more on guesswork than solid data. Nevertheless, I still think that
a) pepper spray is more likely to slow or deter an attacker 20 feet away than anything else I'd be willing to do to defend myself (short of my life being in immediate unquestionable jeopardy).
b) I'm unlikely to outrun a young, healthy, male attacker closer than that, but my chance of doing so is probably somewhat better if he's slowed by vision and breathing problems.
c) Any of the other things I'd be likely to do to defend myself, I can still try when and if the attacker catches up, and they may work a little better because he is slowed or distracted.
posted by CHoldredge at 1:49 PM on August 7, 2015


I carry it in my hand when I'm hiking alone at dusk in the foothills. Mountain lions. Fortunately I've not had to use it.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:15 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm surprised to see that pepper spray is banned in most countries. I don't carry any, but I see more and more large stray dogs, so that might change. Even if it doesn't work, it's better than nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray#Legality
posted by Beholder at 2:38 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are these, like, 50% less effective in Mexico and other places where folks customarily eat spicy food? I wonder if the opinions about varying degrees of efficiency are related to spice tolerance?
posted by AwkwardPause at 2:47 PM on August 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Witness mAAAAAAAARRGGGGHHH
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:50 PM on August 7, 2015 [13 favorites]


I took a self defense course from an ex-cop who had been both pepper-sprayed and tased in the course of his work.

He said that he'd take a taser over pepper spray any day; with the taser you "ride the dragon" for a few seconds and you're unconscious, while pepper spray makes you miserable for hours.
posted by Hatashran at 3:23 PM on August 7, 2015


Thus introducing jalapeno juice into my eye.

I was processing an entire case of habaneros once for pickling. I did not wear gloves. I then had to pee. tl;dr chef laughed at me all afternoon.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:36 PM on August 7, 2015 [8 favorites]


When I was a lad--over a pair of decades ago--I saw a skateboard operator enjoying the tug of gravity on a neighborhood asphalt slope. Some unfortunate friction occurred, causing his board to halt, and some unfortunate inertia occurred, causing his person to tumble ass-over-teakettle into a splayed and immobile configuration. I hastened to help--no one else was nearby. He was quite unconscious.

As I inspected him for serious damage I heard a loud hissing sound nearby. It was coming from a small aerosol canister on the road alongside him, evidently it had fallen from his pocket in the kerfuffle. It was misshapen and ejecting its pressurized contents into the immediate atmosphere. In my adrenaline-charged state I thought little of it, thinking it was one of those spray breath fresheners.

Before I made much helpful headway, the mucous membranes of my face elected to step up production with startling suddenness, rendering me practically blind. My brain stem thought some coughing would be appropriate just then. For some reason my alarmed gurgles did little to help, nor did pawing at my distressed, leaking eye sockets.

Confusion was replaced by much moister confusion, which was subsequently replaced by the realization that the canister was some kind of pepper spray producing a pocket of hostile atmosphere. By then some adults were en route, so I squinted heroically and grabbed the canister heroically and moved it over to a gutter that was probably not far enough away to have been very helpful, really, but the canister seemed to have expelled most of its contents anyway. Through tears I dashed the short distance to my home a block away and spent the next couple of hours wishing and washing the burn away under cold running tap water.

I still wonder whether the adults ever deduced the reason for my soggy, whimpering retreat.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 3:52 PM on August 7, 2015 [11 favorites]


Read the title, did not expect pepper spray.
posted by Splunge at 3:59 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


I've been pretty heavily tear gassed. I've been pepper sprayed much less severely. (It was an accident when a dumbass coworker was screwing around with some and let it off in our big open-plan office.)

I'd rather have the tear gas again. The pepper spray was like being stabbed in the mucous membranes with pins by a billion tiny spicy goblins.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:14 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's illegal everywhere in Australia, thankfully. If someone confronted me with this stuff I'd hand over my wallet and phone, walk them to an ATM, and read out my fucking PIN.
posted by um at 5:16 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


I once turned on an in sink garbage grinder full of habanero trimmings while my face was directly over the hole.

I don't recommend doing that.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 6:53 PM on August 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


If I recall correctly what I read on the can in an REI store, bear spray is an entirely different animal (!) than pepper spray designed to be used against people. And it is against the law to use bear spray on people, bear spray apparently *way* more potent than pepper spray.

My understanding is that the pepper spray that cops use -- including that scumbag school cop in CA a few years ago -- my understanding is that it is very, very hot. Not bear spray, no. But hotter than you or I can buy. Probably against the law for you or I to use -- I just love that.

I have a can of (what I believe is fairly potent pepper spray) which I carry on my side when riding my bicycle, dogs the primary concern but I would spray you, also, if you wanted to play games. I shot it one time, to see the plume, or was it a plume or a spray or both -- it is a plume, as it says on the packaging. It leaves that can at a remarkably fast speed, it shoots through the air a six-foot ball of nasty-ass vapor, ends maybe about fifteen feet out, maybe twenty feet. It's something.

A friend of mine was in lockup, decided he wanted to insist the jail guards do this or that, they let him know that he was out of line by shooting a stream of spray into his eyes/face. He ended up a sobbing ball of agony, begging, pleading for water to wash his eyes, his face. The guards quite enjoyed the show, laughed heartily. He has told me that it was being in hell right here on earth. He could not believe how painful it is, how completely he was disabled.

But there are always exceptions to any rule. Say if someone is totally wacked on whatever drugs or wacked on rage, it is always a possibility that they can get to you, no matter pepper spray, no matter bullets. A cop lived next door to me for a year or two, he'd had a previous cop gig in south Texas, some guy totally wacked on whatever drugs running straight at him, he emptied a fifteen shot 9mm clip into this guy and the guy still got to him. Many of the shots were fatal IE they would have killed the person, and in short order, too, but the guy was running on pure insanity, and got to the cop. That cop quit carrying a 9mm that day, bought a .45 auto, because when a person gets hit by a .45 they will at the very least get spun around, and likely go down, whereas with a 9mm -- esp without hollow point bullets -- the bullets are light and fast, they sometimes go through the person rather than expending their punch inside the person, they do not have the knockdown power of a slower-moving and heavier .45, esp if that .45 has hollow points in it.

In any case, I've never been sprayed and hope never to be sprayed. Juice from cutting jalepeno pepper and then rubbing my eye, that is convincing enough for me.
posted by dancestoblue at 6:55 PM on August 7, 2015


I've been tear gassed three times but never pepper sprayed. My fiancé has been pepper sprayed as part of Coast Guard training but never tear gassed. Based on my experience and her descriptions plus what I'm reading here, I think I'd take tear gas anyday.

She always describing it as "like bobbing for French fries [still in the fryer]". People get confused if you don't specify that the French fries are still in the fryer.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 7:08 PM on August 7, 2015


@Naberius, absentmindedly chopping $spicy_food and then forgetting and doing something with my contacts is one of the reasons I don't wear contacts anymore. Le sigh.
posted by joycehealy at 7:44 PM on August 7, 2015


"...and that's how I discovered that I have undiagnosed asthma! And died."
posted by nicebookrack at 7:48 PM on August 7, 2015


I've been tear gassed as part of military training and electrocuted while working on a TV power supply. I'll take the tear gas again, screw being electrocuted, it sucks.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:08 PM on August 7, 2015


Say if someone is totally wacked on whatever drugs or wacked on rage, it is always a possibility that they can get to you, no matter pepper spray, no matter bullets.

I know someone who walked through a couple of tazings, protected by some combination of drugs and anger. He might do ok with pepper spray but I am sure it would incapacitate me.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:46 PM on August 7, 2015




You know, if you're going to carry pepper spray, you should probably buy a dozen cans to practice with. Otherwise it's a bit like carrying a gun for protection but never having fired it at the range.

Practice is necessary because if we're honest, you probably didn't even use a can opener correctly the first time you tried it.
posted by ryanrs at 9:49 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


That cop quit carrying a 9mm that day, bought a .45 auto, because when a person gets hit by a .45 they will at the very least get spun around, and likely go down, whereas with a 9mm -- esp without hollow point bullets -- the bullets are light and fast, they sometimes go through the person rather than expending their punch inside the person, they do not have the knockdown power of a slower-moving and heavier .45, esp if that .45 has hollow points in it.

Lord protect me from the lack of physics education.

If a .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) had enough KE to spin a person around or knock them down, then it would have enough KE to spin around or know the person *WHO FIRED IT* down.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Period. Newton's First Law, people. If it doesn't throw the person who fired it back, it won't fire throw the person who hit it back. If it doesn't spin the person who fired it around, it won't spin the person who it hits around. If you can fire it without being tossed about, the person who gets hit won't be tossed. If you need to bolt the gun down first, then maybe the round will fling the guy downrange when it hits them.

A .45 ACP does hit harder because it weighs more (typically, 12-15g vs. 7-8.5g) and in some cases is moving just as fast (250-375m/s for the 45, 325-425m/s for the 9mm) which means it has significantly more KE when it leaves the barrel -- it really depend on the exact loading. As to going through a person, a .45 is much more likely to do so. Hollow points are much less likely to do so over solid rounds, and they are less likely to do so over full metal jacketed rounds. Again, it's a matter of energy.

Basically, this guy wants to make sure he's killing guys and chose the weapon that was explicitly chosen by the US Army after they found that the .45 Colt, the .38 Long Colt and the .30-40 Krag weren't killing the Moro warriors during the Moro rebellion.

Which is why most departments *don't give officers that choice.* The .45 ACP is a fantastically lethal round for a pistol. The Army FMJ round has 477J of energy, most civilian loads are in the 600-700J range, and are jacketed hollow points or full hollow points.

But the big problem with the .45 ACP is it's a very big round, and you typically get 5 or 6 in a mag, as opposed to 15 in a 9mm mag. And what study after study after study has proven is the number one measure of effectiveness in gunfire is rounds fired.

It's why every military and police force in the world has traded muzzle energy for rounds carried. Six big rounds are *not* worth fifteen smaller ones, and this guys anecdote doesn't trump all that data.

Doubly so if he's a cop. Because are you going to believe a cop over that? Are you going to believe a cop over Newton?
posted by eriko at 6:55 AM on August 8, 2015 [6 favorites]


Gonna need more information. Does Newton live in a poor neighborhood? Listen to rap music? Has Newton ever stolen a pack of cigarettes?
posted by ctmf at 12:38 PM on August 8, 2015


Practice is necessary because if we're honest, you probably didn't even use a can opener correctly the first time you tried it.

And you didn't even need to worry that someone bigger, stronger, and meaner could relieve you of your can opener use it on you.

Gonna need more information. Does Newton live in a poor neighborhood? Listen to rap music? Has Newton ever stolen a pack of cigarettes?

"I'm gonna need to see a receipt for that apple."
posted by Room 641-A at 6:24 AM on August 9, 2015


Misread the title as "I let my wife spay me", and was expecting... Well I'm not sure what I was expecting really, but not dudes and pepper spray.
posted by tinkletown at 11:45 AM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I once put my finger inside my nosehole after chopping up habaneros without gloves.

Many shuvs and zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:45 PM on August 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


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