Seriously, name one advantage that firearms have over pepper spray when it comes to personal protection.

it's cooler?

No not really. More like I'm in my car and some rough looking people start coming up to it in a threatening manner and I have something because pepper spray will not work effectively on more than one person after you use it the first time. You have to get too close.

The scenario I'm looking at is I'm sleeping in my house and I hear someone breaking into it and I've got a gun to grab. As far as self-defense I'm looking at the deterrant aspect of it and I never want to have to actually fire it at anyone but I'm definitely not going to depend on pepperspray.

What would probably happen is two or more thugs jump you, and before you know it they're in your face manhandling you into an alley.

I don't plan on ever carrying it outside of my car or home. Also I want to try to learn to do everything I can in order to prevent that or help myself if I can. I don't want to go anywhere scared of getting jumped with the expectation that a bunch of gangsta pros are gonna beat the fucking shit out of me with out any sort of resiliance.

Like I said self-defense is only an additional reason I really just want to practice shooting and get comfortable with it. I train boxing alot and am probably gonna start sparring if I can find a ring or someone to spar with me. So I would much much rather physically fight someone that ever pull a firearm. I don't think alot of macho man shit or I might but I try not to. I think I got a little man complex or something so I'd rather fight anyone than just let them take something that I worked for. Also my grandpa is fucking crazy and lives in some compound he built in mississippi where he keeps loaded firearms everywhere because he thinks people are after him. He used to be in the navy and my mom recently told me he was some kind of hitman or something for a little while but I don't really know much about him other than that.
 
I don't think like that but I think I got that kind of "spunk" in my blood because my brothers, uncle, and mom are all the same way. I'm not a very confrontational person, but I'm trying to train myself to learn how to be just incase I have to. And I don't really watch alot of action movies either, or even care about that shit. I do work with alot of ex-military old guys and used to get in arguments about firearms with them all the time and they kind of converted me to the idea of self-sufficience and self-protection.

And also because you know, I travel alot and sometimes shit happens in places you aren't familiar with or even if you are and you have to be ready for it.

If they have a gun, you're already fucked.

If they have anything other than a gun, then pepper spray is extremely effective.

It is also very effective against multiple targets too; more so than a gun. You just press the tab or whatever and spray in an arc to cover their faces; you could hit 2 or 3 guys with spray much faster and more effectively than you could shoot with a gun, if it came to it.

Also, there's not just a tiny spritz of spray in the can you know? You make it sound as if you squirt out a little bit at one guy and that's it.

You mention deterrence, and I think pepper spray is great for that too. By now everyone knows not to fuck with that shit, especially after OWS haha.

ALSO, you say that you'd rather just fight someone anyway. Pepper spray is good in that situation too because it's not like you can stop the fight and be like "WHOA WHOA WHOA stop guys I need to pull my gun" if it gets too rough, but it's easy to whip out a canister wherever it is.

Everything else I said still applies for being in a car vs on the street.

If you do get a concealed carry weapon though, get a Walther PPK. Fits so well to the hand it might as well be a part of you, and it's svelte to boot.

What about a tazer? I might buy one or both but I'm not really worried about getting jumped I just wanted to put something I already had in my car incase by some far fetched chance I needed it. I've never needed it before and I keep a combat knife now.

I might buy a can though and put it in there because I wanted to buy one of those roadside emergency bags and maybe a basic paramedic kit. I'm still gonna get a gun though if not now then later. I'm a southerner in one of the states where you can buy anything but a bazooka and I got my own shooting range, it would be kind of a waste not to.

That walther ppk looks alot like that russian pistol my dad gave to me. Its a 9mm but the russian 9mm rounds are smaller or something he said and hard to find.

also he has one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKS its supposedly worth alot of money and me and my brother are prolly gonna get it restored for him soon.

good posts belross. I wanted to say something about the idea of using firearms for defense but decided I didn't know enough about it to really make a point. my pal is a gun nut who used to take his concealed handgun with him wherever he went for "protection" (he got really grim when talking about this) and guess what: he grew up reading tom clancy books and playing tom clancy games and wanted to be a sniper and is a libertarian

being a sniper seems like it'd be really boring

My friend got a tazer recently, what they told him when he got it was that the most important thing to consider is the possibility of the person assaulting you getting the tazer away from you before you get the chance to use it on him.

That is why you gotta make sure to have someone try it out on you at least once, to see how it feels. If a person doesn't see it coming, you can be sure they are going down. That's why if you ever have your tazer used against you, by knowing what is coming, you are better prepared to brace for it, and can maybe even recover more quickly because of it.

Hearing Belross talk about pepper spray though, I would feel much safer with that than anything else, just because of the case of multiple assailants. If you have something like a tazer, even if you take the first guy down, the chances of the other guys getting right on top of you and getting the tazer away seems to be more likely than the other guys running off because they don't want to get shocked.


As for guns, I agree that using them for self defense is just plain stupid. Everyone knows that the only thing guns are actually useful for is enacting revenge long after the fact. The only situation in which you have time to draw one and use it effectively is when the person who assaulted you never sees it coming, preferably while their back is turned. (In the case of getting mugged, I would put my highest priority in making sure the muggers never know I have the gun while letting them rob me. Because I know the best possible chance I have at actually shooting them is right in the back as they are running off with my other material goods)

Yeah sniping does seem boring, but when it comes to revenge they just can't be beat. (it was the only thing that could possibly take Captain America down, and the saddest thing about that was how easy it was)

My brother has one of the hanheld ones and I was gonna let him taze me several times but he either waits until I'm high or tripping to pull it out and thats when I don't want to do it. I'd do it if I was completely sober like I am now or drinking though. My bud got tazed by a reloading one when he was training to be a cop and he said the ones they issue out now for police officers have a real high reload rate.

I did get drunk once and let him and his GF shoot me in the leg with like three or four four inch blowdart gun needles. I don't do stuff like that for that jackass style "look at me act like an idiot" humor its more like I want to see how bad it actually is? I pissed on a hotwire once, I think thats the closest I got to getting tazed (on accident).

i wondered why belross always played ruger in soldat

you could rig your car up with tear gas. or rocket launchers. my car has no door handles.