[megatronrules]

Do stun guns really work for imobilizing someone should they attack you? I carry a kinfe and pepper spray when a gun isn't an option i.e. no carry zones:rolleyes: I've heard people say that stun guns and tasers don't really work at imobilizing an attacker is this true? Should I buy a stun gun or just stick with the pepper spray/knife?

Does anyone here carry a stun gun as a non leathel defenseive weapon? Thanks

[kannonfyre]

Nope they do not. Not unless you apply them to a guy's gonads anyway. :evil:

I tested a 250K volt stun gun on myself a while back. Stuck the probes into my thigh and gave myself a 1.5 second blast. It felt painful but I was able to walk and move normally after a few moments.

Just my $0.02 but if a 220lb :cuss: thug wants to beat up on you, you need something more effective then an overgrown buzzer.

I suggest you go get a good can of OC spray instead.

[mete]

There is no sure thing especially if the BG is on drugs so don't expect him to fall over , have a secodary plan. Take a look at the Rodney King tape ,he was hit twice with a taser with hardly any effect. Again there are some who are totally immune to pepper spray.

[D.W. Drang]

http://www.radix.net/~jchang/stunupdate.html

[chief]

I tried ore of the Nova guns when they first came out. I used it fairly often. It would make someone let go of something, I never had anyone fall down stunned. It appeared to have more of a startling factor than anything else. I hear the newest Taser type weapons have a lot more wattage than anthing that has come before. Something like a factor of 5x or more. I don't have any firsthand experience with those though.

[geegee]

I tested a 250K volt stun gun on myself a while back.
I did the same test many years ago, after thinking of giving one to my wife. At the time, she was working night shifts as a nurse in Houston. After I zapped myself (with little more than some discomfort), I thought better of asking my wife to use one to protect herself. They're mostly good for gun show exhibitions for all the newbies walking by the table. :rolleyes: geegee

[Bobothebigdog]

I have been shocked by a stun gun before while hanging out before class. It hurt like a bitch but didn't knock me down. It would definitly make someone back down at least.:)

[Kevlarman]

I think you guys might be intereted in this:

http://www.no-contact.com/

It's a stun jacket!

[makdaddy03]

They dont work? I will have to disagree. My ex girlfriend zapped me with one of those damn things. This is what I felt. 1. Pain and could not move. 2. Couldnt breath. 3. Next thing that I knew I was on the floor, I didnt even feel the fall. 4. I couldnt do a damn thing if I had tried.
All this pain was because she got pissed at me for going fishing with my buds. What a bitch.:mad: Well Im not mad anymore... I Just got a new and nicer girlfriend.;)

[Paul Gomez]

I routinely use a stun gun during range training and while working unarmed stuff as an "atypical start signal". I've never had anyone fall to the ground or in any way be incapacitated. Little bit of a sting & startle, but that's about it.

[Number 6]

A couple things about stun guns. Firstly for someone to fall down from them and to be incapacitated you need to apply it for a good bit of time. I carried a 500k volt stun gun when I was a bouncer and the company recommended that you apply it to someone for 9 seconds before it would scramble their nervous system and incapacitate them. Secondly, while I personally never had the pleasure of using mine, my boss did when he was working at a night club. I generally trust the veracity of his statements and he asserted that using his 400k volt stun gun made a very angry 300 pound Samoan think twice about throwing another swing at him. Like any less than lethal weapon they are imperfect. I once saw a guy high on speed get sprayed with pepper spray, get his nose broken and was still throwing swings at security. Then about a week later I sprayed someone with pepper spray that was high on speed and he cried like a little girl until the cops got there. Just my 2 cents.

[Hkmp5sd]

Ask Rodney King. The only thing the Taser did to him was make him madder. It doesn't scramble the nervous system if the BG has enough drugs in his body that his nervous system doesn't even notice it. If it had worked, he wouldn't have become a millionaire and LA wouldn't have self-destructed in that particular instance.

Stun guns do have their place, just as CS/Pepper/Mace and an ASP/baton. They are not a one-weapon-fits-all solution to self-defense.

[TheeBadOne]

Sometimes...

[Penforhire]

They work, but not if applied to the thigh. I tried the same thing and thought the way you do (is this it?) until I met a grocery clerk who worked in a bad area of Sacramento. He carried a 9 mm in a hip bag but got lots of use out of a stun gun. I mean he went through multiple 9V batteries taking down shoplifters and the like. Forget the gonads, aim for the neck. And like others here have said, keep the juice flowing. It worked for him about 9 times out of 10 and he felt secure enough to have his wife carry one (after training and demonstrating that she could drop HIM with it...ouch).

[stevelyn]

A friend of mine swore that it eased the arthritis in his shoulder and I've used it to treat knee pain. They have even been used to effectively treat snakebites.
Medical use aside, they are only effective if appied and discharged over a concentration of nerves. That means making contact somewhere along the spinal column or the stomach. They maybe better than nothing in a last ditch effort to get someone off of you that has already made physical contact, but I personally don't trust or recommend them. I don't see how the Air Taser could be any better other than you can deploy it from 15ft. And I don't think the technology of an electrical jolt has changed any since the Rodney King incident......or the Benjamin Franklin incident either for that matter. :rolleyes:

[makdaddy03]

Non-believers.. Try being a guenia pig.:p

[The-Distinctive-Edge]

this is very informative! Paul

[gunsmith]

pepper spray first!
the combo ofpepper/ water/electricty
works better then either one
(at least thats what I have been led to believe)

[Kevlarman]

Believe it or not, I've heard of police (NY, I think) who doused a guy with OC. When that didn't bring him down, they Tasered him, but the electricity ignitied the alcohol carrier from the OC and gave him some pretty bad burns.

[Combat-wombat]

http://www.etaser.com/products/advanced01.html
http://www.staysafeandsecure.com/adtasm1.html
They're links about the M-18 Taser. It is supposed to be very effective.

[Rob Pincus]

The M-18 Taser is the Civilian version of the LE M26. I'm a Taser instructor and here's the scoop:

Voltage Smoltage. The "18" and "26" are for the number of watts that the device is putting out. The human nuero-muscluar system is run on about 15 watts and most "stun guns" run at under 10, regardless of voltage. This means that if the person was tough enough, they could basically fight through the pain of the stun and still control their muscles. With 18 (or better yet, 26) watts ripping through, the electrical impulses from the brain are disrupted and over-ridden. All that sounded great during the course, but I actually got shot with one of them and realized what that all meant: You can't do anything but submit. Without voluntary control of whatever muscle group is being "zapped," the target is helpless. Did I mention the pain? Oh yeah, the Tasers still have the pain compliance aspect of traditional stun guns as well... but more so. I've be "zapped" with the old versions too and they hurt, but there isn't much comparison. As in the example that MP5sd noted above, if you are tough enough, mad enough or stoned enough you could get through it because your muscles would still be getting signals from the brain.
The standard shot results in 5 seconds of 10-15 pulses-per-second. If the trigger is pulled again, the weapon cycles for another 5 seconds. Fully charged batteries (or relatively new non-rechargables) should give 10 consecutive blasts. The weapon can be used to "drive stun" if the front end is pushed against a target after the cartridge has been fired (yes, both the target with the probes and the target being touched feel the effects, though reduced slightly) or without a cartridge attached.
Of course, no weapon is magical. You still have to hit the target with the probes (although a circuit can be completed with only one probe in the target, if the other wire lead touches him or he is on a particularly conductive surface. And the energy will only arc over a little more than 2 total inches (ie- one probe in, the other stuck in a leather coat still should work... both in the coat with a thick sweater underneath is iffy though...). The M-18 probe cartridges have a range of 15'. They use compressed nitrogen to launch the probes and are not considered firearms like some older models (except maybe where airguns are considered firearms (NJ, etc...). The wider the spread on the probes, the better (the more area disrupted), so drive stuns are not as effective as shots from 10'. There is an 18 degree offset on the trajectory of the probes, to create a spread between them.
Major muscle groups are the intended target areas: back/shoulders, thighs, chest. In some areas, LE is required to have the probes removed by EMTs, but that is a CYA thing. They are barbed pins that can be yanked out without causing any significant damage. Mine were.
While I am rated as an instructor, I do not sell these things, nor have I ever gotten paid to certify anyone... ie- no agenda, I'm just a believer and a proponent, particular in LE use as an alternative to pepper spray and hands-on techniques under many circumstances.

[WonderNine]

You're ex-gf used a stun gun on you because you went fishing?

[Combat-wombat]

I know, that's assault! You could get her in some pretty deep $*** for that!

[Sven]

Ask Hand_Rifle_Guy here in THR... he allowed himself to be shocked by one... for ENTERTAINMENT!


http://www.drunken-style.com/images/friday/6stun_sm.JPG

Click for more info (http://www.drunken-style.com/events/friday/stun2.html)

It hurt. A lot. Just ask Colin. We made sure that it wouldn't kill him or injure him, but we were all a bit surprised by how much it hurt him. I mean, 500,000 volts sounded like a lot, but so much is hype these days...

Taking one for the team, that's my man.

[Hand_Rifle_Guy]

Stunguns are dang-it-all WORTHLESS. Personal experience says so.

The first try. (http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109014)

Impressed me at first. Soon fixed THAT.

The second and third go-rounds. (http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120749)

You have my permission to call me an idiot. ;)

Put Not Your Faith In A "Pain-Compliance" Device!

Stunguns MIGHT work if you want to be VERY pro-active about holding one against someone for several seconds running. I should think that would prodigiously difficult in the context of flooding someone with adrenaline. They're more likely to heave you off and then proceed to the less desirable option of "fight or flight".

Granted, most criminals don't want to have to "work" for their reward, but some animals do what they do because of a desire to inflict violence upon a victim. That is certainly the case when dealing with a rapist. You can't count on getting the weak-willed mugger who will actually listen to reason. That qualifies as bliss-ninny wishful thinking.

Don't buy a stungun. Buy ammo.

Edited to fix the first link.

[Rob Pincus]

Hand_rifle_guy,

Hopefully, your statements were limited to the type of device you were stunned with. If you think they are not, I'll give you a free Taser course. ;)

[brownie0486]

Back in "82" I carried a stun gun [ they were new to the market then ] with 45,000 volts.

Was bouncing at a place on weekends that had pig piles of fights every Friday and Saturday. Once the pig pile happened on the floor, I'd give the top one a quick zap and roll him off the pile. Kept at it until the bouncers got things under control.

Always had it back in my pocket immediatley and it took a few months before people figured out what I had. They had not been restricted from carry here as they were new and unregulated then.

One of the younger bouncers wanted me to "show" him physically what it felt like after work one night. I refused for a week with him badgering me all the time to "do it".

The night I zapped his forearm for one second his eyes "popped" out considerably, his arm/hand constricted int oa shape normally seen with one who has been severely disabled in a limb.

His reaction? "get away from me with that thing" in a very loud voice. We were all laughing like hell as his attitude went from "so what" to "don't come near me" immediately. He did not fall down, but he would have been very complacent had he been an aggressor and certainly did not want to "try it" again.

Those days are long gone now for me.

My mother taught me never to play with electricity or stick my finger into a wall socket for a reason.:confused:

Brownie

[Hand_Rifle_Guy]

Oi! Rob! Read the threads I linked!

I speciffically emphasized that I did NOT mean Tasers. Once I got directed to the right info, I pointed that out. Calling me on it here is not a bad thing, however, as I didn't mean to imply disagreement with the information you presented. Let me explain.

I don't qualify Tasers as "Pain-compliance devices". I read their site from front to back, their history, and the research that went into them. Additionally, finding out the wattage range they operate in here leads me to respect them further still. They are capable of paralyzing an individual, the stungun I tested definitely was not.

For that reason I also think that wattage range takes them out of the "less than lethal" category. I think that means their use on the wrong unlucky scumwad with a drug-abused heart might make his ticker conk out. Actually overriding muscle control is not to be done lightly. Cops have legal coverage for their unfortunate incidents, Joe Average, or Miss Civilian Rape Victim, generally doesn't. That means the Hoosegow for them if something unlucky goes down.

If that's the level of risk one faces, I personally want something more decisive. Citizens aren't obligated to charge into things like cops are, so I see no point in exposing them to risks associated with "half-measures", since they also lack back-up or any kind of forewarning. However, that is an entirely personal choice, and I really wouldn't offer advice on Tasers, merely my somewhat-disclaimered opinion. Additionally, I don't even see stunguns as a "half-measure". To me, they mostly qualify as a parlor trick. An intimidating noisemaker.

Let me say it again:

Stunguns are "Pain-Compliance Devices".

TASERS ARE NOT. They are an order of magnitude more powerful!

DON'T buy a stungun!

'Zat better, Rob? I don't really WANT to sign up for Taser course.

...But where would I go about doing so? You in Kaliforny someplace? Might make for some good footage, and I must maintain my lunatic image, after all...and I did give permission to call me an idiot.

:neener: :banghead: :what: :evil:

[Paul Gomez]

Remember, always read the directions. The leaflet that came with my stun gun says to hold it onto the bad guy for 5 to 7 seconds!

Imagine a situation where you could hold a stun gun on an unwilling, combative person for five to seven seconds? I can't.

I think that you would be a whole lot better off striking, inflicting pain and damage, than attempting to hold a stun gun on someone for that amount of time.

[Rob Pincus]

I was in a hurry the other day and didn't get to go all the way through your other posts, HRG.. I was going to come back and edit mine.. instead I'll just apologize. Good Show.

[Hand_Rifle_Guy]

Not griping. You brought up a really good point. I shall be ammending my boistrous bragadocio more correctly in the future so as to make sure good information is provided.

I'm all about clear communication. I would rather have us (And whomever may be reading these posts.) all on the same page. We're all on the same side, more or less.


All is forgiven. Lemme buy y'all a Shiner Bock, 'n all that good stuff. :D

If you find yourself on the Wrong Coast sometime, ring me up. I'll take you up on that Taser course! For real! Said I was an idiot, didn't I?

[Rob Pincus]

I saw another 26 watter yesterday... the other "Taser"...Taser Technologies, Inc.

At first glance, the device looks much more delicate than the M26, but it is a little smaller. It only has a 3 second cycle (instead of 5) and the catridges use rifle primers to launch the probes, so the device is considered a firearm. The battery charge indicator has an intermediate setting, to let you know you are "okay" but should think about changing batteries... that's cool.

The company says that they are not interested in civilian sales, blah, blah, blah.

[Gray_Fallen]

I've never had much faith in stun guns - never seen enough to make me trust them, but enough to make me dis-trust them intensely - especially this about the Myotron and others:
http://www.selfdefenseforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2746&highlight=Myotron