So at least the repeatable shots give you something to do while the attacker walks right through (or around) that cloud of CS, singing, say, The Marine's Hymn, as he proceeds to go hand-to-hand with you anyway.
Are walking sticks illegal? Cause from my CS exposure/experience you'd be better off with a stick. At least I'd feel better about my personal safety with a stick.
My point about being "accidentally" shot by a cop wasn't just about cops.
In any
American city, as the law is written, some guy comes up to you, apparently unarmed, and says "I'm gonna kick your ass" in a threatening manner and you pull a non-lethal weapon that looks like a gun to deter him.
Under the law, since he, the "bad guy", has no way of knowing it isn't a real gun, YOU have just re-escalated the confrontation to one of "deadly force". He would in theory be justified in drawing a real gun and shooting you to defend himself from your escalated attack.
It would fall to the jury to decide if he bears enough culpability for first beginning the exchange, to lose his justifiable right of self-defense. A lot would hinge on the fact that YOU pulled a gun (real or not, it is the
pullee's perception that matters) in a situation where lethal force was not necessarily justified.
In the mean time you've taken a fake gun up against a real gun, thus are probably still recovering from a shooting, if not dead.
The gun-shaped air tasers bother me for the same reason. The manufacturer's are now trying to market them to the public at the same time they make them more and more gun-like.
The mindset of someone who knows
their weapon is non-lethal will, IMHO, lead them to pulling them in less-than-lethal justified situations (where a CCW would know deadly force is premature), which will put them at danger from people with real lethal means at hand.
If you wanna play gunfighter with a "non-gun" you are gonna lose when the real thing comes along.
Pepper spray in a small canister has the same potential disabling effect without the downsides of "gun-ishness". Heck, it's more convenient to carry to boot.
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