Pepper spray

Pepper spray is an OK self-defense tool. Still, and this is important, it does not always work effectively.
You must actually get it into your hand, the spray may be taken away from you, the effect may not disable or stop the attacker, you may take higher risks because you feel too secure, and so on. Let's not forget either that it is illegal to carry in many countries.

Story:
Michigan -- A Ferndale man faces charges he punched and robbed a female massage therapist he had called to his house for service.

By the time he was arrested, the woman had pepper sprayed him and Ferndale police had stunned him twice with a Taser.

The 36-year-old man apparently rubbed the massage therapist the wrong way shortly after she arrived at his house about 4 a.m. Saturday, police said. She was concerned because he was giggling and laughing and acting strangely, police said.

After the woman arrived, the suspect told her to go with him to a bedroom on the second floor of the house, police said. But the woman told the suspect she was uncomfortable once she entered the room and turned to go back down the stairs.

"He grabbed her by the arm to stop her," a police spokesman said. "Then she turned and sprayed him with a can of pepper spray."

The woman made her way down the stairs as the man followed her, grabbing her and punching her along the way. She ran to a window to yell for help and he repeatedly punched her in several areas of her body.

The woman made it to the side door, but the man grabbed her purse from her as she headed outside, police said. The woman yelled for her purse as the suspect went back inside his house and turned out the lights. The woman called police on her cell phone and the man came outside briefly and threw her purse back at her. She told police she checked the purse and found more than $100 missing.

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