Saturday, March 3, 2007

Guns, taser or pepper spray for security on the road?

Content from: Texas RV Travel Blog

I was on a RVing forum this weekend and there was a discussion going on about guns and other forms of self protection. Specifically, what women with children camping alone should have for protection. I never carried anything for protection when camping. I always thought guns were for bears and mountain lions and they did not hang out at Lake Travis in Texas.

The only time I even thought about protection is when my son and I went to Arizona and my girlfriend rented a party barge. We cruised around a huge lake and found a great place to camp. Besides for some bad luck with the barge engine, we had a great time. When we took the barge back to the marina, we were watching the TV and saw that a bear had mauled someone on the lake, close to where we were camping. My girlfriend and I looked at each other and said, “Bears? They have bears here?” I felt so stupid.

Well, we decided we would not be camping again until we had some sort of protection. We knew we could not get a gun immediately, so we went looking for alternatives like mace pepper spray. Then I remembered this joke that was going around about bears and pepper spray:

We advise that campers and hunters wear noisy little bells on their clothing so as not to startle bears. We also advise carrying pepper spray. You should also be able to recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat. Black bear droppings are smaller and contain lots of berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear dung has little bells in it and smells like pepper spray. LOL

After we finished laughing, we decided we needed a stun gun. We went looking for a sporting goods store, hoping to find what we needed there. We spent most of the day looking for the right stun gun or taser.

While we were shopping, my son grabbed a taser and said, “I wonder if this hurts?” Before I could stop him, he stunned himself, right there in the middle of the store. We decided that neither a gun nor stun gun was a good idea for us with this crazy adolescent child around.

While considering our options, I was talking to a couple that were in the store. They were looking to buy a stun gun that day because they were leaving for home in their RV and they said it could not be shipped to where they lived in Wisconsin.

I asked the clerk in the sporting goods store if this was true, and he told me that there are several states that allow the purchase and use of fire arms but not stun guns nor tasers. I was surprised to find that Hawaii, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and New Jersey will not allow their residents to purchase stun guns.

I do not see the sense in this. If you can shoot and kill someone who is attacking you, why would the government not allow you to stun them? A stun gun or taser does not kill but only incapacitates people. Ask my son, he will tell you. LOL

The purchase of guns is so regulated now that people are buying them on the streets. Now some states are limiting other, non-lethal, choices. How are we to protect ourselves? What do you think about the limits on our personal freedom of choice of weapon?

If you need self-protection and do not live in the above named states, you may want to visit Self Defense Security Surveillance Protection, sponsor of this post. They have all sorts of gadgets for securing your home, family and business.

1 comment:

Scott Hughes said...

I heard that guns and pepper spray have a high chance of getting used against the victim. So, I think stun guns are best for self-defense and crime prevention.