Quora: Are electroshock devices the best self-defense weapons?

Well, there are many versions of this question and I’ve given my thoughts on several of them.

There is obviously a difference between a “Stun gun” in which you have to get close and make physical contact with your attacker and a Taser® like device that shots out prongs. No device is perfect for every situation.

I do not think a stun device is a great personal defense device, in my opinion, for many reasons. First, you are not out enforcing the law. If you are attacked, it will likely be very sudden and entirely unexpected. It is very unlikely that you will be walking, hiking or going to your car after work with a stun device in your hand, so it will be useless in that vast majority of civilian-on-civilian attacks. Also not great for multiple attackers and the incapacitation time is very short. People don’t carry devices identified as weapons, in their hand. At least, I have never seen it, but they do carry D.A.D.s.

There is no question whatsoever that if you are to have maximum safety against attacks, you have to have something that is:

1. Already in your hand when the attack occurs.

2. Force-indexed so it can be fired in a split second without having to remove the safety or in any way manipulate the device into firing position or use fine motor skills.

3. It must be secured in firing position so it remains in hand during a sudden physical attack and not on the ground.

4. It must be capable of instantly incapacitating the subject or subjects, even if drug impaired, for a sufficient amount of time to allow you to get to safety, even if the assailant is much faster than you.

The only device I know of that meets all those criteria and even provides GPS Alert capability to get help faster, is the D.A.D.® 2 by TigerLight. 

When it boils down to it, the only thing that matters is what technology has the greatest likelihood of stopping an attacker in the greatest number of potential situations that the average person might find themselves in.

There are always going to be more obscure situations in which a stun gun or hand gun would be the best choice, but those are probably 1 out of 101 situations that actually happen on a daily basis.

TigerLights have also shown to have the highest “stop rate” or effectiveness of any non-lethal technology, at over 96% so why not have the technology that has shown to work the best. 

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, with one of the most highly regarded non-lethal technology research programs conducted a large study and found the TigerLight to be over 96% effective, far exceeding any other non-lethal device. See LASD Study. (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0985/9944/files/TigerLight-Use-of-Force-Study-v1.pdf)

Do the research yourself and you will find that what I’m saying is correct, based on actual results, not speculation. There is a reason it has been featured on over 60 television news broadcast and strongly endorsed by top self defense trainers.