Should a woman carry a knife or pepper spray?

Depends on the pepper spray, but for 99% of people and 99% of situations, there is no comparison, whatsoever. The woman’s goal should be to survive, unharmed, not to reap vengeance.

With a knife, the vast majority of women would be far more likely to fail at stopping the attacker and to be stabbed with her own knife. That might now be the case for the extremely small percentage of women who are HIGHLY, HIGHLY trained. Even then, the right pepper spray is probably going to be a much better option.

However, most pepper sprays are not effective about half the time, so it is extremely important to have the right spray, delivered in the right manner, from the right device. These considerations are far more important than knowing if pepper spray or a knife is better.

One important question is this:

1. If you spray a violent attacker in the face, will it incapacitate or disable him sufficiently for you to get away safely?

To answer that you have to know the following.

What is the brand of spray and is the actual potency equal to what is claimed on the label? NOTE: The university of Utah did a study of many popular brands of spray and found that only two of them consistently lives up to potency or strength claims. It is also important to know that Major Capsaicinoid percentage, varying from 0.2 to 1.33, generally, if a far better indication of potency or strength than SKUs or Scoville Hear Units, typically from 500,000 to 5 million. In other words a spray with 1.33% major capsaicinoid may be more potent than a spray with 5 million SKU or 10% spray. Some of the sprays in the study were only 1/100th the potency claimed on the label and all in between. It even goes farther into things like particle size, which can make a significant difference in the actual effect on a person, be it pain or respiratory distress.

2. The next question is what is the spray pattern. For example, a stream, foam or gel is going to be far less effective than a cone spray pattern. They might seem attractive because they are less likely to affect others, including yourself, but if you use a cone spray the right way, you will have a greater likelihood of stopping an attacker. TigerLights have proven to stop violent attackers more that 96% of the time which is a far higher percentage than any other sprays or devices. See LASD Study.

3. More important than the above questions, especially when it comes to civilian on civilian attacks is whether the device is already in hand, finger on the trigger and safety off, prior to the attack. If not, all of the above will not likely matter. The TigerLight D.A.D.® 2 is in a class all by itself when it comes to this. It it extremely light and easy to carry with a comfortable hand strap. It is “force-indexed” into the firing position, does not appear as a weapon and has dual utility as a 5-mode tactical LED flashlight. These factors make it significantly more likely to be in hand and useable when an attack occurs.

4. If it is in hand, will it remain in hand and useable during an attack? People will drop what is in their hand about 90% of the time in a sudden, unexpected, physical attack. Lanyards are not sufficient. A device swinging from your wrist isn’t useable.

When you add up all these critical considerations, the answer is much more complicated. Ultimately, actual, on the street performance is the most important and TigerLights have proven that it you want to have, by far, the best chance of stopping an attacker with non-lethal force, there is nothing that even comes close to TigerLights. See more about the D.A.D.® 2’s additional capabilities that helped it get selected as one of the Top 20 Most Innovative Products in the world using Bluetooth technology in the product. See Pepper Spray | Personal Defense Weapons | Tiger Lights