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Safety Tips & Self-Defense Information from Crime Prevention 101 with Susan Bartelstone

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Susan Bartelstone, talk show host for Crime Prevention 101 interviews David Nance of Security Equipment Corporation. Discussed in this interview is the history of pepper spray, self defense products, how to protect yourself tips, and what to look for when buying pepper spray and self defense products.

This is a great interview if you are unsure how pepper spray can help you protect yourself. Also, discussed is Sabre's new Civilian Safety Awareness Program. She goes into details about self defense techniques to assist women in protecting themselves from attack. Pepper spray is a non-lethal choice when finding the right protection for both a man or a woman.

7 Important Pepper Spray & Self Defense Rules to Follow:

1. Make sure you purchase a reputable brand! Purchase a brand which is backed by ISO 9001:2000 Certification!
2. Keep it handy and accessible. Don’t tuck it away in a bag.
3. Be aware of your surroundings. Look around and be ready.
4. Do not put the spray in front of the attacker until it is positioned properly in your hand and you are ready to use it.
5. Aim for the eyes and spray ear to ear across the eyes for best results.
6. Side step the approaching attacker and run away.
7. Get to a safe place and call the police.

Click here for Pepper Spray Training information!

Radio Interview: Crime Prevention 101 with Susan Bartlestone:

Susan: Now, I have a very special program today. This is a topic that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. I’m going to be talking about defense sprays, particularly pepper sprays. And I have a long history with pepper sprays that I’m going to tell you all about.

Just to give you a little background, pepper spray and tear gas…those things have been around easily for 30 or more years now, but myself and a few others really started the movement to let people know that this is a viable protection option, because they’re inexpensive, easy to carry and conceal, and very easy to use.

I like them, I use them, I give them to my family and friends, and I also happen to be a certified pepper spray instructor. I know that when offered within the context of their merits and limitations—because they’ve got both—people feel safer with them and I feel they can be a real lifesaver.

My special guest today is David Nance, and he’s from Security Equipment Corporation, which sells the Sabre brand of pepper spray, and this is the brand that I like best. As David’s website says, he’s been making grown men cry since 1975, and trust me, that is certainly what they do when they’re sprayed.

And also coming up later in the show, I’ve got some tips about how to use pepper spray most effectively, so make sure you stay tuned for that.

COMPANY HISTORY AND PROFILE

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce David Nance to you. As I said, he’s the vice president of sales and marketing for Security Equipment Corporation (SEC), which is a family-run business. It was founded by his father in 1975, and now it’s owned and operated by the second generation of Nances, and David joined in after he graduated from college in 1997.

They sell all sorts of personal defense sprays, stun-guns, bear attack and dog attack deterrents. And they have all sorts of law-enforcement and correctional aerosol projectors, which I’m going to ask him to talk a little more about. He introduced the Sabre law-enforcement line in 1997, and he also introduced the Sabre law-enforcement training division, which we’ll talk a little more about. And he is currently involved in launching the Sabre civilian safety awareness program, which we’re definitely going to talk about.

And so let me introduce David. David, it’s Susan, welcome to this edition of Crime Prevention 101.

David: Hi, Susan—it’s a pleasure to be here. I think you know the company better than I do, actually: that’s a pretty nice introduction you gave me there.

Susan: (laughing) Yes, well, you know…we do our research around here. Alright, let’s talk pepper spray: I said that primarily, the use was law enforcement, but our aim here is to show civilians what a great option this is. How many police departments and other law enforcement agencies would you say use the Sabre pepper spray?

David: Well, it’s certainly thousands. Just in the US alone, you have 40,000 law enforcement agencies alone, and the Sabre brand is one of the most popular. A lot of the federal agencies, a lot of your municipalities…just in New York alone, you’ve got the NYPD, the largest municipal police force in the US, you’ve got Riker’s Island, which is famous—or infamous—among crime networks and television shows.

All of their corrections officers—that’s the main city jail in the city of New York that uses Sabre products, and then you have the state police, and then you have federal agencies like Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Marshals that carry Sabre products. Most of the major agencies, in fact, worldwide—so I’d have to say thousands of law enforcement agencies worldwide use Sabre products.

There are hundreds of companies out there marketing pepper spray but there are only a handful of companies worldwide out there that manufacture their own pepper spray. We’re unique in that we manufacture our own pepper spray. Security Equipment Corporation, in addition to the 34 years of experience that you mentioned earlier, is also ISO 9001:2000 Certified, we’re an EPA Establishment, and our products have been approved for use in Europe and worldwide.

HISTORY OF DEFENSE SPRAYS

Susan: And I have to say I like it as one of the best. But let’s back up a little bit: there are really only two types of aerosol defense sprays. There’s the tear gas sprays—and of that, Mace, which is really a brand that people think is a spray, is one of the better-known sprays—and then you’ve got the pepper sprays. Just talk a little bit about the difference between the two of them.

David: Sure. You brought up a couple of good points there. First, you have tear gas, which is either a lachrymator or an irritant, and CN tear gas, which is where the name Mace came from—it’s basically a nickname for CN tear gas. That (CN tear gas) has been around since the early 1900’s. It was used by law-enforcement military up until about 1960, and that’s a lachrymator—it causes profuse tearing of the eyes…

Susan: Which is why they called it ‘tear gas.”

David: Yeah, it’s a form of tear gas. Then CS tear gas came about in 1960—well, it came about long before that—but the Army did an extensive study comparing CN and CS gas. They found that it acted as an irritant and was far more effective, more potent, and less toxic, and CS tear gas became adopted by the Army after their Aberdeen tests in the 1959 and 1960 era.  Other law enforcement agencies began to switch over for the same reasons.

The two tear gas options you have—CN and CS—both typically rely upon pain to incapacitate, which can be a problem if you have someone who’s emotionally disturbed, cannot feel pain, or under the influence of a heavy amount of drugs or alcohol.

PEPPER SPRAYS

David: So oleoresin capsicum, or pepper sprays, came about in the 80s; they were starting to be used, but there was a big study done by the FBI in 1989 and they found out pepper spray works better than CN or CS gas by themselves because pepper spray is an inflammatory.

It causes the capillaries of the eyes to dilate and causes the eyes to close, taking away the sight of an aggressive assailant or inmate. So even if they can’t feel pain, pepper sprays cause the eyes to close, taking away their vision, which gives the officer a major tactical advantage when he’s trying to control or restrain an individual. It also gives a civilian a major advantage when they can blind an attacker and escape to safety.

Susan: So it not only causes not just blindness, but also gagging and choking and coughing, and it’s kind of the equivalent of getting hit in the gut with a baseball bat.

David: That is true. I’ve heard it also being described as ‘being poked in the eyes with 10,000 needles,’ so it’s definitely a very unpleasant experience, and as you told me yesterday, you’ve actually (laughing)…well, you’ve already had the experience yourself.

Susan: Indeed I did. When I went for my certification to become a pepper spray instructor, one of the things that we had to do was take a full-on hit. And I have to say that I was the only non-law-enforcement person there because I do crime prevention and I teach defense courses, I just felt that this is something that I should do, given that my credentials and my contacts give me access to very high-level training.
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And sure enough, we took a hit, and after we took the hit, I had to fight off two attackers and the guys that were law enforcement had to also handcuff and sight with a gun. So we’re gonna talk about levels of incapacitation, because I think it’s part of the awareness that people need to know about this. That’s coming up, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself—what to expect if you do get yourself a canister so you can use it the most effectively.

Now we talked about the difference between the tear-gas-based sprays and the pepper sprays…law enforcement prefers pepper sprays and I prefer pepper sprays for civilian use because, as you said, David, it takes fewer seconds—I think two or three seconds—to take effect. It’s quicker than the tear gas, and it lasts a little bit longer, but it should also be pointed out that neither one of them cause permanent damage.

That’s one of the reasons that it’s popularly used by law enforcement: it will incapacitate for 30-45 minutes—pepper spray’s a little longer than tear gas sometimes—but does not cause permanent damage to the assailant.

David: I think all of that’s absolutely right on point, and I think that the inflammatory effects of pepper spray don’t require pain to incapacitate, whereas CN and CS gas do require that.

So that’s a very important aspect, but don’t discount that the combination sprays are quite popular—where you combine pepper spray and CS tear gas, so that you get the loss-of-breath sensation, and the shutdown of the vision with the pepper, and you get the strong skin-burning and facial burning with the CS gas. Those are also quite popular sprays.

Susan: Sure—cover all bases. And you’ve actually got a three-in-one spray, which I love the idea of that—we’re going to talk about that as well. I wanted to let the people know that there is a difference between law-enforcement defense sprays and military defense sprays and civilian products. Just talk real quickly about the difference being the strength of them.

David: Well actually, we make the civilian Sabre line of pepper sprays and tear gas combination sprays the strongest we can. And the reason we do that, Susan, is that, for the most part, most civilians, that is their number-one option to protect themselves, and in many cases, it is their only option. Most civilians…they’re not carrying an expandable baton, they’re not protected by soft body armor, they don’t carry a firearm with them—many states don’t allow that, many individuals don’t opt to carry one.

So the pepper spray is their only force option, and many people aren’t trained in hand-to-hand combat, etc. So we give them the best opportunity we can to defend themselves against an attacker by giving them the strongest spray allowed by law in the United States.

Susan: Which would be how much of a concentration?

David: Well, it varies state by state, but we do make one with a formulation of 0.67% Major Capsaicinoids. We call that Sabre Red USA and that is legal in all 50 states. Not to be confused with the amount of pepper in the can: forget those high OC percentages you see on a lot of products’ packaging—that’s just meant to confuse you.  

That just tells you the amount of pepper in the formula, but peppers vary in heat, so you need to know how hot the entire formulation is which is measured in Major Capsaicinoids—that’s your strength indicator. And the maximum amount that can be used in pepper spray—Sabre Red is legal in all 50 states.

Susan: David, let me interrupt you for a moment here. Let’s take a quick pause: we’re gonna come back and we’re gonna talk about exactly what is in these pepper sprays when we come back.

(following break)
Welcome back to Crime Prevention 101. I’m speaking with David Nance of the SEC, and that is the Security Equipment Corporation, the purveyors of the Sabre and Sabre Red brand pepper spray.

And at this point, I’d like to say…if you are a survivor of any type of crime, if you were wishing you had pepper spray or whatever, nothing that happened to you was your fault. Even if you think you used bad judgment in a situation and left yourself vulnerable, that is never, never, never an excuse for crime or violence. You know, no should’ves or “I wish I did.” If you’re alive, you responded correctly: please call yourself a survivor and not a victim and realize that with the proper professional help, you can put what happened into perspective and get on with your life.

Now, David, before the break, we were talking about exactly what pepper spray is. And it is pepper—it is oleoresin capsicum, which is black pepper. Or is it red pepper?

David: It’s actually the oil taken from red peppers.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PEPPER SPRAYS

Susan: And you were talking about how to pick a brand of pepper spray that would best suit you, and you were saying that it wasn’t the amount of pepper, but it’s the Scoville heat units—it’s how hot the pepper is.

In a very untechnical way, give us an idea of what you were talking about.

David: OK, truly the most accurate indicator is the strength of your entire formulation, not just the raw pepper, because the formulation consists of more than just the pepper itself.

Do research before buying a pepper spray. “There’s several things you want to look for here, and I’m going to go beyond just the strength of the product. This isn’t a regulated industry—it’s not regulated by the US government, but you want to look for credibility.

When you look at the package, make sure the name of the company that makes it is on there.

You want to avoid brands that state a high concentration of oleoresin capsicum—that’s just a marketing gimmick. They’re taking advantage of an unregulated industry, because as Susan alluded to, it’s not the amount of peppers in the formulation—because peppers vary in heat—it’s the strength of the total formulation, which is denoted by the Scoville heat units or the Major Capsaicinoids content. The Sabre Red USA formula, as I mentioned before, contain 0.67 percent major capsaenoids and is legal for sale in all 50 states. Some states restrict the CN tear gas content and only allow pepper spray and restrict the strength—New York state being one of them. The maximum strength they allow is 0.7 major capsasenoids.

Our most popular product with law-enforcement is 1.33 Major Capsaicinoids, or double-strength of the SABRE Red USA. Now, pepper spray for law-enforcement generally varies being as low as 0.18 and all the way up to 1.33.

Then you have the Sabre 3-in-1 which combines CS tear gas with the pepper spray and an ultraviolet marking dye, and that is probably our most popular formulation sold to the civilian markets because it adds the irritating effect of the CS tear gas.

After you escape, you call the police and they put out a general identification for that individual and they find him, the individual doesn’t realize that it’s on his skin—it’ll last on his skin for up to 48 hours so they can identify him.”

“You want to purchase a compact size that gives you a number of shots, and that’s one of the things that makes Sabre unique. Most half-ounce keychain canisters will empty completely after about five shots, or if you hold the firing mechanism down continuously, three to five seconds.

Sabre products contain about 25 shots, and they empty in about 15 seconds. So you have about three to five times more content in the Sabre canisters, which is really helpful if you have to defend yourself against more than one attacker.”

TACTICS

David: “With any pepper spray, you want to aim for the eyes. They’re far more sensitive than the rest of the face.”

Susan: “Stop, yell, make noise. But what you DON’T want to do is hold the canister out in front of you and yell, ‘I have pepper spray!’ The other thing about holding it out in front is that the other person can block it, hold it aside, or stop you from using it. You want to create a barrier and keep the assailant at two arms’ length.”

David: “That’s the advantage of pepper spray—you can protect yourself from a distance. Most of the keychain sprays fire up to eight to 10 feet, and we even make models that fire up to 15 feet.”

Susan: “One of the products that you make that I really like is called the Jogger Model. One of the things that people always tell me is, “I like the idea of pepper spray but I’m afraid that he l take it away from me.” Well, the Jogger Model comes with a velcro strap, and so the canister is strapped into your hand. You can walk right along with it, you can jog with it, and there it is. It can’t be taken out of your hand by just knocking on your hand—it’s strapped. I love it and I think it’s a great civilian safety device. It’s what I give to all my friends and loved ones.”

Susan: “And for out on the street, there is a wide nozzle. If you’ve got more than one attacker, you don’t want a stream; a stream is too easy to avoid. You want to fan out over an area and get as many people as you can if there’s more than one person coming at you.”

David: “The typical compact small-size pepper spray is going to spray a stream, and streams are very effective. You want to spray ear-to-ear across the eyes of a subject, so if you have multiple people coming at you, you’re going to spray right to left aiming for the eyes of your subject or subjects.

The cone-type delivery method, or fog, produces a more shotgun-type spray pattern that allows you to more easily target multiple subjects, and there might be a greater loss-of-breath sensation with that pattern as well.”

PEPPER FOAM

Susan: “Let’s talk a little bit about pepper foam, because if you’re indoors and someone breaks into the house, and you spray with a fogger spray that’s going to permeate the room, you’re stuck there as well. And there’s a product called pepper foam…does Sabre have a product like that?”

David: We do. We market it to law enforcement for usage in hospitals, courtrooms, and prisoner transfers, and we also market it to civilians for home defense.

Susan: You want to have a couple of canisters around the house, especially in the bedroom, because if someone breaks into the bedroom and you spray them, you don’t want the whole room fogged up because you’ll be breathing in the effects of it, as well.
The pepper foam just kind of glops out onto the person, again spraying into the face and eyes.

ANIMAL DETERRENTS

Susan: “We didn’t talk about this, but originally pepper spray was designed for mail carriers…postmen…to deter dog attacks, because it’s very effective on dogs.”

David: “Our Sabre dog attack deterrent, which we sell in Canada, was approved by Health Canada, and our Frontiersman bear attack deterrent, which we sell in both Canada and the United States, was approved by both the EPA and Health Canada. Tear gas doesn’t work on animals: they’re covered by fur, they don’t have the tear ducts that we have, and their skin is a lot less sensitive than ours. Pepper is effective—you just want to aim for the nose, eyes, and mouth.”

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