Can I thwart an attack with a weapon?

Can I thwart an attack with a weapon?

Chris McGoey (President, McGoey Security Consulting) gives expert video advice on: What should I do if a predator demands my purse or wallet?; What should I do if a predator tries force me into a car? and more...

My belief is that anything that you carry in your handbag as a weapon is going to end up at the bottom of your purse, buried under a pile of other junk, and be essentially impossible to retrieve within the split second you need it. And in my experience, women that buy pepper spray canisters and carry them in their purse are down there amongst the lipsticks and the combs and the compacts and everything else, and they literally can't get it out. More women tell me that they end up spraying the inside of their purse with pepper spray than they actually get it out to use it. A weapon needs to be in your hand to be effective. Because I've got to tell you, I talk to a lot of victims, and 99.5% of all female victims I've spoken to never saw their attacker coming. So unless you got this device or weapon in your hand and you're hypersensitive, you're not going to get a chance to use it. You're not going to have time to go into your bag, retrieve it, activate it, open it, whatever you have to do, you're not going to have time to do it.