I recently saw that my sister in-law was wielding our Mace Pocket Pepper Spray on her keychain. I asked her if she ever had to use it. She said she bought for protection while attending college. I then asked if she had ever sprayed her pepper spray, and she said no. I was amazed to think that she had never practiced deploying her pepper spray. To me, that’s about as helpful as carrying around a gun that you have never shot.
There are many unanswered questions like, how long will it take you to deploy? How far does your pepper spray shoot? How many shots do you have after deploying it? The wrong underlying thought in all of this is that you’ll just have it ready if you are approached by an attacker. So how can we be better equipped with our pepper spray?
Practice.
Even if your pepper spray doesn’t come with a test cartridge, you can still practice. The aforementioned pepper spray has approximately 5-15 short bursts at a range of 8-12 feet. Use the first two shots to practice with. Find the nearest tree and practice retrieving your pepper spray, aiming, and shooting, so you can be well-prepared in the future when that tree could be an attacker.
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