You may already know that postal carriers across the country carry pepper spray for their first line of defense against dog attacks. You may also know that every police officer in the country carries a pepper spray as part of his arsenal of self-defense products. Most police officers carry a taser or some kind of stun device too.

The newest group of people to carry and use pepper sprays are corrections officers in Washington State. This may come as a shock to you that corrections officers are not armed. They do have access to a weapon storage area tho. Some prisons have armed officers on towers but for day-to-day operations corrections officers are unarmed.

I cannot imagine a corrections officer dealing with convicted killers etc without some self-defense tools. The reason may not be obvious. Fear of a weapon being forcefully taken away from a guard is the reason they don’t carry them.

A recent Washington State Department of Corrections study recommended that corrections officers carry a panic button and that some be given pepper sprays.

Defensive spray will be the only way that corrections officers can defend themselves against an attack by an inmate, many of whom have little regard for life. The body alarms would be separate from the radios and would be easily accessed.

Another group of new users of sprays are military police officers in Germany. They are undergoing training on how to use pepper spray. Part of that training of course includes getting sprayed in the face so they have an idea what it’s like.

Part of the thinking is to provide another alternative to deadly force to “go from physical presence to verbal persuasion and then they were forced to use martial arts skills or the police baton- the next step was deadly force.”

MP’s in other parts of Europe will not be allowed to use OC spray. Italy, Belgium and Netherlands have restrictions on the use of pepper sprays. MP’s in the United States have long been using pepper spray.

Life as an MP is just as dangerous as their civilian counterparts. Anybody who has served in the military knows how belligerent drunken soldiers can get.

“MP’s are getting training on handling individuals using or threatening to use weapons boosting their cooperation with the Air Force security forces personnel and are planning to test a computerized communication system that alerts MP’s in patrol cars about incidents lowering response times.”

Pepper sprays are the most popular, biggest selling self-defense item in the world.

When are you getting some?