Your personal opinions do not constitute facts or empirical evidence.
Pepper spray is available for use by vulnerable civilians only for self-defence in many countries. Its ownership is regulated in some countries with licensing schemes and is unregulated in others. For example, Israel used to require someone to have a Firearm Certificate to legally own pepper spray, but they relaxed that requirement many years ago. In 2003, Western Australia decriminalised its use for self-defence with a "reasonable excuse". Interestingly, despite your concerns, there has NOT been an explosion in violent crime in any of these countries because civilians are permitted to own it for self-defence.
And yet we can look at countries like the USA, and the ease of access to and number of weapons, and the amount of violent crime...
It's also a cultural thing, and sadly I feel culturally we are far closer to the US than Australia or Israel
And if we are talking about poorly thought out knee-jerk policies, the way the British government routinely bans things due to the actions of a tiny minority of total scumbags is a textbook example of that phenomenon. I hear they are going to ban machetes next because of the fondness that some feral gangbangers have for carrying them (despite the carrying of them already being illegal). A machete is a very useful gardening tool. Have you ever tried cutting up a 30 foot tall Leylandii tree without one? As if banning an Iron Age era weapon is going to stop drug-dealing street criminals who routinely maim and kill people from getting hold of them!
I'm not disagreeing with you there, but 2 wrongs don't make a right.
You're joking, right? For your information, I have been threatened/attacked on multiple occasions by armed criminals on the streets at night. Having a legal weapon which would have allowed me to temporarily blind them and escape would have been very useful in those situations.
Despite all your erudite theoretical arguments, I was aware shortly before these incidents that something was about to happen and if I had a pepper spray in a body-worn holster I would have had time to retrieve it, conceal it and make it ready for use.
I'm interested in where you live that means that's a regular thing, considering I live in Birmingham and haven't once had any issues like that (I had significantly more trouble living in Bath which by all accounts is a "nice place"
), but fair enough, yes it can help in some situations, although I can also see the other side of it which is that if those armed criminals had reason to believe you had a weapon of your own, they would perhaps have given you less warning/opportunity to prepare it.
But I don't suppose you'll be interested in knowing any of this. Like most people you have a dogmatic opinion on this issue which is immune to facts and logic.
Quite the opposite, I can see both sides of the argument, and applying facts and logic (and my own personal experiences), leads me to believe that it would cause more problems than it would solve. I'm all for allowing use of weapons in situations such as home invasions, where a) assuming you already have reasonable security measures in place you should get some warning that someone is breaking in, allowing you to prepare, and b) you potentially have no means of escape.
If pepper spray is so ineffective for temporarily neutralising violent criminals then why is it issued to all on-the-beat Police Officers?
Where have I said it's ineffective? Police officers - by the very nature of their job - are expected to deal with troublesome individuals, and subdue them for arrest if necessary.
Besides, that's a poor example, as they routinely end up also hitting themselves with the spray (and are trained to deal with this).
Think about how stupid the general public are for a moment, spraying yourself in the face because the wind was blowing the wrong way isn't going to help much (unless the would be mugger is so busy laughing and feeling sorry for you that they decide to let you off
)
