State Laws and Restrictions

States Where Pepper Sprays are Restricted

We can’t ship to these states. If such an order is placed on our Self Defense Products website it will be cancelled.

New York:

New York residents may only purchase defense sprays from licensed Firearms Dealers or licensed Pharmacists in that state.

Massachusetts:

Massachusetts residents may only purchase defense sprays from licensed Firearms Dealers in that state.

States Where Pepper Sprays Have Some Restrictions

Michigan:

OC Pepper spray can be no stronger then a 2% concentrate. CS is the only Tear Gas accepted and can be no larger then 35 grams per can. No combination spray allowed. See our Michigan Approved defense sprays.

Wisconsin:

Tear gas is not permissible. By regulation, OC products with a maximum OC concentration of 10% and weight range of oleoresin of capsicum and inert ingredients of 15-60 grams are authorized. This is 1/2 oz. and 2 oz. spray. Further, the product cannot be camouflaged, and must have a safety feature designed to prevent accidental discharge. The units may not have an effective range of over 20 feet and must have an effective range of six feet. In addition there are certain labeling and packaging requirements: must state cannot sell to anyone under 18 and the phone number of the manufacturer has to be on the label. The units must also be sold in sealed tamper-proof packages.

NOTE:

Pepper Spray is legal in all 50 states, however a number of cities and states have restrictions on sizes, strengths, etc.. If you have a question, it is wise to check with you local city or state attorneys office. Defense sprays should only be purchased by those 18 years of age or older. The above list may not be totally accurate or complete and Safety Enforcement.blogspot.com or Safety Enforcement.com accepts no responsibility for its accuracy or completeness.

Defense Spray – A Benign Deterrent?

I have watched several “Women’s Self Defense Classes” which offer accelerated classes based on various martial arts systems. These are usually held or are sponsored by local Martial Arts Schools or Community Organizations. The purpose is to help women who don’t have the temperament, time or inclination to study martial arts on a regular full time basis. The results are definitely positive although different participants will walk away equipped with a lot more “tools” due to variables like having a positive attitude, paying close attention to instructions, willingness to participate in class, age, agility – and the list goes on.

I support any program that uses sound, proven material to share with today’s woman who increasingly finds herself in the work force and out on the streets commuting to and from work and various other activities. A lady could be driving to church, only to find herself targeted as a mark for an assault at the first opportunity that is offered to the criminal. Having attended no programs, a woman would fall back on the old “take anything you want – I won’t resist – please don’t hurt me”, mindset. This allows the scum to have their way with them, rob or even kill them, knowing full well that they will not suffer any retaliation from the victim. That’s got to be music to a criminal’s ears. Women with some crash courses on self defense scenarios may find themselves escaping with little or no harm being done to them at all. The perpetrator doesn’t want to grab a tigress who’s ready to fight him tooth and nail for her safety – it’s the last thing they want!

Besides a selection of simple and reliable self defense techniques that have been “drilled” into their heads, today’s women have a veritable arsenal of self defense products to assist them in surviving such encounters. There are steel batons, stun guns and stun batons (usually not the first choices of most women I’ve talked to), and then you have personal alarms which, when activated, carry and eardrum shattering pitch and dB rating. These inexpensive little alarms are very effective and not many crooks will hang around with that type of sound blasting it’s alarm unrelentingly until it dies out (highly unlikely) or they break off contact with the intended victim and get away before anyone arrives to help or the Police are called and arrive on the scene. It’s just not worth it to them as being too risky to persist.

We recommend a personal alarm to be carried on a woman’s keychain or in her hand bag – close at hand. Now that the alarm has sounded let’s let the prospective attacker know that we mean business – let’s hose them down with OC pepper spray. There are great pepper spray selections like a “pepper pen” (looks like a pen but shoots pepper spray), lipstick cases concealing a canister of pepper spray, phony “pager” delivery systems and more. I think that a small keychain model will work in a pinch, but I love the larger “personal sizes” which come in spray or stream delivery. The larger “home models” wouldn’t be as effective due to their size being a prohibitive factor in carrying them as a habit. If you carry pepper spray for awhile, you’ll do it automatically when you head out of the home and into the streets. That’s what we’re looking for – a small personal alarm and a pepper spray selection that a woman will find easy to carry, to locate and deploy against the startled attacker. These tools along with some tried and true self defense techniques can save a lot of lives not to mention rape and theft.

Get on board ladies, just because you haven’t been assaulted yet doesn’t give you any special immunity, it allows the odds of your being assaulted, continue to stack up against you. Be prepared!

The UFC Shines – Leading the Pack

It seems like only months ago, that we ordered our first pay-per-view of UFC I and after watching it last night, I’m reminded of the progress the UFC has made to become mainstream, acceptable, entertainment via rules changes and weight divisions, humane stoppages and the impact that all MMA promoters have enjoyed due to the evolution of the UFC primarily. Sure the Pride and Vale Tudo cards are good and produce some great fighters and memorable fights, but the UFC Octagon is the measuring stick for MMA and looks to be for some time to come with Dana White at the helm, a shrewd businessman who knows when to give and when to take. By offering the viewing audience plenty of great cards on cable channels and great ‘rags-to-title-shot’ riches shows, Dana has put up and not shut up.

I have no problem ponying up my $$ for a particular PPV anymore when I know what kind of an organization is earning it. Top Dog, Dana White does a great job performing a balancing act of hosting great shows with a fun loving atmosphere, while carrying a strict and short leash on the antics that sometimes erupt and must be dealt with. Great job sir, we need the licensing commissions to promote top shelf fight cards and you seem to do it all with style too.

Dana White, for all appearances is a super businessman and brought us from the earlier, less refined UFC to what we have today – a very neat, highly demanded venue for no-holds-barred fighting. He seems to love what he does and can often be seen joking with fighters or springing some surprise on his crew with a genuine smile and a gleam in his eyes that let’s you know he may be the Boss but he’s one of the guys too!

He surrounds himself with talented trainers and fighters who care about bringing MMA mainstream. He spares little expense in hiring the best in background personnel such as the folks already mentioned, to the referees who seem to have an Eagle-eye for stopping fights short of serious injury. I would much prefer a pre-mature stoppage occasionally than see a contestant injured badly or worse. Color commentary has evolved from Jim Brown to top flight commentators with fighting experience like Joe Rogan and Randy Couture recently dropping in quite often. Keep up the good work UFC we’re watching!!

You Have to Give Respect to Get It

A very haughty gentleman who later proclaimed that he was a genius and a Master of his particular style of Escrima, tried to have our company procure an extremely high voltage stun baton. We will call him Oswaldo “The Unmerciful”. Well, it turned out that Oswaldo had provided us with incorrect information that was required to make this happen, which put our company at risk. Upon telling him we could not proceed he became unglued and claimed that we stole his banking information and had withdrawn money and ripped him off. WHAT!! And so our story begins after I explained in an email and after a couple of replies I informed him that we had never or would never do such a thing – even if we were crooks, we wouldn’t jeopardize our “hustle” over a measly few bucks and not to worry that my explanation was correct and after many years of business to please control himself and “get a grip, I might be right”?. Then it didn’t take long and the name calling began.

When an internet order is placed the money is “authorized” or captured for that amount. This authorization is good for about 3 maybe 4 days. These funds become unavailable to you until such time as your order is shipped, cancelled or no action ever takes place. Every bank has their own way of displaying things – but this should show up as a “Temporary Charge” that is listed separately and doesn’t progress to the larger list of “actual” charges (when viewed on most online account summaries). Your order was cancelled and in a couple of business days that amount will disappear from your authorized charges and go back into your available funds. I hope this helps. Have a great day! – Best Regards, Ronin He was not slow to refute my explanation….

Oswaldo “The Unmerciful” Lashes Out:

Uh… Yeah… sure! Talk is cheap. Until my money is actually returned, you can call it “cancel” or anything you want, but it’s still FRAUD until I either get my money back or my product. So, until then, you and your company are on my fraud alert list.

If I do not have my funds back by the end of next week, I will contact my bank and tell them I’ve been victimized by internet fraud as well as contact authorities in your city informing that you are conducting business on the internet to defraud customers. If you are so concerned about “verifying” addresses or whatever it is you’re looking for, why don’t you do that BEFORE you take a customer’s money? Don’t you think that’s kind of shady? How would you like to have a merchant take your money FIRST then give you all kinds of double talk? Is that how they conduct business in your town? Oh yeah… by the way… that phone number I’ve been asking for you to give me? Don’t bother. I already have it – 123-555-1212 (listed on 175 pages of our catalog website – BTW – not hard to spot). I’ll be calling you by next Friday if I don’t have my money back.

Oswaldo “The Unmerciful” continues:

This, in response to a reassuring but assertive copy of the above email. Get a Grip? We’ll see, Mr. “expert”. And “yes”, I called my bank’s customer service today, and “no”, I still haven’t gotten my money back because your authorization hasn’t expired yet. They told me that you can “settle” anytime, so they can’t put my money back until your authorization actually expires. No matter what happens, you’ve managed to deprive me of my money for this length of time. (4 days start to finish) for the “temp. charge” to vanish – he was never charged. So, Mr. “Get a Grip” the next time you want to “verify” whatever it is you’re trying to “verify”, try *NOT* to take people’s money first! That would lend you better credibility. However, as of right now, I still haven’t gotten my money back, so Until then, you’re still a fraud artist!  (Ouch, that was a low blow dude!)

For kicks, upon questioning Oswaldo “The Unmerciful” if he got his money back he replied rudely (natch) that he did “finally”! And, if (after hearing his “modernization” plans) he was a famous “innovator” and “a Master” of his style of Escrima (stick, short sword, blade grabs etc.) to which he replied:

Yes. I’m also versed in Dan In******o’s style of JKD – Jeet Kune Do – as my relative knew him personally. This was independent of the whole Bruce Lee thing. That was the whole reason with my ordering a stun BATON, get it? Stun Baton = Escrima stick + electricity. I was attempting to modernize my martial arts. However, it appears as if I cannot do that with you!

He continues: “That’s the trouble with martial arts in modern society. It’s too fragmented… and the respect level has been dismal especially among martial artists. “Apparently, ego and money has replaced the traditional respect for established masters.” Ironically, I received the exact same model stun baton from one of your competitors the same day. Now I can modernize my escrima using stun batons!”

What the f**k?? I hope he practices some two stick drills like “Heaven and Earth” (covers the top, middle and lower parts of the body) that would be fun – smacking 800,000 volt PVC sticks together at high speeds – somebody will get hurt in Oswaldo’s experiment but that’s modernization for you? Apparently Oswaldo has made this quantum leap in thinking because he believes as a Master that he can use stun technology to modernize escrima while dropping names that are true experts in the arts to imply that he’s a real “player”. I think I’ll stick to rattan, live blades or a nice lightweight telescopic steel baton and leave the hi-tech modernization to Oswaldo.

An aside: Escrima stick + electricity = stun baton, eh? Sounds like bullshit to me. Its probably pretty safe to assume that this system, simply put, is a catalog of motions that result in someone being pummeled or hacked, with a long hand held object. So what’s the difference if you swing a stick, a short sword (or long knife for that matter), a flaming stick, a sharpened stick, a stick covered in peanut butter, or acid, or nuclear waste, or a stun baton? How has the system been modernized I wonder? I suppose you could make the case that the motions need to be adapted to most effectively bring the baton’s electrical tip to bear, and operate the trigger. BLOCK – THRUST – ZAP!

But something like this is probably Oswaldo’s stock-in-trade. He’ll change the system around a little, effectively “modernizing” it, but then the real work begins. Demonstrations at major tournaments on the East/West coast, articles submitted to all the martial arts mags, and a monumental manipulation of internet search engines. All heralding Oswaldo as “The man who modernized escrima” with titles like “Give your Escrima a Charge!” and “A Kata with Kilowatts!”. I think that “The Unmerciful” one saw the recent History Channel special on the Samurai roots of Star Wars and came up with this hair brained scheme. I should remember to remind Oswaldo, at great length, that this type of use will void his warranty. That should adequately stir him up!