Personal Protection, Self Defense Products, Stun Guns, Pepper Sprays

Saturday morning with my coffee and compooooter
used to be a good time, until our local Wild Oats
Grocery was bought out by a national chain. One
of their “improvements” was to discontinue Green
Mountain Brand Columbian Whole Coffee Beans, and
me and the missus ain’t had a decent cup a joe
since. It’s gettin so I don’t even want to get out
of bed in the am.

But this morning’s Arizona Republic, Phoenix’s
morning rag, had a story that brought back a good
memory for me, about Nathan, a 14 year old boy who
brought a pocketknife to school, amembered he
had it in his backpack, then turned it in to his
teacher. Poor kid got 5 days suspension for that.

Turns out the lowly pocketknife is now considered
a weapon, rather than an indispensable
accoutrement of manhood. I amember the first time I ever
saw one. Must have been about 8 or so. Had my
own when I was about Nathan’s age.

It was my granddad’s, and we were out in the
woods next to our home, scoping out for wild fruit
trees. We grew up in eastern Ohio, in one of the
first houses in a growing residential area. It
was a kid’s paradise, trees everywhere, and one or
two vacant areas we could play football or
baseball.

My Nonno and me, nonno is Italian for granddad,
came upon an apple tree that he knew was there.
We were just there to see if it was time to come
pick them or not. They were almost ripe, but not
quite.

That area had about a dozen or so wild apple
trees and wild pear trees, planted long ago courtesy
of the birds. Peaches also grew well there, but
there were no wild peach trees nor any birds big
enough to shoot out a peach pit, thank God.

Nonno picked an apple that looked good, took out
his pocketknife, opened it up, quartered the
apple, and gave me a piece. I watched him work with
that knife very matter of factly, nothing special
about it, just a man and his knife.

Next Saturday we’ll come and get some, he said,
in his broken English. Course he meant with most of
my 5 brothers and 4 sisters, too. We’d all bring back
plenty of apples.

We finished the apple, he wiped his knife, closed
it, and we headed for a pear tree. No need to
check any other apple trees, they would be more or
less like this one.

This all happened more than 40 years ago, and my
Nonno’s been gone for about 35 years or so. I
amember him and his pocketknife and the home he
helped build, and I see them now with an older man’s
eyes.

My Nonno never learned to read or write, but he
acquired for himself and his family a home with a
huge garden that provided high quality
vegetables, peach trees in the back yard, and a free supply
of apples, pears, and blackberries. Not bad for
growing up poor in Italy and immigrating,
legally, to the US in his early 20’s.

He was a regular attendee at Sunday Mass and all
the Holy Days of Obligation, and he didn’t carry
no weapon, he carried a pocketknife, a tool. I’m
sure he would be saddened to learn of Nathan and
the consequences of his pocketknife.

One thing my Nonno was was interested in new things.
How do I know this? He used to ask my mother to make
him pancakes every once in awhile. The tv ads for Aunt
Jemima Pancakes really got to him, and his wife, my
Nonna, wouldn’t make them for him. She claimed she
couldn’t make this American kind of food.

But my Nonno wanted some, and my Mom would make
them for him.

I’m certain that if he were with us today, he’d be totin not
just his pocket knife, but a stun gun
and probably some pepper spray.

I still carry a pocketknife, and I do it mainly
cause my Nonno did. It’s a tool, it ain’t no
weapon. For weapons, I carry a stun gun and some
pepper spray. You should too.

If you ever want or need to have your crimes
forgiven and considered no big deal, all you gotta do
is die for your country. In that case, no
matter what you did in the past, you’re considered a
great American. Your crimes are treated as mere
character anomalies and talked about in a
humorous, even admiring tone.

Just take Jim for example. Jim was the biggest,
most notorious, fraudulent landowner of his time.
While he wasn’t the only one doing it, no one
did it on a grander scale. Jim “owned” 45,000
acres.

He “sold” some, collected rents on others, and he
used some as collateral for all kinds of
nefarious activities. But Jim was no dummy. He was
smart enough to destroy the evidence any time the
police got too close. After all, it’d be no trouble
to just get some new deeds printed up.

One writer described Jim’s activities as land
fraud “on an almost industrial scale.”

Jim defrauded and ruined many unsuspecting men,
but today he’s in the pantheon of Great American
Heroes. That’s what happens to you if your life
ends in a battle for your country. That’s what
happened when Jim Bowie died at the Alamo.

Jim’s also known as the designer of the Bowie
knife. What made his knife special was that it was
the first knife to be an effective tool for both
hunting/camping and for use as a weapon.

Before Jim’s design, a man needed 2 knives. Now
he could get buy with only 1. Jim’s design was
so good that it’s still in use today.

Using a knife for a weapon has its drawbacks,
however. Besides the knife, you’ve also got to have
some skill, and you also need a lot of nerve.
That’s why in today’s world, a knife is better
than having nothing, but it’s not the best self
defense tool for you to carry.

You’re much better off if you carry a stun gun and some pepper spray.

The pepper spray can stop your attacker while
he’s still some distance away from you and before he
can get his hands on you. One shot of the
pepper spray anywhere on his face, and he’s toast.
He’ll either go into a coughing fit for half an
hour, or he’ll be blinded for half an hour. And you
don’t really care which, right?

And don’t believe any movie that suggests that
you can develop an immunity to pepper spray.
That’s simply not true at all, not true in the
smallest degree. Pepper spray is 100% effective, 100%
of the time.

A stun gun is great to have because as long as
the batteries have some juice, you can defend
yourself from more than one attacker at the same time.
You can stun the first guy and use him as a
shield while you’re holding the gun to his body and
lighting him up, keeping the other attackers away
from you for 2 or 3 seconds until he falls to
the ground. When he’s on the ground, he’ll be
totally incapacitated for 15 to 20 minutes, maybe
longer.

When you’re ready for the next guy, odds are they
won’t want any part of you after seeing what you
did to their friend. Amember, most of the time,
your attackers are depending on bluff and
bravado, and as soon as they see you’re ready to kick
their heinies, they’ll turn and run and you won’t
be able to catch them. What you do in that case
is simply and calmly walk away.

If Jim were around today he might think that
pepper spray and stun guns take all the fun out of
self defense. Just you amember that self
defense–well, there just ain’t nothing fun about it.
It’s a serious matter and a high stress situation.
And the only way to come out on top is to be
ready aforehand. Get what you need, and get it NOW.

If you like movies like I do, you’ve probably
heard a bunch of euphemisms for whiskey, or rather
for the justification for having a pull on the
bottle. It seems that most writers like to use “for
snakebite” or “for rheumatism” more than any others.

It was a real man who used the more proper
“phlegm cutter and anti-fogmatic.” It was Davy
Crockett.

Crockett was a guy I would have like to have a
pull on the bottle with. A man’s man who had a
great sense of humor and knew how to get the most
out of our language. Scout, indian fighter,
Congressman, he was also very popular on the lecture
circuit.

People would be crowded around him as he spoke,
hanging on every word, with tons of questions for
him when he was finished. Once someone yelled
out from the back, Hey Davy, you ever been lost?

The crowd hushed, waiting to hear the answer. No
way, no how, could Davy Crockett ever get lost,
could he? He spent most of his life in the
outdoors and knew all the trails throughout most of
Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. Everyone wanted to
hear the answer to this question, and Crockett
didn’t disappoint.

No sir, he said, I ain’t never been lost, never.
And the crowd stirred, glad to hear their hero
still stood tall.

Course, he continued, once I was bewildered for 3
days.

Crockett always seemed to know what to say next,
what to do next. Pass the phlegm cutter and
anti-fogmatic, will ya?

All of us know he died at the Alamo, but most of
us don’t know how. Seems the history books think
we don’t need to know that. Seems they think
we’d think less of this American hero if we knew
how he died. Sometimes I just want to smack the
guys who try to decide what we need to know and
what we don’t.

Crockett fought at the Alamo and faced all the
dangers that everyone there faced. He could have
found a way to leave before the fighting started,
but he didn’t. He stood his ground and returned
fire, and saw his comrades fall around him.

Soon enough it was clear that this battle was
going to end badly, and when that became clear, when
defeat was assured, smart man that he was, he
thought of survival. He hid under the bodies of
the fallen enemy, hoping to have a chance to excape
later on.

He was found, and the next day he was executed by
firing squad. That was in March, 1836.

When he was faced with the prospect of death or
survival, Crockett chose to try to survive. He
didn’t give in, he did whatever he could to live to
fight another day.

Too bad so many Americans don’t think that way
anymore. Nowadays we just let ourselves be
victims. Nowadays we don’t even fight back. Nowadays
all we do is act tough and hope that’s enough,
instead of preparing aforehand, just in case it
ain’t.

For all of us a day of reckoning is coming.
Might be from old age, might be a car accident, or it
might be just because we don’t love life enough
to defend ourselves. What a shame. Might be
time to take out home of the brave from the national
anthem.

If you disagree, if you want to do everything you can
to be like Ol’ Davy was, get yourself a
Taser and be ready to use it. You’ll live to see another day,
and you’ll do it without having to kill anybody.

You’d think that the world’s oldest joke would be
somehow related to the world’s oldest
profession, and you’re right. We’re talking farmers here.

Who’s to say, really, if this is the world’s
oldest joke. It’s pretty darn old, that’s for sure,
but there’s no official record book to check, far
as I know.

One thing’s for sure. This joke is so old that
you may not get it, so at the end I’ll splain it
to you.

Farmer Bob walks across the field to his
neighbor, Farmer Bobtoo, where Farmer Bobtoo is chopping
down a tree with his ax. Farmer Bob says How’s
that old ax of yours holdin out? And Farmer
Bobtoo says This old thing? This is the best ax I’ve
ever had. It’s had 2 new heads and 6 new
handles, and it’s as good as the day I got it.

When it comes to old stuff, the new way is often
better–not always, but often. Used to be if you
wanted to defend yourself you pretty much had to
kill the other guy. Most of the time that was a
good thing, too. People used to need killin all
the time.

Nowadays you can just ruin a punks day with a
one-two combination of
pepper spray and a stun
baton. Maybe throw
in a free earring rip-off while he’s on the
ground and disoriented.

Won’t stop the bad guys from looking for another
victim later on, but leastways it’ll keep em away
from your neighborhood for awhile. Keep em away
from your loved ones.

Now, about that joke. An ax only has 2 parts,
the head and the handle. So an ax that’s had 2 new
heads and 6 new handles ain’t even close to
being the same ax it was when it was new.

Farmers are hard workin folks and they know how
to find humor anyplace they can. That joke had em
rolling in the corn fields, year after year
after year, I reckon. Maybe even the same way the
punks’ll be rolling on the ground after you
introduce them to some pepper spray, stun baton and an
earring removal.

We live in a litigious world. That’s another way of saying that everyone is trying to sue the pants off everyone else. Especially when a new product comes out. The lawyers start salivating like the dogs that they are, and law suits are spewing forth like a dog…, well, I guess I can stop the imagery right there.

Taser has been to court eighty times, defending itself against wrongful death claims, or whatever the lawyers can think of to bring suit against them. 80 times! That’s a heck of a lot of law suits. 80 teams of lawyers confusing the issue, distorting the facts…you know, just being lawyers.

And you know what? Taser has WON 80 times out of 80! It’s so hard to believe that I can’t believe I’m typing it. 80 times out of 80, TASER has won it’s lawsuit against a wrongful death claim. This must be the single greatest accomplishment in the history of our American jurisprudence!

80 for 80! We’re talking 80 different TEAMS of lawyers, all confusing and distorting the facts, trying to win for their clients, and yet 80 times out of 80, Taser has won it’s case! I’m visualizing John Houseman from “Paper Chase” saying “That’s impossible.”

And yet it happened.

Taser has been sued 80 separate times for wrongful death, and 80 separate times a jury of average American citizens found in favor of Taser. TASER HAS PROVEN ITSELF TO BE THE SAFEST SELF DEFENSE WEAPON EVER INVENTED–IF YOU CAN BELIEVE 80 SEPARATE AMERICAN JURIES–AND IF YOU CAN’T BELIEVE THEM, WHO CAN YOU BELIEVE?

Oh, I almost forgot. The Tasers we offer at DaneseSelfDefense? Even though they’ll put an attacker on his knees in a second or two? They’re NOT as powerful as the ones the cops use, as the ones that 80 separate juries have found to be safe and effective against the bad guys.

If you’re worried about break ins in your neighborhood, if you want to be able to defend yourself, if you want to defend yourself WITHOUT killing anybody, you need to get a TASER.

Word is that famed Hollywood B movie director Ed
Wood will reprise his sci fi classic, Plan 9 from
Outer Space, hoping to capitalize on New York
Governor Eliot Spitzer’s alias at the Emperors Club
brothel.

“We had him down as Client 9,” one of the call
girl’s told this reporter. “In fact, we had him
down many, many times.”

When asked if the number 9 had any significance
for the disgraced democrat, another of the girls
said, “Guys are always talking about ugly girls
being a 6 pack–how many beers you need to drink to
want her? Eliot’s a 9–a big, big 9.”

Another of the girls corrected her. “You mean a teensy weensy little 9.”

No word yet on whether Wood’s new movie will keep
to the sci fi genre, or possibly be a reality
show taped at Spitzer’s new digs with the family
mutt.

Political campaigns always amind me of old man
Vanderbilt, a great American businessman from the
late 18th to early 19th century, just about Thomas
Jefferson’s time. Old man Vanderbilt once said
“An honest politician stays bought.”

In other words, you pony up your money for a
sleazeball politician, you expect it to actually buy
something. You expect that once the politician is
in your pocket, he’ll stay there.

Great thing about America now is, when you talk
about politicians, you get to add in the chicks.
If you want to give her the benefit of the doubt
and call Hillary a chick.

Not that she ain’t attractive. I’ve seen her
smile a real, genuine smile–not often mind you, but
I’ve seen it–and when she does she looks good.
She looks like she used to have something there
about one great big moon ago.

But when you think of chicks, at least one of the
things that comes to mind is that at least they
like men, and I’m not so sure that Hillary does.

I’m not talking sexual orientation here, I’m just
talking plain old healthy appreciation for men
and their role in society. Pears to me that
Hillary would do away with all us guys if given her
way. Not that I don’t sympathize with this
she devil.

I think Hillary’s had her hands full, considering
that the husband she’s stuck with has had a sex
change. Oh yes, didn’t you know. Before Bill
married Hillary, he used to be a man.

Can’t be easy to deal with all that stress, so
I’m willing to cut her some slack. And if any man
deserved to be the butt of all the First Man jokes
that will result from a President Hillary, it’s
Bill “I’d do a snake if YOU held its head”
Clinton.

So just in case we get Hillary for 4 years, I’m
erasing this email as soon as I send it you.
Don’t want to take the risk of this getting back to
President Harpy, er, Hillary. But in case it does,
least I got words in here like sympathy, Bill
deserves it, cut her some slack–least I’m a mite
prepared.

It’s good to be prepared, especially when it
comes to your own security. Maybe it’s time you had
another look at all the cool camera and recording
stuff we’ve got at
http://www.danesesurveillance.com. You never
know what’s in store for the future.

Pears that Sylvester Stallone was pumping HGH
before filming his latest Rambo movie. Guess Johnny
Rambo is gettin a mite long in the tooth, and
some HGH sharpened em up a mite.

Sly thinks that in 10 years HGH will be an OTC
product, and you know what, he’s half right.

I’ve done a bit of research on HGH and found out
that even though it is a product that our bodies
produce naturally, it’s still dangerous if taken
as a supplement. How? I ain’t no doctor, but this is what I found out.

HGH ends up in your liver and produces another
thing called IGF-1, “Insulin-like Growth Factor 1″.
Did you notice the “insulin like.”

If your body produces too much insulin, you start
to become immune to it, and that leads to
diabetes. Other problems linked to sensitivity to
insulin are heart disease, Parkinsons and Alzheimers.
And IGF-1 mimics insulin, and you definitely
don’t want that.

The great thing about our bodies is that they
have been programmed to regulate how much HGH they
produce, how much IGF-1 gets produced as a by-product. And when
HGH or IGF-1 get too high, our bodies temporarily
stop producing them, and we reach a balance that
way.

Problem is, if you take HGH supplements, you are
disabling the body’s natural balancing mechanism,
and you put yourself on the fast track for those
health diabets, Alzheimers and Parkinsons.

So HGH supplements are bad for you, and Sly says
they’ll be OTC in 10 years. How is he even half
right?

Turns out a medical product that helps the body
produce its own HGH, a medical product that IS NOT
HGH, has been available as a prescription and
will soon be available OTC. I know cause we’re
probably going to offer it on one of our sites.
Since it will be OTC, we’ll be able to do that.

This will be a product that will not interfere
with the body’s safeguards, so you
will not be able to overdose on it, it will be
completely legal and ethical to take it, and no one
will even be able to tell if you are taking it.

And it will help you regain some of the strength
you had when you were younger, some of the strength
you’ll need to fight off any gangbangers who
darken your door.

In the meantime, might be wise to carry some
pepper spray, or a stun gun, or a laser-sighted
Taser. We can help you with all of these at
http://www.daneseselfdefense.com. Would also be
smart to have some security cameras round your
home or office to catch the creeps on video.
http://www.danesesurveillance.com

Yesterday the missus and I ran into our friend Kevin Thompson,
who’s the only guy I know that on the luckiest
day of his life, was slammed face first into a
guardrail. Lost his teeth and crushed most of
his face, but you’d never know it to look at him
now. Now he looks even better than me. Maybe he
always did, but I’ll never admit to that.

You see, on the luckiest day of his life, Kevin
had 2 options, the guardrail, or the end of his
life. Kevin used to be a commercial ocean
fisherman–I can’t recall the exact name they use.

But maybe you’ve seen the show on TLC or
Discover, the 10 Most Dangerous Occupations? Kevin was
numero uno. He worked on deck of a commercial
fishing boat. They would sail the North Pacific and
the Arctic Oceans, fishing for the fish that we
enjoy at restaurants, or out of the box at home.

If you haven’t seen the tv show, Kevin and his
mates would be on the deck, trying to work and hold
on at the same time, while their boat is
fighting 30 foot waves and bouncing them all over the
place.

Then one day a huge wave came over top the boat
and picked up Kevin and sent him for a ride across
the deck. Maybe it was dumb luck, or maybe his
guardian angel couldn’t think of any other
alternative, but instead of being washed overboard, it
was a guardrail sandwich at 90 miles an hour,
right into the TOP rail of the guardrail.

A few inches higher and Kevin would have been fish food.
Might have even turned up in one of those nets one day.

That was Kevin’s last voyage.

Why would anyone even think about doing that job? The money
is great, that’s why. Kevin was able to make more in 3
months than most people make in a whole year.
So he risked it, and he won.

If you ever get a chance to hear his story, it’s
a real good one.

We all take risks in life, risks that seem
worthwhile for us, that others would never even think
about. But there’s one risk that no one should
take, cause the odds are stacked against you if you
do.

All of us, every single one of us, have a 1 in 7
chance of being a crime victim at some point in
our life. For some it may be a simple mugging,
for others it may be the fight of their life.

One in seven. You know, if we had a 1 in 7
chance of hitting the lottery, we’d mortgage
everything we had, including our future earnings, on that
one chance. 1 in 7 is almost a done deal, gonna
happen, bet the farm kind of thing. Everyone
knows that.

So protect yourself with some pepper spray, or
stun gun or taser.
http://www.daneseselfdefense.com. There may not be a
guardrail there when you need it. It might be just you and
your wits against some very nasty dudes, and your wits may not be
enough.

Be prepared, and be safe.

Just heard the news that Heath Ledger’s body was
found, and that drugs are the suspected cause of
death. What a shame.

I’ve been a fan of his ever since The Patriot,
and thought he was very good in Casanova. Sylvia
liked him, too.

Neither of us saw his work in Brokeback Mountain,
and don’t figure we ever will. And we didn’t
like and didn’t even finish watching the soft-porn
Monster’s Ball.

He seemed to be a natural in front of the camera,
and was on his way to superstar status. It
really is a shame we won’t see any more fine
performances from him.

If you haven’t yet seen Casanova, which he made
when he was only 25, give it a try. You’ll see a
performance from a talented actor who is playing
way beyond his years.