excerpted from http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2010/05/taser-buzz-kill.html.

After the recent amazement in the press about five healthy women being able to disarm one single man, I thought it might be a good idea to repost this article I wrote a couple of years ago for the Huffington Post.

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There’s been a lot of buzz in the press about women’s Taser parties. (They’re like Tupperware parties, but sell C2 Tasers instead of plastic tubs.)

These reports infuriate me.

Apparently, many women who go to these parties live in constant fear of violent sexual assault. And they believe that having a Taser will protect them. Perhaps they imagine a hooded stranger in their apartment or their parking lot. Perhaps they imagine that they will whip out the Taser, zap the bad guy, and a few minutes later watch as the cops march him off. Bloodless and neat. Her Taser is a “safety blanket,” says Dana Shafman, the entrepreneur who started the parties; if she leaves the house without one she goes “into panic mode.”

But it’s not safety blankets that protect you. You do that.

You start by being informed. Most (68%) violent and/or sexual assaults are perpetrated by a man the woman knows. Most assaults happen in or near the woman’s home (72%) or the home of a neighbor or friend (11%). You are much more likely to get hurt in your breakfast nook than in a dark alley. The man trying to hurt you is more likely to be your ex-husband or boyfriend or colleague than a hooded stranger. So, statistically, we’re talking about Tasing someone you know who moves on you unexpectedly in close quarters, in a place where you feel safe. But, hey, no problem, because the Taser is pretty foolproof. Right?

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And we’re back with the notion of a safety blanket. But safety blankets have never saved anyone. Here’s a better way to approach the possibility of danger: don’t expect a weapon you haven’t trained with for a hundred hours or more to function as a mystical shield. If you do, you’ll be blunting your most powerful survival tool: your instincts. When you begin to feel uncomfortable in a situation - when you are afraid - that’s your instincts, screaming at you that something is wrong. Those instincts can save your life. (Read Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear. Better, read my novel, Always, which is all about the women in a self-defense class who grow and learn and bond–and make awful choices.) Don’t smother them under a safety blanket.

I taught self-defense for five years in the UK. It works. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, women fight off unarmed rapists successfully 72% of the time. If he has a knife, she’ll fight him off 58% of the time. If he has a gun, she has a 51% chance. Unarmed, untrained: if you fight back, you’ll probably win. But if weapons make you feel better, then just look around you — they’re everywhere. In your purse: perfume, nail file, phone. In your kitchen: cleaning spray, fire extinguisher, all those knives. In your car: air freshener, cigarette lighter, and the car itself.