You do have several options.

1. You can ignore all the facts and go on with your daily life thinking that it could never happen to you.
2. You could live in complete fear and spend a lot of your time worrying about the possibility of a criminal assault.
3. You can prepare yourself for the possibility of becoming a victim by purchasing a self-protection device, learning how to use it properly, and continue living a normal life. After all considerations, this really the only option that makes any sense.

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The Departments Bureau of Justice Statistics(BJS) said an estimated 7 percent of all rapes, 8 percent of all robberies, and 16 percent of all assaults occur at work. The data are from an analysis for workplace crimes, from 1987 through 1992, gathered though the National Criminal Victimization Survey of U.S. households.

"The workplace is the scene of almost one million violent crimes every year", said acting BJS Director Lawerces A. Greenfeld. "About 10 percent- or 100,000 -of these violent crimes in the workplace involve offenders armed with handguns."

Of the approximately 3.2 million violent crimes and thefts in the workplace, about 500,000 victims lose an estimated 1.8 million workdays each year, and $55 million in lost wages, not including days covered by sick and annual leave, the study said.

Among the women who experience crime at work, 40 percent are attacked by a stranger, 35 percent by a casual acquaintance, 19 percent by a well-know acquaintance and 1 percent by a relative. About 5 percent are attacked by a husband, former husband, boyfriend, or former boyfriend.

Federal, state and local government workers, who make up about 8 percent of the total U.S. workforce, accounts for 30 percent of all workplace victims. "Several factors may be responsible for this over representation, including a potentially high risk of victimization for particular government occupations, such as public safety personnel," the report noted.

In addition to the violent crimes, there was an annual average of more than two million personal thefts in the workplace during the period, as well as more than 200,000 motor vehicle thefts.

More than half of all workplace victimization's were not reported to police. Among those not reporting, 40 percent said they believed the matter was minor or too personal, and 27 percent said they reported the incident to another official, such as company security.

Average annual numbers of workplace victimization's from 1987 through 1992.

Category	No. of Victimization's	No. with Injuries
Aggravated Assaults	264,174	48,180
Simple Assaults	615,160	89,572
Robbery	79,109	17,904
Rape	13,068	3,438

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The most common reactions are:

• Reduced hand-eye coordination
• Loss of manual dexterity and fine motor skills
• Loss of fine finger movements
• Panic and indecisive
• Complex training starts to breakdown
• Unreliable mental track - How many attackers?
• Tunnel vision - swivel head to compensate
• Auditory exclusion - unable to hear loud noises, shouts, etc...
• Muscle tightening - epinephrine (adrenaline) flooding
• Time and space distortion - slow motion
• Memory disturbance - out of sequence... black outs, size distortion

Buying a can of my pepper spray is a good idea, but unless you have proper training and practice in the use of the spray as well as awareness training, there is a chance you could be surprised and overcome by an attacker.

Lets hope this never happens, but if it does, it's not because my spray failed, but because you did.

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I don't just want to sell you a spray and tell you "this is all the protection you need". Yes, a spray or a stun gun can be a helpful weapon in a potentially bad situation, but you must know how to use them. I can not stress this point enough.

Both myself and my family are very safety conscious, as well we should be in this day and age. This is the reason I got into the self defense products business to begin with. I sell only quality products, but regardless of quality, the product I sell you is just a tool. Like any tool there is a right way and a wrong way to use it. If you never plan to practice or train with the weapon, you may as well not waste your money. That's right, a retailer telling you not to buy his product if you wont take the time to learn how to use it.

There is a simple explanation for my feelings on this. I care about peoples safety, and to have a pepper spray or a stun gun in a purse or glovebox is a false sense of security. If you are surprised from behind, you will never reach the weapon quick enough. I don't want this to happen to anyone, so BE PREPARED. If you feel any sense of danger (a gut feeling), grab the weapon and hold it until you are in a safe area. If you are ready and holding the weapon when a violent attack occurs, you have a much greater chance of driving off the perpetrator and living to tell about it.

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