Category: Personal Defense Gear

Safety Tips for Walking to Your Car at Night

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Everyone, at some point, will have to walk to his or her car in the dark of night in an empty parking lot or parking garage. It is important to know how to keep yourself safe in these moments. If there is a possible crime to take place in that dark alley, lot, or garage, it will most likely be a crime of opportunity. So, take a few precautions before walking out to your vehicle and make sure to have a plan. Here are a few tips that will hopefully keep you safer when you are walking to your car at night.

Preplan the walk to your car. If you are in an unfamiliar environment e.g. hospital parking lots, or a lot in an unfamiliar area of downtown, know the route that you are going to take back to the car. Also, it would be helpful to notice any alternate routes if by chance your intended route didn’t work out according to plan. Always remember where your car is parked. The dark of night in a quiet parking garage is not the time for you to forget where you parked the car. Take note of the spot, write it down, and put it in your phone. Don’t forget.

Black Friday Shopping Safety Tips

When you reach your car, be prepared by having the car keys ready to unlock the car door.   Don’t have the keys buried in your coat, pants pocket, or purse. If you needed access to the keys in an emergent situation, it is best to have them ready. Also, carry your keys on a key ring that you can hold through the middle when you are walking. This will help to prevent you from dropping the keys. Also, when you are walking back to your vehicle, continually scan your surroundings. Prevention is the key to your safety. Be aware of your intuition. If the situation doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. Also, walk down the center isle of the parking lot; this will hopefully ensure that you are not surprised by anyone hiding behind another vehicle or a pillar in a parking garage.   And don’t forget to get your UDAP Keychain Pepper Spray to carry with you at all times.

Hiking and Backpacking With a Dog Safety Tips

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Bear Shock electric phone, Hiking and Backpacking With a Dog Safety Tips

Hiking and backpack camping with dogs is enjoyable. Dogs are excellent companions in the backcountry, although dogs can also pose several problems for backpackers and hikers. One major issue when you are in the backcountry with a dog is that it can create an encounter with a bear. For instance, If a dog is sleeping in a tent with their human companions, they may be carrying several interesting smells on their coat that bears may find interesting. However it is a very rare occurrence for a bear to invade a tent, and, when they do, it is usually because of left out food scraps or an unkept camp.Be sure to use the UDAP Bear Shock fence at your campground site for protection from bears.

Bear Shock electric phone, Hiking and Backpacking With a Dog Safety Tips

If you do run into a bear out on the trail, a dog may be tempted to run after the bear, barking, and the bear may feel that it has to defend itself. Dogs can be great instigators of trouble, although when the bear charges the dog or attacks the dog, the dog is going to run back to you, and he will be bringing the scared, angry bear with him. An encounter like this is completely preventable, by placing a leash on the dog when you are out on the trail. This and other safety tips are necessary for you to pay heed to in order to protect your dog and yourself as well. You could read more here about how you could enjoy fun activities and explore the outdoors with your dog in a safe and enjoyable manner.

Coming back to hiking with dogs, if you are going to be traveling in bear country with your dogs, leash them, but also give them a job to perform. Dogs can carry their own food and, possibly, other supplies on their backs. Keep the load light, though, dogs should not be required to haul too much weight on the trail. There are even backpacks built exclusively for dogs. If the dog is required to carry important supplies, then it should be leashed. A hot, tired dog isn’t going to consider the load on his back when he sees a wide, muddy puddle or a deep, pristine mountain lake. A dog carrying sleeping bags should be leashed, at least until the backpack is removed.

Dogs do make excellent companions on the trail. Unlike some of your friends at the bottom of your call list, the dog will not complain out on the trail. Dogs can also sense possible dangers long before their human counterparts, and dogs may sense that cow moose around the bend, or the rattlesnake coiled at the other side of the log. Although, proper precautions should be taken, when hiking and backpacking with dogs in bear country.

Black Friday Shopping Safety Tips

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Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the biggest shopping day of the year. It has become such a popular day to shop that people are finishing up their turkey dinners to go out and stand in line at numerous big box stores throughout their town for the chance to purchase electronics, homeware, clothing, etc., at sale prices. The event has become so incredibly busy that unforeseen problems with other shoppers are becoming more and more prevalent. Not only shopping in stores, but also, if you consider online shopping platforms like Price, during the festive season they tend to offer various offers like discounts, coupons, and cashback offers that the common shoppers can avail. But, when it comes to offline shopping, the shoppers are tired (most stores open in the middle of the night or the very early morning) some are hopped up on too much caffeine, and, in many cases, the shoppers are waiting in line in the cold. Here are a few tips to keep yourself safe if you are going out to shop this upcoming Black Friday.

When you are standing in line outside a store, be sure to pay attention to what the rest of the crowd is doing. Pay attention to the mood; the anxiousness of other shoppers. Lines for many of the stores stretch for hundreds of yards, possibly coiling around the parking lot, and, when the stores open, overly eager shoppers could invoke a possible riot. Every year there are stories of both adults and children being injured by the trampling of feet of overly anxious shoppers. Stores should take preventative measures to stop this from happening, whether that’s installing a few steel pipe bollards to help manage the flow of people, breaking the line into smaller groups and only allowing a certain number of groups in at a time, or having additional security on the day.

Also, when you are out in the parking lot, take note of the traffic. Pandemonium does not equate to safe driving. Overly caffeinated shoppers may make poor decisions when they are operating their vehicles. Keep your eye on the parking lot for oncoming vehicles, or vehicles that are driving erratically.

Black Friday Shopping Safety Tips

Once you are inside the store, beware that people get into confrontations over the limited stock of sale items. Many of these stores offer only one or two of each item at sale prices, and the competition for those items can be fierce. Stories of shouting matches, pushing and shoving, even fistfights are prevalent every year. Avoid confrontations if it is at all possible. Remember, the items that are on sale can be replaced or repurchased at another store, not one of those sale items is worth the risk of injury or even possibly your life. And don’t forget to get your UDAP Keychain Pepper Spray to carry with you at all times.

Archery Elk Season

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The archery elk season in Montana is underway. And, for the archery elk hunter who has spent his summer exploring remote stands of timber most hunters only glance at on Google Earth, while hiking countless backcountry miles and prematurely wearing the sole from a pair of hunting boots, congratulations on your effort and good luck on this seasons hunt. For those hunters, however, that haven’t spent as much time in the backcountry this season, or for those hunters that aren’t sure how to effectively scout for the season, here are a few tips to help.

When you are out scouting, the most obvious signs of elk activity are droppings, tracks, and rubs. Elk are transient by nature, so being really excited about evidence of elk may be jumping the gun, so to speak. Pay attention to the freshness of the rubs on the trees, or the prevalence of the tracks, and know that it only means that elk may frequent that area, and there are a few other ways of figuring out more precise locations and patterns for the elk when the rut begins.

If you are scouting and you find a bull before the rut has begun, don’t be too excited. That bull most likely will be somewhere else when the rut actually begins. So, when you are doing your preseason scouting, make sure to pay attention to the cow elk. When those cows go into heat, those bulls wont let them out of sight.

Also, while scouting, look for elk wallows (areas where bull elk may tear up the ground to reach the mud and moisture). When the rut is on, elk will use a wallow every day, most likely in the heat of the afternoon, so knowing where fresh or old wallows are is a big advantage. Those bulls run really hot during the rut, and rely on the mud and moisture from those wallows to cool down. Areas to look for that could be potential wallows are in meadows – pay close attention to the edges of the meadows where moisture may run off and collect. Also, look for bright green patches of grasses on densely timbered slopes. Near creeks and lake are obvious choices, and also near beaver dams.

And don’t forget your UDAP Bear Spray and have it accessible in a UDAP holster while you are bow hunting this season! Archery Elk Season, UDAP hip holster for bear spray

Livingston/L.A. stuntman develops backpack bear spray

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March 07, 2015 5:00 pm • By Brett French

UDAP Back Attack Pack

The Back Attack Pack is deployed by a ripcord attached to the front of the backpack, somewhat like a parachute ripcord.  It may sound contradictory, but the people taking the biggest risks are usually the most safety conscious.

UDAP Back Attack Pack

Take Billy Lucas, for example. For 30 years the 57-year-old former Marine has been a Hollywood stuntman — part of that acting as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunt double in films like “True Lies” and “The Terminator” series of films. So the fact that Lucas brainstormed a design for a new way to deploy bear spray from a backpack actually makes sense. He is very aware of ways to mitigate danger.

“There are no bragging rights in getting hurt,” Lucas said. “Safety is a primary concern, especially in my business.”

And stuntmen who get hurt aren’t going to be available to work, so there’s a monetary incentive for them to be careful.

‘Brainstorm’

Knowing this, it’s a natural progression to the story Lucas tells about one day reading a newspaper story about a man being mauled to death by a bear and wondering if there isn’t a better way to deter attacks. Lucas had recently made the move to Livingston from Los Angeles when the incident occurred. Then he had his own encounter with a bear while fishing with friends and admitted to being spooked.

So Lucas read up on other bear attacks and noticed that when people dropped into defensive positions — lying face-down and covering their necks — they were still very vulnerable.

Lucas said the idea of a reserve parachute gave him the idea of a backpack-based bear spray canister that could be discharged much like pulling the ripcord on a parachute.

“I had a brainstorm and put my money where my mouth was,” he said, paying an engineer to design the first prototype out of aluminum before deciding that was too heavy and going to plastic.

“I like working with my hands and problem solving,” he said. “It’s one of those things that came late in life to me.”

He said he has a couple of other inventions he’s working on as well.

R and D

After three years in research and development, Lucas approached Butte-based bear spray makers UDAP Industries with his invention.

Tim Lynch, general manager for UDAP, said it was a concept other inventors had presented to the company, but UDAP never made the jump to do its own research and development. Lucas was different.

“When he showed up he had a working prototype, which the other inventors didn’t,” Lynch said.

He was so impressed that he shot a video of the backpack to show the bloody face of the bear spray business to the company’s founder, Mark Matheny. After reaching a licensing and distribution deal, last April UDAP unveiled its Back Attack Pack ($149) that can accommodate spray canisters of different sizes and be lashed on to a variety of backpacks.

“It’s exciting to go into a store and see something hanging on the shelf that you’ve built,” Lucas said. “That’s pretty cool.”

Last shot

The backpacks are made to be a secondary or last defense — used in addition to a handheld bear spray.

Lynch said he sees the device as a valuable backup for hunters — who while dressing game can be blindsided from behind by a territorial bear looking to claim a big-game kill. He said an Alaskan study showed that in the majority of bear-human encounters, the person had only 1.8 seconds to react. That’s barely enough time to pull the trigger on a bear spray canister in your hand, so a backup seems like a good idea.

“This is designed to get that bear off your back,” Lynch said. “It’s not to replace spray, but in addition to it. This is sort of a backup, like a reserve parachute.”

To view the original story in the Billings Gazette… Click here.

To order the Back Attack Pack or learn more visit:

www.BearSpray.com

What Makes Pepper Spray So Effective?

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Most of us have heard of pepper spray. It is used by military and police forces to subdue dangerous criminals in a non-lethal way. Popular shows, such as “Cops” and “CSI” have shown or portrayed pepper spray being used to stop attackers. Some of these attackers are under the influence of very dangerous drugs, such as methamphetamines, hallucinogenics, and extremely high amounts of alcohol and unknown mixtures of any number of drugs. These drugs can make users stronger, less susceptible to pain and more volatile. So, how is it that one substance, such as pepper spray, can stop them all? Why is it so effective?

The Science Behind the Spray

Pepper spray is a derivative of cayenne pepper, more specifically, various parts of the cayenne pepper plant. When this derivative is sprayed on an assailant, it invades the lungs, eyes and sinuses. Once there, it causes burning and swelling, incapacitating the would-be assailant. A person that has been sprayed with pepper spray cannot fight back because he or she cannot breathe. The inability to breath stops the attacker, regardless of the drug or drugs he or she may be on.

The active ingredient in pepper spray is capsaicin. It is the same ingredient that gives cayenne and other peppers their sting. However, with pepper spray, the capsaicin is extremely concentrated, resulting in what is known as a substance called oleoresin capsicum. Once introduced to the respiratory system, oleoresin capsicum has the ability to render any individual helpless.

What Makes Pepper Spray So Effective

College Campus Safety

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For those going to college for the first time this fall, safety is something on everyone’s minds. Many news outlets shout out how sexual offenses and assault are “practically an epidemic” on college campuses. Furthermore, frightening statistics show that college-aged students are at the highest risk of being the victim of several types of crime. Some of these are committed by someone the victim knows well. But as chilling as these can be, the news tends to hype up bad news for more views. More importantly, there are things you can do to prevent yourself from becoming a statistic.

Nobody should have to face becoming a victim of crime first-hand, and although it is never the fault of the victim, there are still plenty of things that college-age students can do to keep themselves safe.

Walking to Class or Walking Home

Contrary to what some people believe, most crimes aren’t committed by strangers who attack women or other vulnerable groups late at night. Many crimes can be committed by fellow students you know. But night attacks can still happen as there tend to be fewer witnesses at night, making criminals – both familiar and unfamiliar – bold enough to attack.

To protect yourself, try not to go out by yourself after dark if you can help it. Walk with friends, try to stick to well-lit or crowded places, avoid shortcuts, and don’t wear headphones or earbuds. If someone asks you for directions or a question from a vehicle, answer from a distance. Don’t get within arm’s length of the vehicle. Finally, if you are attacked during your walk, it helps to have a can of pepper spray with you. Pepper spray is very painful when sprayed into the eyes, and it has been known to incapacitate even the largest and most dangerous assailants.

College Campus Safety

Drink and Party Responsibly

Whether people want to admit it or not, drinking alcohol and partying is a big part of the college experience. Schools are full of young men and women who are away from home for the first time and may be getting their first true taste of alcohol. Needless to say, many freshmen don’t handle alcohol responsibly; if you’re wondering whether you are one of the many, you could check this out to see if any of the points made here ring true with you. Becoming drunk means you aren’t thinking straight, meaning it is easier for you to make decisions you regret when you are sober. It’s easier to get into a fight or take violent actions. It makes you an easier target to pickpocket or steal from. And, sadly, many people also take advantage of this kind of irresponsible drinking and use it as a chance (or excuse?) to have sexual encounters.

Know your limits with each type of alcoholic drink and stop when you have had enough when to prevent you from becoming drunk. If going to a nightclub keep your valuables secure or consider using a “get your ID here” website to get a copy ID so your real ID stays safe. Don’t drink on an empty stomach since that will cause the alcohol to be absorbed by your body more quickly. Always make sure that you have a sober friend with you and keep a close eye on your drink so that nobody has the chance to slip something into it.

Tell friends where you are

Whether you are frequenting a bar you know like the back of your hand or you are visiting a new friend at their home off-campus, tell a friend where you are. If you plan to go other places in the night tell them that too, and tell them when you get home safely. Should anything happen, your friends and law enforcement will have a record of your last steps to find and help you. To help aid communication, make sure you have the best wifi for college students in your accommodation. This will allow you to message friends and family instantly should there ever be any trouble, and will also allow you to receive messages straight away from friends in need.

Stay calm and respect boundaries

College is a place where stress flies high and where it’s easy to get worked up over the littlest things. You’ll also be in contact with people from all different kinds of backgrounds, and what they may find comfortable, you may not. Many incidents on college campuses happen because stress was not handled well or because personal and physical boundaries were not respected.

If someone says no it means no. If you feel a fellow college student is being problematic on campus there are many things you can do. You can seek help from the faculty staff or report incidents to them. You can intervene and tell that person to respect boundaries but ensure your safety and the safety of other people will not be compromised by doing this.

Trust your gut

Above all else, learn to trust your gut whenever you’re in an unfamiliar situation. If something doesn’t feel right to you or you feel uncomfortable about a certain situation, don’t be afraid to leave. Your intuition can tell you more than you know, so you should listen to it at all times. It could save your life. And be sure to carry UDAP Pepper Spray the world’s hottest pepper spray!

Real Estate Market is Booming

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The real estate market is booming, in part thanks to the oil field workers. Realtors are having problems finding houses to sell and sellers are benefiting from the bidding wars on multiple offers.

And while the multiple offers sound good, it’s not all good for realtors. Recently, in New York, a homeless man robbed a real estate agent at knife point as she showed him an empty house. According to USA Today, 2 real estate agents were killed as they were showing a house and another robbed.

Real Estate Agents need to show houses, but they need to stay safe as well! UDAP has an electric stun gun with a flashlight to help. The agent can carry the stun gun in his/her hand while showing a house, using it as a flashlight and it’s ready to go if needed. Keep yourself safe. For more information, you can view our entire selection at UDAP.com!

Real Estate Market is Booming

Smartphone Theft On The Rise

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Smartphone thefts rose again in 2013 despite efforts to stop them.  According to the Huffington Post, it has become an epidemic of violent street crimes. Police Departments nation wide have stepped up efforts to educate the public on Smartphone theft safety to prevent being a victim of robbery.

Smartphone Theft On The Rise

There is currently a nationwide effort to encourage Smartphone makers to create a “kill switch” that will render the phone useless if stolen. Some companies are implementing kill switches and while others are looking at it, Smartphone users need to become more aware of their surroundings. Watch the people around them, whether sitting in a restaurant or walking down the street.

UDAP Pepper Power has two products that can assist you in staying safe. UDAP self defense pepper spray!

Bear Spray Can Prevent Dog Attacks Too!

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Now that the weather has gotten nicer, many folks are walking around their neighborhoods and walking paths, taking in the beautiful the spring colors and warmth. Enjoying the warm sun until a dog jumps out of the bushes and charges! UDAP Bear Spray can stop a grizzly bear but it can also stop a ferocious dog as well.

Here is a link to a story where a man was attacked by a dog in Lethbridge, Canada. The dog had never attacked anyone before, the owner stated.  You never know where or when an angry dog will come at you when you are out walking, so be sure to always carry your UDAP Bear Spray!

Bear Spray Can Prevent Dog AttacksRead more of the Lethbridge, Canada attack here…