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The thing is that if you have pepper spray with you and use your gun instead, you will need to be able to articulate why a reasonable and prudent person in like circumstances and knowing what you know would have concluded that lethal force was necessary and that the pepper spray would have been inadequate. How would you do that?
If I were in that position, I'd be able to refer back to my documented training and my understanding, from that training, that pepper spray may not act quickly and that a determined adversary, especially with a lethal weapon, would be able to fight through the effects and thus remain a lethal threat. I would also probably need to show that under the circumstances, if I tried pepper spray and it didn't work, I would not have had time to resort to lethal force. And I would hope to have one or more expert witnesses to back that up.
That said, I agree with maestro pistolero. It is a good idea to have some non-lethal option available. As BillCA points out, there are situations in which something like pepper spray is both adequate and more appropriate.
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