TTAG reader JW sent the sarcastic message above. His emailed us a heads-up on a Today Show story that doesn’t once mention self-defense firearms: How to protect your family from home invasion. [Note: how to protect your family “from” a home invasion, not “during.”] Here’s the set-up:  “According to the FBI, nearly 50,000 robberies within residences (the bureau’s classification for home invasions, not all of which involve violent entry) occurred in 2011, or about 135 per day. In July 2013, Susan Dawson came face to face with an intruder in her Fountain Hills, Arizona, home . . .

“It was absolutely one of the most frightening things I’ve ever gone through,” she said. “I went, ‘Oh my gosh, who are you?’ He took a couple of steps and punched me in the nose, and down I went.”

The attacker tied Dawson up and ransacked her home. “I laid there and he’d keep going through the bedroom looking for stuff,” Dawson said. “What I was thinking of most is, ‘How is he going to kill me?'”

Who needs that? Sounds to me like a clear-cut case of It Should Have Been a Defensive Gun Use. Home carry, people. Home carry.

Anyway, thank you for your patience. Here’s the money shot of non-ballistic defensive stupidity you’ve been waiting for. It arrives courtesy of retired New York City Detective and hostage negotiator Wallace Zeins. A private investigator – armed courtesy of his pals in the force no doubt – who spent his 22-year law enforcement career in an urban “gun-free zone.”

Zeins suggests keeping another item in your bedroom: “Buy a can of wasp hornet spray in the hardware store or the supermarket, keep it by your bedside or the floor,” he said. “It’s more powerful than police Mace.

“The great part is, when you spray, it will go 20 to 25 feet,” Zeins added. An intruder hit with the spray will be temporarily blinded.

Zeins has another tip: Sleep with all your bedroom doors open. You want your kids to hear what’s going on; then you can get the family all in one place and leave together.

In a worst-case scenario — if you are captured by an intruder, like Susan Dawson — you should cooperate and tell them where the valuables are, Zeins advises.

“You tell them exactly where it is. You want to get them out of there as quickly as you can,” he said. “Remember, treat them like royalty. On top of that, you don’t want to lie to them.”

Here’s another approach: treat home invaders like vermin. Very. Dangerous. Vermin. Home carry, shoot to stop before the bad guy or guys or gal or gals punch you in the nose, tie you up and/or much, much worse. That is all.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

116 COMMENTS

    • Not the first time I’ve heard some joker tell people to use wasp spray as a weapon. Funny thing is, when I checked out the label on the can in my garage, it stated words to the effect of:

      “Using this for any reason other than its original purpose (wasp control) is a violation of federal law.”

      So thanks a million to this f*cking clown and his shitty advice. This guy advocates breaking federal law and he gets the admiration of statist media and house fraus.

      But if a guy makes a supressor out of a plastic coke bottle as a joke on YouTube the only thing he will get is 10 years in the slammer.

      • So how bad of a federal offense would it be if you held a BIC lighter in front of the wasp spray and used it as a flame thrower? I suspect your home insurance company would have a problem with that, as well.

    • Wow, the Mozambique drill? It seems as though I’ve stumbled into an (internet) den full of stone cold (keyboard) killers!

  3. Can of wasp spray…

    With a cigarette lighter. Or Dragon’s Breath shells.

    Just kidding – don’t use DB for home defense. Unless you are Professional Russian.

    • New York state of mind. (Or lack thereof.)

      NYC state of mind, not NY state, in my part of the state we all have carry
      Permits.no test to take good for life,well until the safe act they were .

      That said sleep with your bedroom doors closed,stops fire spread,and the smoke that kills you first

      • Finally, someone else speaks up about this. NYS is not the same as NYC. In Western NY you are surprised if someone is refused a pistol permit. In NYC, the angels sing when someone gets one.

      • Larry: Problem is that the NYC mentality will tend to leach out into the State if it is not challenged. NYC needs to realize that keeping law abiding citizens from protecting themselves is NOT the answer to their problems. You mentioned the “safe act” changing the lifetime status of concealed permits. Isn’t that an example of the NYC mentality leaching out into the State? We all need to make sure that these idiots that think controlling guns instead of tackling the real issues with criminals and the mentally ill is not the answer to controlling violence. Typically most of these efforts are little more than political posturing to try to get votes from the anti-gun crowd. Could be a few really think they are helping but those folks need to be brought out of the darkness and into the light.

  5. You might be able to hold off a burglar with some stupid gimick… but the type of people who do Home Invasions are very hard core gangsters and prepared for conflict. They expect it. They are coming in to do some hurt and don’t mind catching a few scratches or bruises in return. You better have a gun to protect yourself and family.

    • One man (Richard Speck) was single-handedly able to rape and kill eight young women at one time, at his leisure, because they “co-operated” with him and allowed him to tie them up with torn sheets from their own beds. A ninth survived because he literally lost count of his victims and she managed to hide under a bed. An athletic young woman managed to fight her elderly attacker to a standstill, but wound up being held captive and raped before ultimately being murdered because she decided to “cooperate’ with her attacker and let him tie her up. This guy can take his advice and insert it in the orifice of his choice

      • Was it the Zodiac Killer that tied up a couple at a lake because he said he only wanted the keys to thier car?. After they were tied up, he stabbed them to death.

        • The male survived, barely. If I remember correctly he was a sociology student. Wasp spray works on wasps not pyschos on meth, crack, smack or other pharmacologics. Thanks to youtube & expierence a lot have learned how to defeat a taser. A .357 or 9mm applied properly is the best solution.
          2 to the chest 1 to the head tepeat as needed.

  7. And guess what? By using a can of wasp spray, you’re violating federal regulation & law.

    Use of pesticides “off label” is a violation of several EPA regulations. Using them for self defense or use on pests not on the label is “off label.”

    • and the EPA has their own storm troopers. . . . . who wouldn’t hesitate to kick in your door and shoot your dog either.

    • I would never take the advice of a former LAPD, NYPD, DCPD, or Chicago PD cop. They have all been brainwashed that anyone carrying a gun that isn’t a cop is a criminal.

      • So, your the guy that’s been doing that! I thought there was a reason I can’t sleep well on the mattress I bought.
        Gimmie my god dam tag back!

    • Even if you negate that use by degrading their effect by way of lighting them while dispensing? Just want to make sure of the rules…

      • You may degrade the ingredients, but likely have it blow in both your faces. Not a good thing 🙂

        Since it would be a fire you created, likely deemed as arson related by the insurance company, they will most likely not cover any damage. You know how insurance companies love not to pay when they find a way out of it.

    • Absolutely.
      With today’s EPA working in a “Three Felonies a Day” world, I’d be very careful about using any non-specified chemical for self defense.
      This ex-NYPD jackhole should be careful about what he preaches. IF Mr Zeins trains someone who DOES bug spray a home invading degenerate, Mr Zeins may be the recipient of a large civil judgement (courtesy of said degenerate). This is NYC after all…

    • 9mm? You expect to take one out with one of those pea shooters? You need a big caliber to take them down, at least a .45 to better your odds of hitting them. If you wing one with a 9mm you’ll just piss it off. God forbid a swarm comes after you, then you better hope you have a 12 gauge handy to stand a chance.

      • Your comment is ill informed. 9 mm is plenty of fire power for self defense. “Stopping power” in handguns is a myth. None of them will work like a shotgun but a couple shots to the chest will likely kill an attacker.

        • They were joking about shooting actual wasps, unless you thought they meant their intruders might be white, Anglo-Saxon protestants.

        • Stopping power is defined as the transference of kinetic energy from the bullet to the target. Saying that such a thing is a myth is like saying terminal ballistics is a myth.

          • I’ve never heard that definition, but I don’t think it really matters. Rarely is anyone stopped in their tracks after one hit unless it’s to the central nervous system (brain stem or spine). Even hitting someone in the heart gives them up to 20 seconds to finish you off. Most or at least the majority of self defense situations don’t require a single shot. Since your fine motor control disappears under all that stress, your hit rate will diminish. So even if you are right about the definition, It’s irrelevant. It’s like real estate, location, location, location.

      • 12 ga works great on wasps. Took out a giant nest up a tree several years back. Took them OUT, no stings whatsoever (unlike using wasp spray). Nest never came back, must have killed the queen.

        So there. I have first-hand proof that guns are better on wasps than wasp spray.

  9. Wasp spray, it isn’t just for wasps anymore…..or does it only work on white anglo saxon protestant intruders?

  10. Well ok let’s start with this:
    “First, spraying someone with wasp spray can carry serious legal ramifications since federal law prohibits insect sprays from being used for anything other than their intended purpose.”
    Yup if it is clearly a method of defense you could be charged with a crime. So the Today Show just told people to break the law.

    Here is a nice little break down of sprays and what they do. Right tool for the job people, simple as that.
    http://americanpreppersnetwork.com/2014/01/does-bear-spray-or-wasp-spay-work-for-self-defense.html

    Need more proof?
    Here is a story regarding an intruder in North Bend Washington.
    “Boonstra attacked the 29-year-old man in the front entry way of the house, she said. The husband sprayed the wasp spray at Boonstra but it had no effect and the baseball bat broke during the struggle, Larson said.
    “This was truly a fight for their lives. And it went on for an extended period of time,” she said.
    At some point, “the husband was having trouble controlling the suspect and called out to his wife,” Larson said. That’s when the woman ran to the kitchen and retrieved a knife, fatally stabbing Boonstra.”
    http://snovalleystar.com/2013/05/15/north-bend-intruder-had-job-was-father-of-five

    Also if you have kids, do you want a chemical laying by your bedside where they can get to it? I would rather have a pistol in a bed side safe, knowing it is locked up.

    • Hey, he’s a PI now. So he lives off the crumbs that fall from the LEOs table. He needs all the publicity he can get now – no more steady paycheck and discounts. And I guess his [cushy] pension doesn’t fulfill his needs.

  12. I mean, aside from the fact that using wasp spray on anything than wasps is a punishable offense (says so on the can) it’s been proven to be pretty ineffective when it comes to incpacitation. Yeah, it smears all around and stings a bit, but it’s a toxin made for wasps. Not people.

    Had that same thing circulating around work. And had a laugh.

  13. “Treat them like royalty”?!? Really? I mean seriously, who even HAS a guillotine in their home these days?

    • After further review, I guess that’s not what he meant, huh? In “treat them like royalty”, he apparently meant more along the lines of, offer them a cup of tea and some polite conversation. What an a$$hole.

        • I agree, but unfortunately I doubt a jury would believe they were still a threat to you if you can manage to get their neck(s) under the blade. Shame. Perhaps a horizontal blade trap á la ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ instead?

    • Ooooh, I do!!! It was part of a set up for a photography business that was just getting underway when I got sick again. It might just do the job if the perp cooperates.

      Otherwise I have a hot lead (steel) hose courtesy of Mossberg, and an SKS to act as deterrents. And a vicious, mean temper. The only defense is attack. Toujours l’audace!

  14. I have heard this advice before. What most people do not realizes that lethal force is defined as force that can kill or do grave bodily harm. Loss of a sense, such as sight is considered grave bodily harm. So, bug spray which able to blind people, is actually lethal force.

  16. When seconds count, the police are minutes,…. Oh nevermind……..

    Perhaps this expert’s (used loosely), advice works on the “sheeple” in society, especially the disarmed masses in Draconian anti gun law states, but 911 will be utilized, for me, to get this scumbags bleeding carcass off my floor, and than calling Servpro, to clean up the mess.

    Who the hell are these pacifist metrosexual sheep? Right up there with urinating on a rapist or telling him it’s “that time of the month” to stop the assault. Female Rep. From Colorado stated that brilliance.

    I’ve worn a dent in my table from banging my head against it.
    Geez,…..

      • I would love the chance to tell people like that to come right on and use my gun against me, if you think it’s going to be easy. Right here! Right now! Come and take it!

      • While she wasn’t allowed the tools to dispatch her assailant, fortunately the Colorado voters were allowed to use theirs. She resigned as opposed to face her sure recall.

        • it would be nice for TTAG to do a follow up on those Colorado legislators and see what they are doing now with all o the extra time on their hands. . . .

      • Hudak was the subject of a third recall petition for her condescending speech to the young woman who testified. The Colorodo Democratic Party “strongly urged” her to resign so govrner Hickenlooper could appoint a Democratic replacement. Polls taken at the time of her resignation showed that she likely would have been recalled and replaced by her Republican opponent giving the Rupblicans control of the state senate.

    • Keep a record of the SERVPRO bills and take the intruder’s estate to small claims court for reimbursement. If he’s indigent, than file a claim with the state if they have one of those victim’s assistance funds set up.

  17. Did the ‘journalists’ behind this story ask the logical question:

    ‘So, Mr. Zeins– what do you keep and plan on using for self-defense in your home?’

      • War conventions are regulating only state military forces in case of war.
        As far as you being disarmed by some leftist freaks of nature, you are not even part of “well regulated milita”.

        • First of all, it is a felony to use the wasp spray for self defense (read the label, folks!). Second, “Well-regulated” just means that you are trained, and “militia” means anyone with a gun that will serve for civil defense. Finally, the Constitution’s Preamble makes it more than obvious that the rights listed are FOR THE PEOPLE… The Military as we know it didn’t exist, and (as a government entity) the Bill of Rights wouldn’t apply.

  21. As with any situation if I feel my life or my families life is in immediate jeopardy, I certainly don’t want to rely on the knock down power of wasp spray.

    I have seen seasoned LEO’s who get mace in their own eyes and on their face during a struggle rendering them partially incapacitated. If someone is in MY ROOM , which is where they want us to store the wasp spray, you better believe that my reaction will be swift and purposeful. It will not be my intention to maim or injure the perpetrator, but rather to neutralize the threat as quickly as possible. If someone loses eyesight while breaking into my house and entering my room, it will be because of an entrance wound from a bullet and not due to wasp spray.

  24. Unfortunately for those who live in the gunfreetopia of NYC and similar places, wasp spray may be all that they can muster for self defense. However, I would suggest as an alternative good old fashion bear spray. If bear spray can drive off a Grizzly it can stun an intruder but you better be prepared to take some “seasoning” yourself and immediately follow up the spray with some blunt force trauma before he recovers.

  25. Lemme get this shit straight in my mind:

    If in the middle of a home invasion:

    1. Hide or run from your own home.
    2. Or huddle together with your kids and hope for the best.
    3. Use wasp spray if feeling saucy and daring to go “armed.”
    3. If none of that works, treat em like royalty.

    If about to be raped:

    1. Pee, poop or vomit on yourself.
    2. Tell them you’re on your period
    3. Blow your rape whistle.

    You know, there is such a thing as having basic dignity as a human being, and it matters. The people who give this kind advice give it because they don’t recognize the value of yours.

    People like the detective have the peculiar liberal disease of thinking everyone but them and theirs are unwashed masses deserving of contempt, with little human value, and who require their benevolent guidance. So they stoop low to the gutter to speak nonsense at the peasants.

    Typical libtard advice. Submit, and be thankful that your dose of the business wasn’t worse this time.

    John Wayne wouldn’t put up with that shit.

    No thanks asshole. We’ll keep our guns.

    • These are homilies given to people who have already been made helpless. Since they see themselves as powerless, it’s unthinkable for them to even imagine how they might seize the moment and actually defend themselves. Telling women to pee on themselves or blow a “rape whistle” is a pathetic act of hubris. No authority advocating such a “defense” actually believes doing that would be effective. It’s just something to make the sheeple feel good about themselves. It’s like telling people that calling 911 will somehow save them from imminent harm when, in fact, you’re more likely to simply leave behind a recording of your demise.

  27. Here’s another approach: treat home invaders like vermin. Very. Dangerous. Vermin. Home carry, shoot to stop before the bad guy or guys or gal or gals punch you in the nose, tie you up and/or much, much worse. That is all.

    Or Will Hayden you. Don’t want to get Hayden’d. He’ll cover your mouth with his hand with a lit joint between his fingers. Now that is some vermin right there.

  29. If you leave a full can of wasp spray partially protruding from your rectum, when and if you have an intruder in your home you can just yell out to the intruder/attacker as a faux-warning “Watch Out that bat-sh_t crazy dude has another can of wasp-spray!!!…” And they will turn and run.

  30. Zeins has another tip: Sleep with all your bedroom doors open. You want your kids to hear what’s going on…

    That dope doesn’t have a wife or a sleep-in GF, or he never would have said that.

  31. Here’s an idea for the few “Non gun believers” that might be listening. Keep several wasps in a jar. When your assailant attacks, and you put him down with your magical wasp spray, just kill the wasps in the jar, and then sprinkle them on the fallen comrade, and tell the “man” when he arrives, that you were just spraying some pesky wasps, and didn’t notice anybody coming in with them!

  32. They should just have told people to bend over and take it.
    Sissified America brought to you by, “The Today Show.”

    • Former NYPD Det. Sgt. for 30 yrs; ret. commanding officer Manhattan Detectives Nightwatch; supervisor Hostage Negotiation Team; law-enforcement reporter

      I guess the “law-enforcement reporter” thing was the interview?

  35. Mr. Zeins should team up with the NY Times and start up a class called “Passive cooperation for Victims”. The fine print can read “death or extreme bodily harm may or may not occur”.

  38. I should thank this guy, I now have a name for my home defense shotgun! A home intruder can easily be hit at 25 feet, but temporary blindness won’t be his major problem at that point.

  39. Most commonly sold pesticides today are so banal as to be nearly worthless for use on anything larger than small insects. It is impossible to find any pesticides without licensing that use any other chemical family other than pyrethrins/pyrethroids, which disrupt the nervous systems of insects.

    Gone are the days when you could get powerful organophosphates/organochlorides without an applicator’s license. Today, about all that you can get your hands on without a license is malathion, and you can practically soak your clothes and skin in malathion and not get anywhere close to the LD50 exposure. The EPA has set up the pesticide market so that anything remotely effective requires an applicator’s license and inventory tracking. There’s a reason why bedbugs are coming back in a great proliferation, and it isn’t only the fact that we’re allowing an increasing number of the third world to decamp from their rustic origins into our civilization without actually requiring that they adopt civilized behavior – like hygiene and basic home sanitation.

    If you’re seeking something that, if sprayed in the attacker’s face, would blind him, you need to look to cleaning products for your off-label application. Things like oven cleaners – and only specific oven cleaners. You should seek out oven cleaners that contain lye, aka caustic soda, aka “sodium hydroxide,” aka NaOH, as one of the major cleaning ingredients. Lye is nothing to fool around with, and if applied to someone’s eyes will result in permanent blindness within a minute or two, at most.

    Gunsmiths often have to work around highly caustic chemicals, and lye is one of those chemicals. “Hot blueing” salts are basically lye, sodium nitrate and water in proportions such that the devil’s brew will boil at about 285F. They’re caustic as a fishwife’s tongue and require the utmost care and precaution in handling. More than one gunsmith’s shooting career has ended because of getting a small amount of blueing salts splashed into his eye(s).

    Then, the bit of this career law enforcement “professional’s” advice that really sets me off is this:

    “Remember, treat them like royalty. On top of that, you don’t want to lie to them.”

    Yea, right. OK, here’s a little tidbit for all you “law enforcement professionals” reading this blog:

    Go read the FBI UCR.

    Start plugging the numbers into spreadsheets.

    Notice a trend therein: The more force the victim uses to resist an attack the better the outcome for the victim.

    In other words, “treating them (the attackers) like royalty” goes against the large, statistical trend in the UCR data.

    I’d like to propose a new qualification for becoming a law enforcement officer (besides my previously desired IQ test, requiring a result of 120 or better to pass): That they read the reams of data in the FBI UCR and be able to pick out trends and patterns. This would prevent such “career professionals” from spouting such codswallop and prattle as the above.

    For those of us who are “civilians:” Remember this: Most everything “law enforcement professionals” tell you on home/self defense is a complete crock of crap. They have no interest, professional or personal, in your safety. If the victims of the world rose up and decided to kick criminal ass with ferocity and consistency, these “law enforcement professionals” would be out of a job (and also their cushy pension/health care packages) in a short time – so it is against their financial interests to offer advice that works.

    • Your mention of the chemical “Malathion” brings back memories of the spraying of that stuff down in the San Francisco Bay area, to eliminate the “Med Fly”, back in I think the mid eighties??
      The helicopters, used to come at night, several at a time, and get that crap all over everybody’s car.

  41. “Treat them like royalty.” That’s one of the most pathetic things I’ve heard in my entire life. He’s recommending putting your life in the hands of someone who’s intention may be murder or rape all along, and saying “thank you sir may I please have another.” Oh and God forbid you’re dishonest with a criminal. But I guess those things are your only options when you are disarmed and pre-conditioned to be a good little victim. Anyone who violates the sanctity of my home and attempts to harm myself or my family is only going to get a one way ticket to hell out of me (to paraphrase Steven Segal).

  42. I’ve been sprayed in the face with wasp spray before.

    It hurt my eyes, yeah, but didn’t blind me, cause involuntary coughing or anything like that, and it sure didn’t stop me from grabbing the brat that did it and dragging him to his house so he could explain his ‘prank’ to his mother.

    Incidentally, the little sh*thead ambushed me with a paintball gun the next day as revenge for me getting him trouble. I’d anticipated trouble, however, and was carrying a slingshot and some of those half inch white glass ‘tracer’ marbles…

    (For the curious, I was 16 and he was 12 or 13 at the time).

  43. I hope that former nypd clown reads this post and the comments.
    At the risk of my comment being moderated, he is an idiot.

  44. It never ceases to amaze me the stupid crap anti gunners come up with. It’s hard to imagine people who can be that dumb.

  45. Wasp spray may very well blind someone, so you’re probably moving into the category of only being able to justify using it if you’re reasonably in fear of serious bodily injury. Given that fact, why not use a gun, which will be much more likely to work?

    If wasp spray was such a good defensive mechanism against robbers NYC would ban it, for the children.

  46. Wasp spray is an incredibly poor bit of advice. The last person I know of that used wasp spray to try and fend off an attacker got the crap beat out of them so badly they ended up in the ICU

  47. So, once you use the spray inside your home, it becomes a hazardous waste site. The EPA will come in and take your house over. They will demolish it and charge you $10,000,000.00 for the cleanup and disposal of the contaminated building materials. In our present economy, 50 cents per round of ammunition is the most cost effective way to go.

  48. Well then, I suggest that all cops carry bug spray, sell their guns and use the money to buy safe cars that they and their buddies, also with bug spray, and run to and hide while the perps get away.

  49. The Use-Wasp-Spray-It’s-Better-Than-OC rumor is always being resurrected on the gun boards, and good Lord but it pisses me off when I see it. Again. And Again.

  50. “… if you are captured by an intruder, like Susan Dawson — you should cooperate and tell them where the valuables are, Zeins advises. “You tell them exactly where it is. You want to get them out of there as quickly as you can,” he said. “Remember, treat them like royalty. On top of that, you don’t want to lie to them.”

    And when they decide to rape you and cut your throat, be sure to tell them where the condoms and your sharpest kitchen knife are – all part of treating them like royalty.

    Retired New York City Detective and hostage negotiator Wallace Zeins is, in my humble 1st Amendment-protected opinion, a totally worthless POS. He is apparently a supporter of the Union of Concerned Rapists and Muggers, since he wants to make sure the home invasion scum are not shot by any homeowners.

  51. What if he doesn’t want the damn valuables? Ever hear of BTK? What if the valuables he wants are your family’s lives?

    ‘sides, I don’t keep wasp spray in the house, WD40 is just as effective, cheaper, and not nearly as toxic.

  52. When recessing a plasma display unit, allow a minimum of 3 inches of open space with
    the top with the unit and adequate ventilation space of at
    the very least 2 inches behind it at the same time.
    Most users also discover the images to be excellent when watching Blu-ray or DVDs.

    HDMI Adapter: Connecting HDMI port to one more sort of video port.
    This does result within an even top quality of picture along with the single HDMI cable also
    allows sound to get carried in addition to video. Rca to hdmi

Comments are closed.