I am thinking about giving out stunguns as presents to a couple of ladies I know. At least untill I can convince them that guns are not evil. I want to make sure these little things are worth the trouble first. Anyone had any experience with stunguns and seen or felt if they are really a worthwhile deterent?
One point of clarification, the question asks about stun guns, a very different item than Tasers. There is a night and day difference between the two devices and Salekdarling provided a good view of a police issue Taser.
A Taser will tick a person off, and it will have an actual physiological effect whereas the stun gun won't.
This is a video of a bull being Tasered to show it's not a psychological effect (animal control version):
http://www.truveo.com/used-bull-getting-tasered/id/4258813354
Notice what the bull does when it gets back up!~ And that's an old style Taser.
This is a video of girl stun gunned that shows stun guns are a joke (posted by some guy who doesn't know a Taser from a stun gun:
another one, it's merely irritating:
This kid is taking short shocks, but it shows he's still in control of it. (In contrast, a Taser goes for seconds when activated.)
Notice this young man isn't deterred from going to the next highest level device, he's hesitant at most, amused and he doesn't even have the sick motivation of a predator but he continues self inflicting the shocks.
A predator, is different than the individuals you see shy away from the devices in the video. By nature, most show in these clips aren't predators, their instinct is to get away, an aggressive individual, which includes most predators will have the instinct to remain in the fight and simply redirect the device.
A stun gun is worthless against an aggressive or knowledgeable perp, especially in the hands of most women. While a Taser is a ranged device (short range), a stun gun requires physical contact, which puts a person right there in arms reach of the perp when he's irritated and the contact is easily broken.
I received the formal training for one of the stun guns they tried to sell to law enforcement and there's a reason police carry Tasers, as opposed to stun guns. In training I received two 'burn' marks from so long a charge the marks took months to go away, but even then, the device didn't deter me, nor did it cause more than mild irritation.
An intelligent, experienced predator would much prefer his victim have a stun gun than not have one, because if she's foolish enough to have a stun gun, she might think it's worth grabbing first and stand her ground. If she grabs her cell phone and runs the Cops will eventually arrive so that limits time he has with her. If she simply uses her nails she'd mark her perp's face, but if she relies upon a stun gun she'll 1. Instantly have her confidence eroded when it means nothing to the perp, 2. she wasted her initial response and 3. resorted to a crap device that required her to stay in easy reach of the perp.
She'd be better off trying to run away while dialing 911.
[Make contact with fingers, gonads, jaw bones, and you'll have some better effects. They suck when applied to joints! Now having a physically fit, aggressive trained individual who has the ability to make and maintain a decent contact with a modern stun gun for seconds as part of a team is a totally different story. Handing a PR 24 or even an ASP to a woman with no training to defend themselves against a determined perp is similar in being a bad use of a device.]
Back to Tasers, there's a problem there as well...the civilian accessible version has a much shorter range than the police version.