Do Not Carry Expired Pepper Spray

Pepper spray can be an excellent self defense tool and most people can easily learn how to use it effectively. However, a pepper spray canister does not last forever. Although the pepper ingredient (oleoresin capsicum or OC) does not lose its effectiveness (ask me how I know)—the propellant can and does lose its ability to spray properly over time.

You might have been wondering about the picture of piggies. Last year we had some wild pig visitations and they apparently found the grubs in my front yard particularly appealing. If you have never had piggies paying attention to your lawn, they can and will destroy it and can do so in a remarkably short period of time. A lawn that piggies have attacked looks like a drunken farmer plowed it in the dark.

As I was attempting to devise a way to discourage their interest, I decided to spray OC from expired pepper spray canisters on the yard. Spoiler alert: OC did not appear to bother piggies in the slightest, so this is not a way to discourage their interest in a lawn. During this process, all the expired pepper spray canisters did expel their contents in some manner; however, some simply dribbled the contents on my hand rather than spraying. There was no external indication showing which expired canister would spray and which was going to dribble.  I did notice that the smaller canisters tended to dribble more than the larger ones. This is perhaps due to the lower percentage of propellant in the smaller canisters.

Most pepper spray canisters have either a manufacturer date or an expiration date stamped on them somewhere for a reason. The standard expiration is five years from date of manufacture or on the noted date. The picture on right is a canister that was manufactured on April 10, 2016 and expired on April 10, 2021. You should not use expired pepper spray canisters because they may dribble the contents all over your hand or fail to spray at all. 

Replace expired pepper spray canisters and properly dispose of the expired canisters. This may mean throwing away canisters that are not empty, but this is a small cost in the broader scheme of things. Since the ability to maintain distance is a key advantage of pepper spray, do not rely on expired canisters for protection—you may get a dribble instead of a spray which will compound rather than solve your problem.

The “Old” Bakersfield Police Department Qualification

There are numerous discussions of the “Old” Bakersfield Police Department Qualification floating around on the internet. I believe I first encountered a description when I read Andy Stanford’s article “R.I.P. Mike Waidelich Requiem for an Unsung Hero” that discussed Mike Waidelich and the concept behind his development of the qualification (see note below for additional information).

According to Stanford’s article, in 1967 the Bakersfield Police Chief appointed Mike Waidelich as the department firearms rangemaster with specific instructions to improve the department’s firearms training program -- he served in this position for twelve years. Waidelich developed the ten round Bakersfield handgun qualification during that time.

The “Old” Bakersfield Police Department Qualification is as follows:

    -- Two rounds in 1.5 seconds at 10 feet

    -- Two rounds in 2.0 seconds at 20 feet

    -- Two reload Two in 6.0 seconds (8.0 for revolvers) at 30 feet

    -- Two rounds in 3.5 seconds at 60 feet

I use the term “old” because I see several internet sources discussing what they purport to be the “new” Bakersfield Police Department Qualification. I doubt that this is accurate since from my research, the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) requires a minimum of thirty-six rounds to be fired at five, seven, and fifteen yards with the handgun (LD 35 of the PC 832 Arrest and Firearms Training Specifications). I can find no official document concerning the current Bakersfield Police Department Qualification course of fire. I would appreciate any official references that provide this information.

Per Stanford’s article, the old qualification scoring was shot on a silhouette target with a 7-inch circular ten-point scoring zone, with the next scoring zone measuring 9×13 inches earning nine points, and finally hits anywhere else on the silhouette scoring six points.

Additionally, the scoring method provided for time penalties of one point per quarter second (0.25 sec) over the time allowed for the string. So, if you fired two shots in 1.5 seconds at 10 feet, you received zero penalties; however, at 1.75 seconds you lost 1 point, at 2.0 seconds you lost 2 points, etc. This was before the widespread availability of electronic timers and the rangemaster likely used an analog stopwatch for recording the time to the quarter of a second. As one might expect, the timer’s reaction time introduced some variance to the measurement.

Paraphrasing Stanford’s article, Bakersfield Officers had to earn a minimum of 80-points out of a possible 100 on either string out of two tries to pass the qualification. If a shooter failed to shoot an 80 in his first two attempts, he was sent to a side range to dry practice and then given a third try. Failure on the third try resulted in additional training requirements and possible sanction.

I run a monthly Short Range self-defense match where most stages are based upon a real-life event that was recorded on video and that I adapted for a square range. For the past year, I have used several versions of a standards stage that allows competitors to measure improvements in their performance. For the September 2024 match, I decided to run the old Bakersfield Police Department Qualification. Competitors shooting the match once, completed two iterations of the qualification while competitors shooting the match twice completed four iterations, etc.

We used my standard qualification targets with a ten-point scoring zone measuring 6 x 11 inches giving the shooters a total ten-point area of sixty-six square inches. This is a forty-two percent larger and therefore more generous ten-point area than the old Bakersfield 7-inch circular ten-point scoring zone (of 38.38 square inches); however, for the Short Range Match, any hits outside this ten-point area only earned three points. The target was covered with a t-shirt, so the scoring area was not visible to the shooter. (See photo on the right.)

Of the thirty pistol competitors who participated in the match, thirteen qualified and seventeen failed to qualify. We used the Bakersfield time deductions so a competitor shooting the ten-yard string at 1.51 seconds lost one point, at 1.76 seconds the shooter lost two points, for 2.01 seconds they lost three points, etc. I deducted 0.50 seconds off a shooter’s time when they started with a concealed draw. This scoring method imposed a much greater accuracy standard on the shooter and several shooters failed to qualify by only one point.

My first stage in the match happened to be the standards stage so I shot the Bakersfield qualification cold for my first run unconcealed with the following result:

Name:	Eric Lamberson	Date:	8-Sep-24
		Time	Overtime Points
10 Feet	2rds	2.12	3
20 Feet	2rds	2.41	2
30 Feet	2 Reload 2	6.00	0
60 Feet	2rds	2.67	0
Time Deduction			-5 points
Target Points: 93
Total Points: 88

I used my SIG P-320 Compact Carry pistol (my EDC pistol) for the match.  This was the first time I had fired this pistol in over seven months since I have been concentrating on improving my Steel Challenge shooting performance using my full-size P-320 X5.

I was pleased with my initial run. I had nine hits in the ten-point scoring zone and one hit in the three-point scoring zone for a total of ninety-three points. My 2.12 second overtime on string #1 cost me three points and my 2.41 second time on string two cost me two additional points for a total deduction of five points. My score was 88 so I passed the qualification. I shot the match twice, so I had four runs total. For my second run I earned an 87, for the third and fourth runs I shot a 99 on each.

One other IDPA Master shot the match and he scored an 80, 89, 90, and 86 respectively on his four runs. Several competitors that qualified only passed one run out of two. Other competitors who failed to pass shot very quickly; however, their accuracy was subpar while some earned the points on the target but lost too many points through time penalties.

Feedback from the competitors who shot the match was positive so I will probably run it again in the future.

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Notes:

You can find Stanford's article reprinted on a couple of internet websites; however, I have not found the original article. The link to Andy Stanford's article downloads a .pdf file:

https://www.facebook.com/JamesYeagerofTacticalResponse/posts/rip-mike-waidelichrequiem-for-an-unsung-hero-by-andy-stanfordlyle-wyatt-just-cal/3851889504887819/

Bob Jewell wrote a well-researched article in the July 2024 edition of USCCA’s Concealed Carry Magazine which provides additional information and some pictures of Mike Waidelich.  The link to Bob Jewell’s USCCA article downloads a .pdf file:

https://www.firearmtrainerpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/USCCA-July-2024-Waidelich.pdf

The Sensible Self Defense Academy Short Range Match

We run a monthly Short Range self-defense match where most stages are based upon a real-life event that was recorded on video and that I adapted for a square range. Typically, armed robberies, home invasions, with an occasion terrorist-themed stage.

Threat targets either have a mask or show a visible weapon and are covered so the shooter must aim at an anatomically correct scoring area (upper chest) to achieve proper hits. We cover non-threats as well. The difference is the non-threat will show no visible weapon. It is surprising how tempting some of the non-threats can be when you are in the middle of a stage.

I can always tell when I have new shooters in the match because there will be hits below the down-zero scoring area. New shooters often aim for what they imagine is the “center of mass.” People who shoot the match regularly, know better and aim for the upper chest.

The picture of the uncovered target below illustrates this. This target was for the Standards Stage and has an anatomically correct scoring area. We replace the down zero scoring area after every shooter. If you look at the back of the target, you can see that during the match, most of the shooters achieved down-zero hits.  Ten shooters engaged that target during the match, firing 200 rounds.

When I send out the match results, I include a link to the video of the events from that match. The idea is for the shooter to solve the problem and then view the video of the actual event to understand how it happened in real-life.

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School Active Shooters -- A Research Summary

In March 2024, I attended Ed Monk’s Active Shooter Instructor class at Karl Rehn’s KR Training facility. This class provided a foundation for researching school shootings as I was preparing to train school guardians from a Texas independent school district. A summary of my research follows.

Schools and school grounds can be surprisingly violent places. I researched almost 600 shooting incidents at schools from the years 2000 – 2024 and selected forty-eight active shooter* incidents to research. I excluded one-on-one shootings, fights, gang shootings, targeted shootings involving adults, drive-by shootings, and similar incidents. Although active shooter incidents have occurred at colleges and universities, for this research I only included elementary, middle, and high school incidents where the shooter clearly intended to shoot multiple people.

Weapons

In the forty-eight incidents, the weapons that shooters used were as follows:

    -- Rifle and Pistol: Five incidents
    -- Rifle Only: Eight incidents
    -- Shotgun and Pistol: Four incidents
    -- Shotgun Only: Eight incidents
    -- Pistol Only: Twenty-Three incidents

In total, shooters used  long guns only in sixteen incidents and  pistols only in twenty-three incidents. In nine incidents shooters were armed with long guns and pistols. Most younger shooters obtained their firearms from the family home, often without an adult family member’s knowledge. Some late teen and older shooters obtained weapons when they killed family members. For example, 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather (a police sergeant) and his grandfather's girlfriend at their home. After taking his grandfather's police weapons and bulletproof vest, Weise drove his grandfather's police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School, where he had been a student some months before. At the school, Weise shot and killed seven people and wounded at least nine others.

Patterns Associated with School Type

Some patterns emerged in this research. Elementary school shooters tended to not be associated with the school and none were students at the schools they attacked. In several incidents elementary school students brought pistols to school; however, none apparently intended to shoot multiple people. Conversely, shooters attacking middle and high schools often were students at the schools they attacked.

Elementary School Shootings

There were seven active shooter incidents during this time frame at elementary schools. All these incidents started outside the school, or the perpetrator was not currently associated with the school—none were current students. Three shooters entered the school through unlocked doors, while two shooters shot through locked glass doors to gain entry. Two shooters attacked students and their teachers on playgrounds.

The average age of the elementary school shooters was twenty-five years old with the youngest being fourteen and the oldest forty-one. Police stopped two shooters during gunfights. During the shootings that started on the playground, nearby bystanders disarmed both of the shooters, one while he was reloading his pistol and another when his pistol jammed. Finally, three shooters stopped themselves, two committed suicide and one surrendered to a school front office worker.

Middle School Shootings

There were fourteen active shooter incidents during this time frame at middle schools. Only one of these incidents occurred outside the school. Three shooters entered the targeted school through unlocked doors and immediately began firing. Ten incidents started in the school after the shooter smuggled a firearm inside—seven started in the hallway and three started in classrooms. Finally, two shooters began in a gymnasium and one in the cafeteria.

The average age of the middle school shooters was fourteen with the youngest being twelve and the oldest twenty-five years old. Teachers disarmed four shooters and one shooter’s parents disarmed him after they realized two firearms were missing from the home. They rushed to the school and intervened in time to stop their son. Five shooters stopped themselves when they committed suicide and three surrendered. One shooter fled the scene and police later arrested him.

High School Shootings

There were twenty-seven active shooter incidents during this time frame at high schools. Two of these incidents occurred outside the school. Two shooters entered the targeted school through unlocked doors and immediately began firing. Twenty-three incidents started in the school after the shooter smuggled a firearm inside—thirteen started in the hallway and six started in the cafeteria. Three shooters began in classrooms and two began in the school’s main office area. Finally, one shooter fired into the school from a parking lot after he drove past a security booth, one shooter started in a courtyard, and in one incident, two shooters simultaneously started in different locations.

The average age of the high school shooters was sixteen with the youngest being fourteen and the oldest twenty-one years old. Eleven shooters were disarmed: teachers disarmed six shooters, janitors disarmed two, students disarmed one shooter, a police officer and school resource officer (SRO) disarmed one shooter, and a security guard disarmed one. Two shooters died during the incident in gunfights with police or an SRO. Seven shooters stopped themselves when they committed suicide. Five shooters fled the scene; police later arrested four and one committed suicide as police approached. Three shooters simply stopped and surrendered.

Stopping the Shooter

School campuses are often very large and encompass multiple buildings and other facilities. Of the forty-eight incidents, police or SROs only stopped five. Police or SROs cannot be everywhere simultaneously and the chance that one will be immediately available when an incident begins is coincidence at best. In general, unless an SRO or police officer is present at the school, responding officers will not arrive in time to quickly stop the killing (Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Robb Elementary School being the obvious exceptions where officers could have potentially stopped the shooter earlier in the incident).

Of the eighteen shooters who were disarmed during the incident, teachers or school staff disarmed thirteen. Bystanders disarmed two, students disarmed one, a police officer disarmed one, and a security guard disarmed one.

Twenty-seven shooters stopped themselves.  Fourteen shooters committed suicide during the incident—only one did so as police arrived. Seven shooters surrendered during the incident and six shooters fled the scene.

The conclusion of multiple researchers is that the longer an active shooter has unopposed/unchallenged access to victims, the higher the injury and death toll will be.**  The conclusion is obvious; the faster the killer is stopped, the sooner the killing will stop.

In my opinion (and that of many other trainers), the competent armed private citizen who is is physically and mentally prepared to act decisively is the only way to effectively oppose/challenge an active shooter in a school or other public location and quickly stop the killing.

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* The Federal Government defines an active shooter as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” In addition to the term “active shooter,” several other terms to describe someone committing these atrocities are in use in the United States including mass murderer, active killer, mass shooter, active mass murderer, and probably others. Many within the firearms community decry the use of “active shooter” because a first responder deploying a firearm is in fact an active shooter as well. Ed Monk stated that he uses the term “active shooter” because that term is the one most used in the United States so I used it here as well.

** Two researchers in particular stand out. As I mentioned above, LTC (Ret) Ed Monk has probably done as much research into the active shooter incidents as anyone and his lecture and class are worth attending if you have the opportunity. Tim Larkin posted six videos on Ed’s class and did an interview with Ed as well. They are worth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDDK0jLsdKQ

Another is retired police officer Ron Borsch. His material is more challenging to find on the internet, but worth the effort.