Guns are the worst thing to have in a home invasion defense situation. Bear Mace is the true weapon of choice. Let me explain.

Okay, so I was having my monthly issue-of-the-moment facebook comments debate with a conservative-but-not-unreasonable friend of mine and I made an offhand bear mace joke. Then I took a shower and spent twenty minutes thinking about bear mace - and came to the conclusion that it is superior to guns in virtually all home defense situations.

For those of you that haven't used it, bear mace is about twice as concentrated as human mace. It comes in massive cans and has a much wider spray cone - since, you know, you're trying to push back a BEAR. It's also been proven in countless studies that it's more effective in providing safety in bear encounters than guns are - by a HUGE margin. Gun make bear angry. Hello, angry bear. Mace cloud make bear no want to be here anymore. Goodbye, angry bear.

So, let's imagine a few home invasion situations. You hear a thud downstairs. You rush down, weapon of choice in hand. You encounter a man with a gun. Unless you have a habit of befriending psychopaths or re-enacting Breaking Bad on a daily basis, it's probably a robbery or kidnapping situation. Their goal is, almost certainly, not to kill you - unless they think you're trying to kill them first. But even if their goal IS specifically to kill you, bear mace is still the better option (read on).

If you have a gun, you'll probably try to shoot them. Frankly, it's all you really can do short of running right up at them - a wildly stupid prospect. So, what happens? It's incredibly hard to one-shot-instant-kill a person in a high-intensity situation - especially if it's dark. So, most likely, the invader is not dead. Maybe not even fully incapacitated. Just angry and panicked. They're still alive, can still see you, know you're probably trying to kill them, and have their own gun. Even if they don't manage to kill you as their going down, odds are high you're getting shot.

Now, the other side of the coin. You fly down the stairs wielding a massive can of 2% Capsaicin Bear Mace with a wide-angle nozzle. Upon seeing the armed assailant, you release a pressurized cone of noxious aerosol powerful enough to overwhelm the nervous system of an adult female grizzly bear defending its cubs - a force of nature only slightly less terrifying than an angry moose. Because of the wind-angle nozzle, you literally can't miss. Instantly your assailant is blind, overwhelmed, and unable to breathe without significant pain. They can no longer see you. Even if they maintain enough panicked motor control to start firing their gun blindly, they're far less likely to hit you than the previous scenario. But that's a big if - bear mace is not fatal to humans, so there's a not insignificant chance that they don't feel threatened enough to warrant lethal response. They might just run, since they know you're not carrying a ranged weapon. If not, they can now be easily overwhelmed, especially if you're smart enough to include a gas mask in your home defense kit.

Also, there's no collateral damage now! There's no bullet to fly through your window and accidentally kill your neighbor's kid in the back yard. Just some really nasty pepper juice in the air. Change your A/C filter and you're good to go.

It's clear to me now that guns are the choice of fools and cowards who are terrible at risk analysis. I rest my case.