The Best Defense

Purse-size electric cattle prods. Lipstick cases that are really tear-gas guns. Canes that double as daggers. As muggers across the nation are discovering, these are the latest additions to a growing James Bond arsenal of protective devices used by city dwellers to fend off would-be assailants.

Demand for such hardware seems greatest in New York City, where scores of muggings occur each day. "The number of people looking for a good defensive weapon has really exploded lately," claims Norman Simon, who owns three Manhattan umbrella stores. Catering primarily to law-abiding citizens who are reluctant to tote a handgun, Simon has since last December sold 200 steel-knobbed umbrellas and canes, 300 metal swagger sticks and 400 walking sticks weighted with buckshot.

Zap. Perhaps the most common devices now being offered to fed-up Manhattanites are inexpensive ($5 and under) tear-gas sprays, available in many drugstores. Often combined with dye that marks an attacker for police identification, these sprays come disguised as everything from cigarette lighters to lipsticks. There is also the $9.98 electric shock rod, a gadget that operates on four ordinary flashlight batteries and, according to the firm that markets it, releases "enough power to stop an angry bull in its tracks." The rod is more likely to prove shocking to the user when it fails to deter the attacker.

Most law-enforcement officials agree that besides being illegal, many of the protective devices are of questionable value. Sharpened canes, electric cattle prods and steel-knobbed umbrellas can be wrestled from the grasp of a struggling victim and turned against him. Sprays, for all their sophistication, have a nasty and altogether self-defeating tendency to blow back in the user's face. There is even a drawback to "Super Sound," an ear-piercing air horn attached to an aerosol can and designed to summon help while startling attackers. It can damage the hearing of mugger and muggee alike.

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