MOORPARK : Course on Tear Gas Use Attracts Residents to Classroom

Newbury Park residents Marge and Clarence Bristol don’t like guns.

“I’m afraid of guns,” Marge Bristol said. “We have 10 grandchildren. There’s too many accidents.”

But the Bristols believe that they need some protection. The retired couple travel around the country in their motor home and sometimes stop in places where they don’t feel safe.

So they, along with four other Ventura County residents, took a three-hour course this week at Moorpark College on how to use tear gas. At the end of the $25 evening class, participants receive a certificate from the state Department of Justice allowing them to buy and use tear gas products, such as Mace, for self-defense.

Instructor John Robertson, a campus police officer, has taught the course the four or five times it’s been offered at the college.

But the head of the Moorpark patrol unit for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said people might get a false sense of security from carrying the six-inch-high canisters of chemical spray.

Studies have shown that many types of tear gas don’t work well at fending off attackers, Lt. Geoffrey Dean said.

They induce some tearing and cause shortness of breath, Dean said. But a person who is sprayed with tear gas might be disabled for only a few seconds, he said.

Robertson disagreed. “It’s not a suit of armor,” he said. But “it buys a person time to escape.”

Usually, most of the community residents who take the class are women who are afraid of being sexually assaulted, Robertson said.

At this week’s class, however, four of the six students were men.

One of them, Moorpark resident Maurice DeFrage, 37, said he wanted to be able to carry tear gas when he travels to downtown Los Angeles and other high-crime areas.

A man might be able to use his fists to fight off one mugger, DeFrage said. But muggers often work in groups, he said.

Tear gas “is just a precaution,” DeFrage said. “I’m not paranoid.”