I know what I'm recommending.

Bear spray creates a cloud, rather than a stream that must be accurately directed at an assailant (like, e.g. pepper gel). In a situation where the one goal is "escape, alive" bear spray is a reasonable choice for an untrained, likely panicked individual.

You may yet be right! I'm not a self defense professional. But I was not mistaken in my understanding of the products.

Whoever you've just sprayed is not going to be incapacitated to the point of no longer being a threat if that is what they want to continue doing. They may very well decide that their best option is to try and prevent you from calling 911 rather than retreat.

Bear spray is also a really crappy choice indoors. Good luck finding your phone and calling 911 in a sufficiently timely manner after that.

This is why you shouldn't ask me for advice! You should ask a professional. Unfortunately in this situation, the professional's advice was not just bad (as mine apparently was), but potentially deadly - and that's the problem I am lamenting in the original comment.

The default professional advice for people who are worried about being assaulted more or less starts at "glawk fawty" and goes up/down from there depending on what details you add and how they change the situation. The police officer basically gave her the canned default advice.

But like ... that's bad! That's exactly my point.

Not that this particular police officer gave particularly bad advice, but that this idea - that adding more guns solves public safety problems - is so pervasive and _so wrong_.