Pepper spray is illegal here. That said, I pepper sprayed a guy once and the cops arrested him, not me.
Carrying a concealed weapon is also illegal. Dunno specifically about a knife, but I think there are like 50 people in the whole country who have a concealed weapons permit.
That's a surprise considering it is illegal to use pepper spray on a human
in Canada*. I carry it for use on dogs since i've been bitten while working
& they often don't like me anyway, plus many people let theirs illegally
run loose w/o a leash. But under the right circumstances i would use it
on a homo sapien if necessary.
*Law enforcement excepted
Recently there has been campaining for women to be able to carry a
concealed weapon to protect themselves:
Interesting, thanks for the link. I often carry a general-purpose Opinel folding knife (100% used to open packages received at work or at home). Had never even thought about its legality.
I think at the end of the day, given the circumstances, arresting me for defending myself would have made for bad press. He was following me home in the middle of the night. Tried the "turn around and scream at him" trick, and got jumped. Already had the pepper spray in my hand, so used it.
The cop did take my spray from me, tho. But that was the extent of it.