Gadgets: Tears for Men

More and more women are adding something new to the assortment of objects in their handbags: tear gas.

It comes in a “Pengun”—a tube about five inches long, which, according to the accompanying directions, “discharges a blast of a radically new powerful tear gas that temporarily incapacitates man or beast.” Each of the screw-in cartridges has a range of 10 ft. with a 3-ft. to 5-ft. spread, and there are special “magnum” cartridges with a crying range of 35 ft.

In Washington, where the man-or-beast population is presumably high, the little weapons are selling for $6.95 at the rate of 1,500 a month at the

Daco Super Stores and of about 100 a week at the three high-price leather-goods stores of Camalier & Buckley. They are perfectly legal, though Washington police disapprove; Assistant District Attorney Barry Fredericks spent 2½ weeks in the hospital when one went off in his face while he was examining it as evidence, and they have been used to arbitrate more than one barroom argument.

The Philadelphia police department, on the other hand, urges women to carry them. In Minneapolis, the police learned how effective they were when prostitutes began using them to escape arresting officers. In Boston, the highly publicized strangler murders have kept Pengun sales high. In fact, pocket tear gas is booming in most urban areas where it is not illegal (Wisconsin, Illinois, California and New York City). “The way I look at it,” says one Washington housewife, “why spend $35 a month on judo lessons when you can do the same job with tear gas for $6.95?”