Over the last 12 months, Byrna, for instance, has racked up $100 million in revenue, a record for the 20-year-old business, which is generally considered the first less-lethal weapons company to successfully position itself as a consumer brand. Byrna — whose fans have included Sean Hannity, Lara Trump, Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly — has recently opened a string of retail stores across the country, from Oregon and Arizona to Tennessee, and kicked off a nationwide partnership with Sportsman’s Warehouse. In April, Byrna also launched a new, more compact model, the CL Launcher.
Axon Enterprises, the maker of Taser guns, also targets the consumer market, with two models, the Pulse 2 and the Bolt 2, that it promotes as “personal safety technology.” While the company primarily supplies Tasers for police and military use, Axon vice president Angelo Welihindha says that he sees sales to everyday users as a growth area. “We’re putting more engineering resources than we ever have into the consumer line. It’s a really big bet for the company,” says Welihindha, who declined to share sales numbers for Taser’s consumer models.
Competitors in the projectile launcher market include JPX International, which sells a launcher called the Jet Protector. It fires a projectile that releases a mist of pepper spray that carries a 400,000 rating on the Scoville Heat scale (which is based on the potency of the peppers found in pepper spray). The company, which sells to both police departments and consumers, claims its spray is twice as powerful as standard police pepper spray. Projectile launchers have also become popular with hikers and campers who carry them for protection from wildlife like mountain lions and bears.
These weapons, from launchers to Tasers, sell for between $380 and $595. Most are available throughout the country and can be purchased online. But some cities, notably New York City, restrict their use to inside one’s home and Byrna won’t ship its weapons to NYC.
Scott Brent, the CEO of JPX International, underscores that one of the selling points of less-lethal weapons is the issue of liability, contending that a weapon with bullets is simply riskier to carry.
“Everybody says, ‘Hey, I’ve got a handgun permit,’ ” says Brent. “But let me tell you something, in most situations you’re not going to use a handgun because if you kill or severely injure someone, you’re going to get sued and you could be indicted. You may not be found guilty, but it’s going to completely upend your life.”
Axon’s Welihindha agrees: “A lot of gun owners are getting savvy to the civil consequences of making the wrong choice. They think of the Taser device as something that reduces the consequences if they get that self-defense decision wrong.”
— Degen Pener in Meet the ‘unguns’: The new trend in ‘less-lethal’ weapons helping Americans feel safe
Pepper or OC spray use also has much smaller consequences.