Carrying pepper spray is not really that different from carrying a firearm. You still need to know how to use it, you still need to practice using it, you still need to know what the law will and will not let you do with it. Yes, pepper spray is nonlethal and accidentally using it is way less dangerous than accidentally using a firearm. But using pepper spray unlawfully is still a prosecutable crime. If you want a carry item that is good for self defense, I would highly recommend a bright AF flashlight. If someone is giving you the willies, shooting or pepper spraying them is assault, and you will have escalated the situation. But shine a bright light in their eyes and you still have an opportunity to exit without anyone getting hurt or arrested. Keychain "weapons" I suppose are better than nothing, but not by much. I sure wouldn't derive any feelings of security from carrying one. If you are looking for self defense training, make sure you know what you are looking for. There are three very different things that many people mistakenly lump together. You can learn a martial art. You will learn both physical and mental self-improvement, and you will learn some skills that could be useful in a fight. But martial arts are neither about fighting nor self defense. You can learn how to fight. Specifically, this would mean learning MMA or boxing or kickboxing or wrestling or Muay Thai or something similar where you train with the express intent of competing against others with the goal of getting them to give up or pass out. You would know more skills training this way that would be useful in a street fight than from training in a traditional martial art. But learning to fight is not the same as martial arts nor self defense. You can learn self defense. The first thing to realize is that true self defense training has almost nothing to do with fighting. It is about awareness, decision making, and how to extract yourself from situations before they escalate to becoming dangerous. If someone is showing you how to break a choke hold or wrist lock, you aren't being taught self-defense. Self defense training is about going through scenarios and teaching you the observations you need to make and the decision making tree you need to follow to get out of there safely. Real, life-or-death fights are a chaotic mess and there is almost no practical way to train yourself to be prepared for them. Even a championship MMA fighter is going be in a lot of trouble if confronted by more than one attacker or someone with a weapon. Being genuinely ready for most any physical confrontation would require a lifetime of dedication and study and practice. That is certainly not something you can learn in a couple of weekend self defense seminars. If you want to truly stay safe, you need to avoid the situation in the first place (with your awareness and decision making), and, failing that, you need to make the fight grossly unfair in your favor (the easiest ways to do this are to either have your adversary badly outnumbered, or you need to have a much more dangerous weapon than they do and know how to use it).