Carrying a Baton

[CB Jones]

If you lived here (or a comparable location) and you knew (as I do) that the very vast majority of people are unarmed, and that violent crime outside of the metropolis is actually extremely rare (tbh, it's pretty rare there too) - would you still want to carry a weapon 'just in case'?

Yes

In this type of environment, do you think you could ever feel completely at ease going for a wander around town carrying nothing more than you car key and enough change in your pocket to buy a coffee?

I can be at ease here without a gun....I just choose to have it in case I need it.

I would feel less at ease wandering around town with no money.....why would I want to do that.

What if I come across something I want to buy. I would rather have the means to buy something if need be.

 

[Dirty Dog]

While it's true that I can only speculate as to what daily life is like when most people around you might be armed, I really don't think it's truly appreciated what it's like in an 'unarmed' society.

I think it's pretty clear that you don't appreciate what it's like in a society that doesn't restrict your options, either.
I've lived in "unarmed" societies. I've lived in a country run by a dictator.
I prefer making my own choices.

If you lived here (or a comparable location) and you knew (as I do) that the very vast majority of people are unarmed, and that violent crime outside of the metropolis is actually extremely rare (tbh, it's pretty rare there too) - would you still want to carry a weapon 'just in case'?

Violent crime is pretty rare throughout most of the first world. House fires are also pretty rare. I still have home owners insurance. Tetanus is pretty rare. I still make sure my vaccination is up to date.

In this type of environment, do you think you could ever feel completely at ease going for a wander around town carrying nothing more than you car key and enough change in your pocket to buy a coffee?

And this demonstrates the truth of what I said above. You (and many many others) act as if those of us who choose to be prepared in ways you're not (or are not allowed to be) are running around scared all the time. That's nonsense. I travel a fair bit. In lots of countries. Many of which wouldn't exactly be considered first world. None of which recognize my concealed carry permit. Doesn't mean I spend my time hiding in my room.

 

[pdg]

I think it's pretty clear that you don't appreciate what it's like in a society that doesn't restrict your options, either.
I've lived in "unarmed" societies. I've lived in a country run by a dictator.
I prefer making my own choices.

Technically, society doesn't restrict my options, legislation does. The fact that the members of society who disregard that legislation are so very few means that I can happily comply with it too.

If I woke up in the morning and found that the legislation had changed, I still wouldn't seek to arm myself unless society also changed, because there would be no verifiable need.

Likewise, if society changed such that a significant number of people were armed, I wouldn't be bothered about ignoring the legislation as well to counter the increased likelihood of meeting an armed assailant.

Violent crime is pretty rare throughout most of the first world. House fires are also pretty rare. I still have home owners insurance. Tetanus is pretty rare. I still make sure my vaccination is up to date

House fires and tetanus aren't really valid comparisons - they don't share a common cause by any stretch of the imagination (except arson, but I'll warrant that by itself isn't why you have insurance).

And this demonstrates the truth of what I said above. You (and many many others) act as if those of us who choose to be prepared in ways you're not (or are not allowed to be) are running around scared all the time.

That's not what I said or implied - unless you're taking my statement of "feeling of security" way into the extreme.

I travel a fair bit. In lots of countries. Many of which wouldn't exactly be considered first world. None of which recognize my concealed carry permit. Doesn't mean I spend my time hiding in my room.

If you don't have at least an inkling of insecurity in those places then I'd question the perceived requirement to arm yourself at 'home' - unless you consider 'home' to be more dangerous...

 

[Tez3]

I think it's pretty clear that you don't appreciate what it's like in a society that doesn't restrict your options, either.

We don't live in a society that restricts our options, the majority of our society asked that legislation be enacted to make certain things harder to get and our Parliament ( not government) obliged as they are actually bound to as servants of the State. It was the will of the majority that wished this, now of course not everyone agreed because you will hardly ever get 100% on anything but then we do allow people to disagree, protest and petition Parliament to change things.

Whether it was right or wrong to enact these Acts is open to debate but the fact remains that the majority still wish weapons to be restricted. Are they wrong perhaps but there it is and I can't see it changing any time soon but the protesting voices aren't enough to bring it to Parliament yet. It's not even debated in the House of Commons which it could be it enough signed a petition to have it debated. What does that say? Please do not tell us we are brainwashed either which is a common reply nor tell us that the will of the majority should not be respected. I am against quite a few things that have gone through Parliament but I'm stuck with them because it's what the majority wants, tough on me but that's life in an open society.
We are very different societies, neither better than the other, just different.....

 

[Tez3]

If I woke up in the morning and found that the legislation had changed, I still wouldn't seek to arm myself unless society also changed, because there would be no verifiable need.

I agree with this totally,I think that is where understanding is lacking, it's not that we have legislation again weapons, it's that our society doesn't actually need them.

My daughter and her husband have an American friend who's stationed at one of the American airbases near them, we were talking not long ago. He said he didn't realise how different Britain is from the US culturally. He said most American just assumed that the two countries were the same, just different accents but everything he'd seen or read in the States was actually wrong. He'd also been stationed in Germany and the culture shock there was far less than it had been in the UK. London of course was London, unique in itself and not typical of the UK so couldn't be counted as being typically British. I Imagine that the opposite is also true that life in the US is nothing like life here, so telling us we are 'restricted' or legislated against is pointless and just snide remarks.

 

[sinthetik_mistik]

He'd also been stationed in Germany and the culture shock there was far less than it had been in the UK.

so he thought Germany was closer to America than the UK? that's interesting. I've been to both England and Germany and to be honest for me Germany was definitely more different than England. I guess different people have different perspectives

 

[oftheherd1]

I have already said as much and that was why I wasn't commenting on Americans and their weapons.

However perception of gun carrying in the UK is somewhat different from how it really was. Gun carrying has never been prevalent here for many reasons, cost being probably the foremost one, availability being another. Most people here have never carried guns in the UK at anytime in our history. That's not say they didn't carry weapons, these would edged or things like heavy walking sticks/clubs though. The military of course carried firearms both at home and abroad. Most gun owners would have been wealthy people who would use them for shooting (what we call standing on the moors shooting game birds driven towards you by beaters), duelling pistols were fashionable for a long time but not used that much, more beautiful objects to be looked at and a bit useful at other times. Poor people which was actually most of the UK had to do without.

The gun laws here were aimed at specific groups because of the real fears of uprisings. After the Gunpowder Plot laws against Roman Catholics stopped them serving in the Army and Navy, being lawyers among other things but also from carrying guns. Most of these laws laws weren't repealed until the late Victorian times in England, in Northern Ireland is was much much later. We still can't have a Catholic monarch though. Much has been made of so called gun control in the UK but the truth is there has never been much of a gun culture here, guns have always just been seen as something some people need for work ie gamekeepers. I've seen articles saying British people want their guns back but the truth is few had them to start with and certainly no one within living memory. There was an influx of hand guns at the end of the two world wars but as these were only issued to officers they were still in the hands of the well off upper classes!

As with most things in the UK, class has a lot to do with whether you would have owned a gun or not.

As always Tez3, thanks for your enlightening post. I never fail to learn from your posts on your country.

 

[oftheherd1]

Funny, but true
I spent alot of spare time in the woods and swamps. The state record black bear was killed thirty minuets from my house. I go on woods walks all the time. If I should run in to a grumpy mamma bear or a massaug rattler, I,ll have options. I have a 2/3 acre vegetable garden so I'm outside alot. I also raise ckickens and ducks. I watched a red tailed hawk grab my rooster last fall. I carry a .22 revolver in case I need it for lthat hawk or the golden eagle that keeps flying over the hen house tries to take another chicken. ( lost five fowl last year). I have a small shotgun that sits against the wall in my garden shed. I lost 87 pole bean plants and 200 row feet of radishes from rabbits last spring. Ended up with five pots of rabbit stew.

Where I grew up we understood such things, but I was closer to a large city (for us at the time), and that wasn't so common. Where my parents grew up in the Ozarks, that was not uncommon at all. Especially on my mother's side.

 

[oftheherd1]

Again it just about awareness and prepartion.

If you feel you reside in a place that you will never be in danger.....good luck, I hope you never do.

Some of us believe that sometimes things change and that there is no guarantee that your life will never be in danger. Due to this, we just choose to be prepared....just in case.

I’d rather spend my life carrying a weapon I never use than being in one situation of needing a weapon I never had.

As a former homicide detective.....I also may have a little different perception of things.

Despite many protestations here on MT, I think most people who study a MA at least have it somewhere in the back of their mind that their MA knowledge at least partially nullifies the need for weapons carry.

 

[Tez3]

so he thought Germany was closer to America than the UK?

No he didn't , he was prepared for a culture shock there so wasn't surprised things were different, he just didn't expect one in the UK. I've lived in Germany with the RAF, didn't like it much so spent most of the time four miles away in the Netherlands where my mother came from.

 

[hoshin1600]

We don't live in a society that restricts our options, the majority of our society asked that legislation be enacted to make certain things harder to get and our Parliament ( not government) obliged as they are actually bound to as servants of the State. It was the will of the majority that wished this, now of course not everyone agreed because you will hardly ever get 100% on anything but then we do allow people to disagree, protest and petition Parliament to change things.

Whether it was right or wrong to enact these Acts is open to debate but the fact remains that the majority still wish weapons to be restricted. Are they wrong perhaps but there it is and I can't see it changing any time soon but the protesting voices aren't enough to bring it to Parliament yet. It's not even debated in the House of Commons which it could be it enough signed a petition to have it debated. What does that say? Please do not tell us we are brainwashed either which is a common reply nor tell us that the will of the majority should not be respected. I am against quite a few things that have gone through Parliament but I'm stuck with them because it's what the majority wants, tough on me but that's life in an open society.
We are very different societies, neither better than the other, just different.....

To make a counter post,,
in America the government has a way of forcing things upon us that as a nation we do not want. we have a system that, if it gives us any choice at all, it gives us choices between equal evils. as example Trump VS Hillary Clinton. that was not much of a choice. but for the most part laws are passed that are against the will of the over all population. there is also a factor that the majority lives in a very small select section of the county, primarily California and New York, both of which are extremely left leaning and control the bulk of the media.
my opinion is that we now live in an aristocratic divide. those in government vote in policy that best serves themselves.
so perhaps our distrust of government gives us a bias and we believe the same would hold true in the UK as well.

 

[Tez3]

In the UK we moan and whinge like hell about out governments, our politicians and political parties but we do realise that we do actually have the historical advantage over many in that we've had all sorts of governments as well as none, been conquered by the Romans and the Normans, invaded by Vikings, had Kings, Queens and Protectors, had dire rulers, inspired ones as well as dire governments and some amazing ones that pulled us through a horrific war not that long ago. We complain about the members of Parliament but we do know how to make them go away, we demanded a Cabinet Minister resign last week and she did, we forget that the 'we' in the UK are actually quite powerful, we need to remind ourselves every so often of that ( and the politicians though every so often we do remind them who's in charge)

We are a few small countries with shared history ( often bloody and hate filled) but we have managed to last a few thousand years and despite everything we'll crack on for a bit more, arguing, queuing, getting rained on, having street parties for Royal Weddings, and annoying the rest of the world.

 

[Buka]

Well, I have something for you (and others) to consider before you jump to any conclusions about my feelings concerning a "fascination" with "guns".

Growing up, around the farm, everyone had a gun of some description within reach - we might not have had bears, but foxes and rats etc. can cause a lot of damage.

They were just another item in the toolbox, much like fencing pliers for instance.

They got used for protection of livestock or crops, and sometimes for food (I actually think it's better to shoot some food instead of going to the supermarket and being removed from what it was before it was food).

Here's a roughly 4 year old me...

View attachment 21427

Don't judge the clothes, the 80s had only just started


The part I struggle to understand is how otherwise normal people feel their society is so dangerous they aren't comfortable unless carrying lethal force.

Good luck in your struggle. Sincerely.

 

[Buka]

Well, I have something for you (and others) to consider before you jump to any conclusions about my feelings concerning a "fascination" with "guns".

Growing up, around the farm, everyone had a gun of some description within reach - we might not have had bears, but foxes and rats etc. can cause a lot of damage.

They were just another item in the toolbox, much like fencing pliers for instance.

They got used for protection of livestock or crops, and sometimes for food (I actually think it's better to shoot some food instead of going to the supermarket and being removed from what it was before it was food).

Here's a roughly 4 year old me...

View attachment 21427

Don't judge the clothes, the 80s had only just started


The part I struggle to understand is how otherwise normal people feel their society is so dangerous they aren't comfortable unless carrying lethal force.

And I kinda dress the same way now. At least at work.

 

[Brian King]

Is carrying a baton a good option to defend in rough situation, lets say you get attacked and you need to react to save yourself.

Bill02 -Baton, blade, and firearm – all can be the perfect weapon of choice for specific circumstances and ironically can be worst weapon of choice for specific circumstances.

No personal weapon system is perfect; not one is a talisman against evil, a shield against wrong doers, none comes with a guarantee of personal safety.

There is only one thing that every personal weapon system inherently comes with, responsibility. Responsibility, if you choose to respond you had better have the ability. If you chose to carry and use a weapon, it behooves you to use it morally, responsibly and well.

It does not matter what weapon you decide to study Billy02, any can give you years and years of study and enjoyment as you learn to master it and yourself. The ironic thing, the more you study and the more skill you absorb, the less likely you are that you will ever need to deploy the weapon or the skill in its use.

Rather than looking for the perfect weapon (an impossibility) look around, seek a good person who has a calmness and skill that you would like, and learn from them.


Good luck

Regards

Brian King

 

[oftheherd1]

View attachment 21433

And I kinda dress the same way now. At least at work.

Awwwkk!!!!! Then that was you?

 

[Balrog]

Is carrying a baton a good option to defend in rough situation, lets say you get attacked and you need to react to save yourself.

A long flashlight is a better option. It's not a club, and shining the light in the attacker's eyes is a great distraction.