To defend myself, do I need to carry a weapon?

[chinto]

Do you need a weapon for self defense? no, not necessarily. Can a weapon be a good thing to have? yes, and no. so here it is, if you carry a weapon, and know how to use it, you must first be willing to use it!!! guns for instance are NOT MAGIC WANDS!!!!!!!! they are the equivalent of say a good Dewalt or Porter cable drill, they just make holes at a distance! so if it points it should be shooting, and that means you are trying to take the targets life! blades are very much in a similar in that deploying a knife is DEADLY FORCE. The same can be said for chokes and strangles and some strikes and techniques that can result in death easily. ( so if you choke an attacker and his buddy shoots you dead he is justified legally )
That said, in any fight if you fight you may die!!! Drunken Idiots with NO TRAINING get sent to prison for manslaughter after killing some one else in a drunken fight every day of the week! best way to win at Self Defense? don't be there when the problem happens, that said, if you are, try and talk your way out, or walk or run away. ( but this is a judgment call, trying it may make it worse!) after that do what you have to do with what you have to stay alive and uninjured!! That may mean that you strike first in some situations. Either way figure you are going to spend some fun time with cops, and provably lawyers and courts. Your being armed, or unarmed the charges could be as low as simple mutual combat or mister-meaner assault, all the way up to aggravated murder ( capital offense) or no charges at all because the witnesses all saw you were attacked. but if some one is injured its going to cost money and lawyers and court time with out criminal charges! some one is going to sue you for hurting their poor little boy, or girl regardless of what really happened!

 

[chinto]

Hmmm. Multiple armed attackers?
http://www.thebuddhagarden.com/images/statues/hindu/main/kali_mini.jpg

...or unarmed attackers?
http://www.hayashi.cz/equipment-eu/big/7705-2.jpg

In my state multiple attackers are considered a deadly force situation

 

[crawleymartialarts]

Thanks for sharing..

 

[crawleymartialarts]

After all self-defense needs to include not only the physical training of martial skills, but also how to avoid the situation entirely and how to deal with legal issues that could occur if you did hurt someone.

Thanks for this insight. Very true. In some countries it's hard to prove self-defense. If you can avoid it the better.

 

[Grasshopper22]

It's always good to carry a weapon just in case but if you weren't attacked and the police somehow happened to find out that you were carrying a weapon they could areest you on suspicion of intent to attack or something like that. If you have been doing a self-defence martial art such as Ju-Jitsu or Aikido for years and years then you'll probably know how to deal with most weapon-based attacks but if you're a beginner you may not.

 

[Blindside]

It's always good to carry a weapon just in case but if you weren't attacked and the police somehow happened to find out that you were carrying a weapon they could areest you on suspicion of intent to attack or something like that.

What country do you live in?

If you have been doing a self-defence martial art such as Ju-Jitsu or Aikido for years and years then you'll probably know how to deal with most weapon-based attacks but if you're a beginner you may not.[/

I can give a 12 year old with the right attitude and a knife and make him more than equivelant of most "black belts" in less than 20 minutes.

 

[Okatz]

Interesting discussion in here.

I do have to agree that you don't need a weapon in order to defend yourself. As long as you know martial arts or even simple hand to hand combat moves, you can defend yourself. However, will you be at an advantage or at a disadvantage in real life?

I asked because there's a good chance that your weapon has an attacker. This means that he's at an advantage. If you also have a weapon with you, you can take back that advantage especially if you know martial arts.

Here's my advice:

1. Learn martial arts or hand to hand combat. I started my hand to hand combat training by reading this blog - http://www.h2hcombattraining.com/
2. Learn how to use a weapon effectively and efficiently. The mere fact that you don't have a weapon shouldn't cloud your judgment in any way.
3. If you're going to use a knife or a gun, be prepared to kill. If you can't handle that or if you're not confident that you can distinguish a "kill or get killed situation" from a situation wherein you can easily flee, get a stun gun or a Yawara and learn how to use it.

 

[Gentle Fist]

If you do.. make sure you fully understand "Deadly Force"

 

[kungfu penguin]

i always feel that it is better to have a weapon and not need it rather than needing a weapon and not have it!:ultracool

 

[Supra Vijai]

Having gone through this thread, I find the different mindsets very interesting. A large part of it is going to be local laws that influence carrying a weapon. Here in Australia for instance, we don't do carry and conceal, guns are illegal for the general public and as such gun violence is not a really big problem outside of the armed forces/police/criminal fraternities. The same applies to carrying any weapon really; knives, box cutters, machetes etc all have police cracking down and conducting random bag checks.

With that in mind we don't carry weapons but that doesn't necessarily diminish our ability to defend ourselves on the streets. We do train weapon defenses of course but anyone who needs it for a specialist environment (such as LEO's) would get that with their training and use that to complement any MA training they may have.

One point though that doesn't seem to have been discussed in any sort of detail, say you are carrying a weapon. Even if you've pulled the weapon and are ready to use it, what if it gets knocked out of your hands or taken from you by whoever you are facing or one of their friends? What if it jams or, in the case of knives or sticks, breaks? What then? You've escalated the situation from verbal/unarmed to life or death by introducing a tool capable of making that change and all of a sudden it's not in your control anymore. Yes laws are going to be different everywhere, gun/weapon culture will be different everywhere and it's important to train for all contingencies but IMO it's a bad idea to become reliant on a tool for your safety.

 

[chinto]

It's always good to carry a weapon just in case but if you weren't attacked and the police somehow happened to find out that you were carrying a weapon they could areest you on suspicion of intent to attack or something like that. If you have been doing a self-defence martial art such as Ju-Jitsu or Aikido for years and years then you'll probably know how to deal with most weapon-based attacks but if you're a beginner you may not.

where do you live? In my state you may openly carry a fire arm and with a CCL concealed carry one, and carry a blade either way.

 

[SnyderD]

There seem to be differing opinions on this issue. I'm of the camp that says you should always be prepared to defend yourself, whether you have a weapon or not. The fact is there will be times when you will not have a weapon at your disposal. So, if you're relying on that tool, then you're sunk when something happens and you don't have it. Be prepared to use your body to gain control of the situation, and, as someone else mentioned, that sometimes means knowing it's time to hit the bricks. A gentleman who mentored me in martial arts a few years back taught me to use a staff. The thinking behind it was that of all weapons you might find laying around in your environment, something resembling a staff is the most likely (broom, mop, stick/branch, dowel, etc.) Regardless, be prepared to use yourself as your weapon.

 

[chinto]

my position is that either with a weapon or not you should be able to defend yourself as well. A weapon is a way to give yourself a combat edge in a survival situation.. Blade, gun, or club or any other weapon can help. just depends on the laws where you are. in some places you will pay dearly at the "local justice system's", justly or not for using one weapon or any perhaps.

 

[Christian Soldier]

The others said it pretty well, you should be able to defend yourself with either. A knife or almost any weapon is just a way to level the playing field. Every case I've (doesn't mean there are others where this doesn't happen) read where a knife is drawn by the defendant, the assailent runs away. They are looking for victims.

Hands down, for the average person, the best self defence weapon you can have is pepper spray. It looks good in court and it'll stop 90% of attackers, that other 10% you should just kick in the groin in addition to macing their face.

 

[Instructor]

I've toted pepper spray and a stun gun with me when I went into rough neighborhoods to hand out food and such but day to day I don't really carry anything. I carry a knife but it's mostly used as a tool for cutting things not defense.

The nice thing about killing your attacker with a field expedient weapon like a desk telephone or broom is in court it looks like you are defending yourself and not gunning some idiot down.

 

[Supra Vijai]

The others said it pretty well, you should be able to defend yourself with either. A knife or almost any weapon is just a way to level the playing field. Every case I've (doesn't mean there are others where this doesn't happen) read where a knife is drawn by the defendant, the assailent runs away. They are looking for victims.

Hands down, for the average person, the best self defence weapon you can have is pepper spray. It looks good in court and it'll stop 90% of attackers, that other 10% you should just kick in the groin in addition to macing their face.

I highlighted that part in particular because ideally, the best self defense weapon you can have is your awareness, intuition and ability to lose the ego and walk away. If all that fails, then yeah go with the kick in the groin to buy you some time to drop the ego of being in a fight and get away.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, knowing local laws about what you can carry is a vital part of things. Even if you can carry pepper spray, a lot of places will have duty of retreat laws and failing to comply (or actively trying to comply) with those blows the self defense case out of the water anyway so everything else is just a sliding scale of the criminal charges that can potentially be laid against you. This may sound extremely cynical but the key is that when all things are said and done; we in Australia, and I assume elsewhere, have a Legal system, not a Justice system.

 

[Supra Vijai]

The nice thing about killing your attacker with a field expedient weapon like a desk telephone or broom is in court it looks like you are defending yourself and not gunning some idiot down.

Agreed! There was a thread on here ages ago with someone joking they would try to construct the mystical art of Broom-Fu... I wonder how that panned out

 

[jks9199]

The others said it pretty well, you should be able to defend yourself with either. A knife or almost any weapon is just a way to level the playing field. Every case I've (doesn't mean there are others where this doesn't happen) read where a knife is drawn by the defendant, the assailent runs away. They are looking for victims.

Hands down, for the average person, the best self defence weapon you can have is pepper spray. It looks good in court and it'll stop 90% of attackers, that other 10% you should just kick in the groin in addition to macing their face.

Pepper Spray/OC is unreliable. I like what one DT instructor called it: Piss Off Juice. At it's best, it can be fought past. If the subject is high, drunk, or just really, really angry -- it doesn't work.

 

[Carol]

Pepper Spray/OC is unreliable. I like what one DT instructor called it: Piss Off Juice. At it's best, it can be fought past. If the subject is high, drunk, or just really, really angry -- it doesn't work.

Same with groin kicks, eh? They have an effect...but it not always a desirable one.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Nothing is 100%! Like Jks9199 mentioned above pepper spray is very, very unrealiable. Sure it can work but I would not want to bet my life or well being on it!