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If guns aren't allowed in this game, I have to say my aluminum softball bat would be my choice.
It's lightweight, comfortable to swing, and I've swung it more than once with a fair degree of accuracy. More importantly, I have no doubt it could crack someone's skull like melon...
Considering the dog scenario, I have five!! Three dachshunds and two border collies.
I'd almost lay money on the ferocity of the wiener dogs before the borders, but I think I'd have to hope the intruder collapsed in a fit of laughter.
All of that said, I've never lived in a home without a gun...I really can't imagine such a scenario.
Last edited by itsMeFred; 12-08-2012 at 08:57 AM..
Well, a little off-topic, I suppose, but not having a firearm available is plain stupid. I know a lot of people have a problem with firearms--they have this "big boogie man" picture in their head. But, if you look at this logically, rather than emotionally, the anti-gun crowd are wrong in many ways.
First of all, like it or not, a firearm is an equalizer. A ninety pound woman is as "strong" as a three hundred pound body builder, given that they both know how to use their firearms. In the absence of a firearm, the biggest man generally wins the fight, given that both men know how to fight. And 99% of the time, you can scratch the woman off immediately. She has no chance.
Which brings up my next point: in a way, the anti-gun crowd is sexist by nature. A typical woman stands very little chance in an altercation with a typical man. Yes, there are exceptions, but statistically speaking, the man has his way with the woman--be it murder, rape, robbery, whatever. On the other hand, with a gun that woman is on par with the jerk that is trying to do whatever he is doing to her. So these anti-gun people are condemning women to being hugely disadvantaged in a life and death situation--exactly backwards from the trend of the last century. Very few women are going to be swinging battle axes or two-handed swords with any effectiveness at all. And even if she are up against a man who isn't all that strong... she is still at a disadvantage.
Third point: let's say you are going to get killed. You know it. And you only need to decide how your assailant is going to "off" you. Would you rather he shoot you in the head, or would you rather he stab you to death, or beat you to death, or slice you to death, or strangle you, or one of a thousand other ways you could be killed?
If you look at crime scene photos, you know what a stabbing death looks like. It's violent, messy, and terribly painful. So, you anti-gun folks are okay with being basically tortured to death, rather than being shot once or twice? Sick people are going to kill by whatever means they have available. So why don't you concentrate on getting the sick people off the street, rather than taking my only defense against sick people away from me. Besides, personally, I'd rather have someone come at me with a gun, even if I know I'm going to die. I have a better chance of defending myself and I also have a better chance of having less pain and violence if my defense fails.
You know what I find funny in this thread, it's the reliance of firearms for self defense. Sure having a gun is a really good idea, but some of the responses here make me wonder what some people would do if they ever found themselves in a situation where they had to defend themselves without a gun.
Look it's like this, I can start a fire with a match, a lighter, and even a bow drill. If I'm out somewhere and need to start a fire I don't plan of dying of hypothermia because my lighter isn't working and I have no matches. So every now and again I'll make a bow drill and a fireboard and start a fire.
While some people have the big boogie man about having a gun, it makes me wonder how many also have a big boogie man about not having a gun.
There's a concept, that's called the Modern Combat Triad, mindset, skills and tactics, you'll notice that it doesn't even discuss equipment, because to be blunt it's not relevant, without those three your chances of surviving any hostile encounter against someone with those three are negligible. Here's an example, suppose you with your latest Whizz-Bang rifle with HWS, Night Vision, and 100 round magazines are going up against someone from the SAS, or DELTA Force, or SEAL, or Shayetet 13 armed with a spoon, who do you think would win? If it's not you with your Whizz-Bang rifle, then why not?
Now while the above could be argued as unrealistic, it's a potential situation, either going into a combat situation, or finding yourself in a combat situation, you don't get to choose your assailant. How do you know that you'll never run into a situation where you are facing off against one of the people listed?
So that said focusing on equipment is pretty irrelevant (SAS, SEAL, etc. show that), because mindset, skills, and tactics are all software not hardware. Hardware's easy, software is not. Which might adequately explain why people focus on hardware.
Meanwhile back to the OP, the best weapons are whatever you have on hand, but you should maximize your chances of success, and reduce your assailants chances. If you're expecting him to come at you with a gun while you're not armed with a gun, then you should minimize visual ranges, if he can't see you he's got less chance of shooting you, and you have more chance of getting within your weapons effective range, and launching a surprise attack.
It's all about the mindset skills and tactics, you need be be prepared to be shot, you need to be determined to eliminate this intruder, you need to be able to walk quietly, and wait silently and stay out of sight, and you need to arrange your location so that you minimize sight lines, and constrain your intruder to a predictable route. The first two items in that sentence are mindset, the next three items are skills, and the final two are tactics. Of course the other option is running away, or more politely discretion being better part of valor. That may well be the better course of action depending on the situation.
An old martial artist once said, if you need the skills i taught you, you did something wrong. It takes considerable training to defend with a gun it take a lot more than that to use most anything else.
Swords for get about it with out lessons and practice, unless maybe you have a buffoon as the assailant. An Axe? better keep that thing moving 100%..... and again have a dipwad assaulting you......
I have a pike and a halberd, a partisan really, but the first problem is in a court of law I will look insane if In use them and 2 the bad guys will probably have a GUN.
I am not stupid enough to bring a knife to a gun fight...
There is no good reason a that a man or or women with out a conviction of a felony crime, and of good character and mind should be unarmed in these times. None there is no good excuse.
If a fool enters this place and makes a threat to my wife she will shoot him until she runs out of ammo, and will reload her weapon. Then so long as said bad guy makes no further moves she may call the cops. If said bad guy should move again she will empty the magazine into his body and remain doing so until said bad guy stops moving.
But of course now enters the 50 pound Female athlete who can kick the bass of anyone..... The only other option is to run.... And i will run for almost as far as i can, if i can, that might be 100 yards these days, At that point I am still fresh enough to shoot, but i wouldn't be if i ran further. if said bad guy is still coming he is going to be air conditioned if I get my way.
A lot of these people would be signing a different song is it were their toddler getting choked by said bad guy.... or a elderly relative and said bad guy also had a gun.......
I guess it depends on how bad you want to live for longer than the bad guys, does or if one doesn't mind being a lemming...
99% are just guessing and have never been in any dangerous armed conflict. A few of you had teams, and were in battles related to WAR.....
And sure if after my guns were gone i would use what ever i could find.. Sticks stones, truck axles, what have you.. And I have a lot of what have you.. Both tools and weapons......
A Axe is a tool, as is a hatchet, a tomahawk is a weapon not a tool for cutting or splitting fire wood and some of my Buck Skinner friends find that out the hard way.
My last course would be tearing the bad guys eyes out with my fingers and doing as much damage to him as i could elsewhere with just my fingers... But if he has a gun that option is out before i get bead down that far anyway.
Unrealistic totally....
I bet my Father in Law and his lawyer wife tried to reason with their bad guy too....... Know one will ever know that for sure.
Sure having a gun is a really good idea, but some of the responses here make me wonder what some people would do if they ever found themselves in a situation where they had to defend themselves without a gun.
Well, I can only speak for myself, but in all likelihood, I would die if the assailant meant business. It's as simple as that. I simply do not have the time, inclination, physical strength, or desire to train for hand-to-hand combat (with weapons or without). Some people are born fighters (having a natural talent to do so) with lots of physical strength and "fighting dexterity," and some are not. I'm not disrespecting women here, but I basically have perhaps just a bit more strength than a typical woman--but I do not have the speed and finesse that many women do--I have the worst of both "worlds." I'm simply not built for fighting. And it doesn't matter if I train for it or not--I actually have: brown belt Taekwondo, a year of Japanese jujitsu, and about six months under Pedro Sauer with Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
But, I just quit. I was getting my ass kicked by people who had just come in off the street and taken a lesson or two. And, I'd walk away with an injury of some sort every week. I'm simply not talented enough to be effective at any of it. I could waste years in training (I did) and it would do no good--not to mention, now I'm getting too old to be effective anyway. We all have strengths and weaknesses. There are lots and lots of things I'm very good at, but hand-to-hand will never be one of them. I'm not a fighter and no amount of training will ever make me a good one. But I do know how to shoot a rifle and handgun well, and I do know how to shoot a primitive longbow and/or crossbow effectively. As the old saying goes, stick with what you do best and know. Or otherwise, a pig with lipstick is still just a pig.
...My last post on this thread. Not having a fire arm for SD isn't realistic..... Anything less is plain folly...
I get it. I really do but after some soul searching I don't think I could shoot a person. Mace the beegeebers out of them, dig a pit filled with honey locust thorns to repel invaders, booby trap the entrances, use a big stick if necessary I can envision. I think having a self defense firearm that I wouldn't realistically fire in an emergency would be more dangerous than not having one. I have nothing against guns. If people are armed and competent, I am fine with that. I don't know doodly about them and don't have the time to learn.
I have one big and loud and one smaller protective dog, we have a good security alarm system, we try to look like we don't have squat to steal so as not to attract robbers. Middling brand well used cars, no designer things, no major electronics no obviously expensive objects of art, no furs or flashy jewelry. We have a couple of big sticks and I'm going for wasp spray because I could and would use it. Escape or bunker are our other options. Unfortunately I'm the fiercest one in our house so even with our hunting shot guns, I doubt that we would use them in self defense. I am a determined scrapper though and nobody better hurt my pets or they will feel my wrath. Admittedly home defense is our weak point in our preparedness .....
Well, I can only speak for myself, but in all likelihood, I would die if the assailant meant business. It's as simple as that. I simply do not have the time, inclination, physical strength, or desire to train for hand-to-hand combat (with weapons or without). Some people are born fighters (having a natural talent to do so) with lots of physical strength and "fighting dexterity," and some are not. I'm not disrespecting women here, but I basically have perhaps just a bit more strength than a typical woman--but I do not have the speed and finesse that many women do--I have the worst of both "worlds." I'm simply not built for fighting. And it doesn't matter if I train for it or not--I actually have: brown belt Taekwondo, a year of Japanese jujitsu, and about six months under Pedro Sauer with Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
But, I just quit. I was getting my ass kicked by people who had just come in off the street and taken a lesson or two. And, I'd walk away with an injury of some sort every week. I'm simply not talented enough to be effective at any of it. I could waste years in training (I did) and it would do no good--not to mention, now I'm getting too old to be effective anyway. We all have strengths and weaknesses. There are lots and lots of things I'm very good at, but hand-to-hand will never be one of them. I'm not a fighter and no amount of training will ever make me a good one. But I do know how to shoot a rifle and handgun well, and I do know how to shoot a primitive longbow and/or crossbow effectively. As the old saying goes, stick with what you do best and know. Or otherwise, a pig with lipstick is still just a pig.
I am getting a lot like that at 61... if a bad guy wants to just kick my ass i am going to watch his dance and every move, and when he starts to close the distance screeching like charlie chan I am just going to point my gun at him and see if he can catch bullets.
I ain't got the spare time to play that game, and have no ambition to be the toughest old geezer in my neck of the woods. I am not going to bother with the cops like I did the last time either. I am not going to fret about the bad guy this time, I will just make sure he isn't a lost driver broken down near by..
First sign of violence and he's gonna get stopped. Tad boring maybe, won't make a good story really, but it is the way it will be. I am sick of being tested.
It may take years for me to just remember what happened and in that time a whole body could just disappear. I can't tell you if i had any thing today for breakfast ossifer really I don't recall shooting my gun. See look the mag is loaded there is one up the pipe, and the bore is freshly clean, but i do that once a week whether it needs it or not..
Oh Say ossifer so long as your here, just who is that woman over there with the pretty long silvery hair? She has been following me around for more than 20 years! Huh My wife? What Wife I have a wife? I don't recall any wife.....
Anything can be a weapon, most reqire some degree of skill or training to use effectively, some can hurt you just as bad as your attacker, most folks will have problems actually hurting someone else, no matter what the circumstance unless under extreme provocation.
The first rule of personal warfare is, "Don't fight fair". You fight to win, or don't fight at all.
If they have a knife and you have a gun, good for you.
If they have a lead pipe and you have a rock, you loose unless you can run better than they do.
If someone is attacking you in a survival situation, you win or you die. You don't use Marquis of Queensbury rules, there is no such thing as overkill when someone is coming at you with the desire to do you harm or kill you. You kill them, and if necessary, kill them again so they don't come after you. The law of survival is simple, they live or you do, not much in between. If you are not committed to defending yourself and your loved ones no matter what, don't even start because it will just prolong the agony.
The old Soviet Spetznaz used to be quite proficent with their entrenching tools, (folding shovels) and trained to throw them, use them in hand to hand combat etc.
It is doubtful that an average person could simply pick one up and use it effectively, lucky shots aside.
A good hatchet is great for close combat, but you better learn how to use it first. The US military still uses a modified version of the old tomahawk, it still works but you need to be trained to use it. A rock tied to a stick will crush skulls, as long as you get close enough to use it before they kill you.
One of the most effective weapons of the medival period was the quarterstaff. Just a stick of wood about 5 feet long, about an inch and a half diameter. You could disarm swordsmen, jab, strike, sweep their legs out from under them, keep an attacker at a distance, anyone could make one, but again using one took some learning.
The best weapon is always your mind and attitude. It doesn't matter what kind of tacti-cool weapon you have if you can't shoot someone with it. If you can't, it is just expensive decoration and heavy to haul around.
It is fun to postulate on an internet board, real life is scary and sometimes you have to pull up your big girl panties and do the job, or you die. Simple right? Very simple.
If I was at all worried, which I'm not by the way I would have a half dozen Kuvasz dogs outside the house but fenced in. The only way a bad guy could get by them is by shooting them from outside the fence. That would alert me and I would be there inside the house drawing beads on them with my deer rifle.
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I can't tell you if i had any thing today for breakfast ossifer really I don't recall shooting my gun. See look the mag is loaded there is one up the pipe, and the bore is freshly clean, but i do that once a week whether it needs it or not..
