Reply: Gun at home and other weapons

Anonymous said...
Living in the USA but am not going to be able to go the gun route for self defense. My wife has a huge problem with them after having watched as her grandfather put one in his mouth and pulled the trigger when she was eight years of age. What other means of self defense would you go with? We have some OC spray. Knives? Intense martial arts?
January 26, 2009 7:02 PM

It’s hard to beat a gun, specially since you live in USA where you could get one without much problem if you want.

Guns were called “Equalizers” in the old West for a reason. A scared person can point the gun in the general direction and with a bit of luck hit the aggressor and equal things, in spite of the difference of size and strength.
Any weapon is better than no weapon. Blunt weapons like batons or even commonly available baseball bats can do a lot of damage.

Know a case where a father killed a rapist bashing him over the head with a steel pole with a garbage basket on top.
But with blunt weapons, it only takes a determined person to close in and if stronger, faster and more aggressive than you.. well… your in trouble.

A knife has the advantage of wounding just by contact if sharp enough.
An attacker trying to take away a large sharp blade from you will only loose some fingers.
Of course if your attacker has a gun, you might be able to kill him with a knife, but you’ll get shot for sure.

I could tell you to get a short machete made by cold Steel.



Spear point machetes by Cold Steel

That’s what I’d have in my house for defense is a gun wasn’t an option.
These aren’t works of art, but they are big sharp blades made of good steel.
There’s knives out there that are all very tactical, but the machete is the one that kills and mutilates people around the world on daily basis. Both a formidable weapon and a tool.

But can you shove that into another person? Can you let go of a very instinctive and brutal side of you, bringing yourself to that? Is it even in you?
A handgun is a much more “civilized” defensive tool.

I’ve seen some gruesome knife fight results. In one occasion, I couldn’t believe all that blood actually fitted inside the person that laid in the pool of blood.
So if you chop or stab with a thick blade, expect a lot of screaming, a lot of warm blood spraying all over you, and expect to keep slashing and stabbing with it when you are soaking wet with someone else’s blood.

Don’t expect him to go down right away. Unless you crash his skill with it, or shove it up his ribcage or through the neck into the skull, blood loss will be the reason why he goes down.

I’ll do it, heck as I’ve said before I’ll kill someone with my bare hands if I have to because the results of not doing so and being at the mercy of these bastards is too fresh around here.
Today they released a man that was held kidnapped for 32 days. Kidnapped by cops.
Hell no. I’m not putting my family or myself through that, or worse.

OC spray works. But it wont do much against armed criminals that only have to point and shoot, and even a single person can keep fighting after being sprayed if he’s determined enough. If he’s high on drugs it might not affect him at all.
I carry OC spray in my bag, so does my wife, but it’s a less than lethal tool, and sometimes it’s not enough.

And of course, learning hand to hand combat should be a priority.
I’d advice you to take several classes of tai boxing and brazilian JJ, find if you have a mix martial art club near by where you can put it to use, and if you’ve never trained in fighting sports before, train for at least a year until you develop good fighting instincts and reflexes.

Knife fighting classes are also good. Don’t get involved much into artistic styles, you can spend your entire life with Filipino styles, just learn the basic and practice them frequently against a board or pole.

But even if you do this, do yourself a favor and get a gun. Get a combination lock safe and leave it there if it makes your wife feel safer but do get a handgun.

I understand what it’s like to have a wife that is scared of guns.
Unfortunately the only experience my wife had with guns until she met me was being on the business side of a gun barrel. Just too many times.
She didn’t like guns at all but understood that being armed was just part of who I was and she didn’t even try to negotiate going through life unarmed.
I suppose that since we married right after the 2001 lootings showed in the clips below made such an idea even more ridiculous.
No, we needed a gun, like it or not.

I told her where I left my Glock when I went to work each day , even though she said she was scared of it and would never touch it.

One day I came back home and found the Glock on the table…

Apparently someone tried to brake in. Made a lot of noise in the grating gate ( didn’t get through) and my wife did the most logical thing: Fearing for her life she grabbed the weapon she feared so much.

I left the Glock loaded with a round on the chamber. (I don’t believe in empty chamber guns any more than I believe in ghosts or the Tooth Fairy :^) )
Had the intruder broken in, more than likely my wife would have shot him instinctively point aiming, center of mass. The 357 SIG hollow point round would have delivered a lot of damage.

Have a talk with her.
Don’t expect her to go shooting with you, just ask here to understand that you consider this extremely important.
Negotiate a bit, show her a couple of safes where you’d keep it.
Accidents occur when someone is negligent. If you keep the gun secured, specially if you keep it in a safe at all times, there’s no margin for accidents.

Take care and good luck.

Edited to add:
That was a pretty sinister and bloody post, to compensate I leave you this.
Have a great day! "D'acord?!" :^)


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