Self defence knife - which one?

Lone Hunter said:
Running is all well and good,except when your in an elevator,car,bus,subway and so on.Or perhaps your,wife,kids,parents are with you.Or a hundred other things.

There is no one answer.
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I think the answer for those situations would be to just give the mugger your wallet/phone/watch/expensive knife. I like my stuff and all that, but you can always earn more money and buy more stuff. Your life on the other hand...

Hi JackStraw, why not try the SF E2D which has built in impact bezels for self-defence? But I guess that could be considered a weapon in the UK...

And a question to Maximus Otter, is it really true that police officers in the UK don't get shot at as often as else where precisely because they don't usually carry firearms?

There was a discussion in Sweden a while ago of whether to disarm the police, because apparently in both Norway and the UK police officers are actually safer because they don't carry guns.
 
the only goal of the self-defense knife would be to intimidate. never should you draw a knife with intent of getting into a knife fight unless it's plain they are going to harm/kill you and it's for survival.

i carry a spydie karambit in my back waistband when I go running. It's saved me a few times, in the sense that when i see some bum coming at me with a beat-up buck folder that won't cut butter, i whip out the karambit as a deterrent, and suddenly i'm not that attractive of a quick $ anymore.

If they have a serious weapon, or a kitchen knife, I haul ass. If they have a gun, i'd just give them whatever is on me (usually a key and/or some form of ID). They don't know i have the karambit since nobody's really gonna do a full body search on you, so i get to keep my $100 knife.
 
The only time recently that I heard of police being shot at was with an air rifle by an insane man holding his wife hostage (with said airgun :/) and once a few months ago when a police officer was tragically shot dead by a man he was arresting. I think the guy was drunk. There really is so little gun crime in the UK, that you wouldn't believe it if you've lived in America all your life. To be fair, gun crime is rising, but it's still stupidly low.
 
Just give them your stuff, well yes why did i never think of that......

Sadly it does not always end with that.
 
Lone Hunter said:
Just give them your stuff, well yes why did i never think of that......

Sadly it does not always end with that.
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The "best" choice is not always a "good" choice. :(
 
I and indeed british law doesn't see self defence as a bad thing

I think giving people the impression they can defends themselves when they are capable of it is a bad thing

Taking somebody out that's attacking you isn't easy without getting hurt. I walked away from being attacked by armed people but only just. If I'd tried to draw a weapon I would have missed blocking the attack and been worse off.
 
Well I think most of the people suggesting running are doing so because it is sometimes the best option. In Britain though pre-armed self-defence seems to be frowned upon, but self-defence is hard fought for.
I mean, there was a recent outcry from the public and media after some politician proposed a change to the law in regards to self defence. It was really just a clarification of what the law already says but basicly it said you can defend yourself however you want as long as it is not over the top i.e. tortuting them, chasing after them and beating them to death. If you want to pick up a kitchen knife or a plank that is lying around and use it as a weapon, that is fine.
However, if you want to carry a weapon for the purpose of self defence, everyone hates you. It's odd.
 
I think part of the problem with armed self-defence is the difficulty in trying to determining who is really doing the defence.

If say a guy armed with a baseball bat (or a knife) was trying to rob me and I drew a knife that I was carrying, when push comes to shove and we are both hurt and arrested, it'll be just as easy for him to claim that he was mugged by me. After all I was carrying a knife for 'self-defence' and was obviously looking for trouble. It'd just be my words against his.

I think the law enforcement people just got fed up with it.

Edit: What's for defence can also work rather well for offence, so instead of trying to argue for the defensive nature (Or defensive intent of the user, which can be even harder to prove) of each weapon, the lawmakers just decided to ban all weapons, i. e. treat all weapons as offensive and dangerous. Generalisation is a big part of any law in my opinion, as it is impossible to cover every imaginable scenario before hand.
 
british law does have a section on things carried intedend as a weapon

you can get done for carrying a maglite if your just carrying it to hit people with
 
Is the ASP baton also a no-no in the UK?

Say, think about changing jobs - become a chef :)
 
ayzianboy, I personally think thats a terrible idea. This was recently talked about on the "Tactics and Training" board, and it was pretty much agreed that it wasn't the best thing to do for a number of reasons. For the sake of being redundant, i'll go into them here:

Your escalating a situation to a lethal level. If some guy starts walking forward to attack you, (or who knows, maybe he is pissed at the guy behind you) and suddenly you pull a knife, whats to say he doesn't suddenly feel threatened and draw his? What are you going to do now? Are you going to run, or get into a knife fight (with possible witnesses to point out that you drew yours first). It was possible the guy wasn't even going to attack you, who knows. Maybe he was going to cuss you out and walk away, but now he's sure your going to stab him.

Second, you just played your final card. Whose to say the unarmed attacker doesn't walk away, and go get a baseball bat or gun and come back to fight then? Now he knows what your carrying, and who knows what he retrieved.

Third, whats the point? The only time you should be justified in pulling a knife is if you truly think your life is in danger. And, if thats the case, you should be STICKING someone not threatening. There are enough people around here that don't take having a knife pulled on them lightly. I know the second *I* see a knife being pulled in a threatening manner, I immediatly will assume its intent is to harm or kill.

I'm not saying this to pick on you, but I'm hoping you won't draw a knife only to get shot 8 times when you could have walked away, minus some pride.
 
runT1ME said:
ayzianboy, I personally think thats a terrible idea. This was recently talked about on the "Tactics and Training" board, and it was pretty much agreed that it wasn't the best thing to do for a number of reasons. For the sake of being redundant, i'll go into them here:

Your escalating a situation to a lethal level. If some guy starts walking forward to attack you, (or who knows, maybe he is pissed at the guy behind you) and suddenly you pull a knife, whats to say he doesn't suddenly feel threatened and draw his? What are you going to do now? Are you going to run, or get into a knife fight (with possible witnesses to point out that you drew yours first). It was possible the guy wasn't even going to attack you, who knows. Maybe he was going to cuss you out and walk away, but now he's sure your going to stab him.

Second, you just played your final card. Whose to say the unarmed attacker doesn't walk away, and go get a baseball bat or gun and come back to fight then? Now he knows what your carrying, and who knows what he retrieved.

Third, whats the point? The only time you should be justified in pulling a knife is if you truly think your life is in danger. And, if thats the case, you should be STICKING someone not threatening. There are enough people around here that don't take having a knife pulled on them lightly. I know the second *I* see a knife being pulled in a threatening manner, I immediatly will assume its intent is to harm or kill.

I'm not saying this to pick on you, but I'm hoping you won't draw a knife only to get shot 8 times when you could have walked away, minus some pride.
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the times it's happened to me, i've only drawn when the other guy has approached me WITH a weapon in hand. first time it was a cheapo $5 balisong, the second time it was a buck.

both times, i didn't know if there was any intent to do bodily harm, although mugging was a pretty obvious choice. but the only reason i drew was because the other person looked physically fit enough that i may not be able to outrun them, and they already had a weapon in hand.

they're not going to walk away to get a bat or a gun because the second they walk away i'm hauling ass out of there.

I guess you misread my post. I wasn't escalating anything. Both times i was approached by someone with a drawn blade.

but my general rule on self-defense is
1. best option: run like hell.
2. second best option: give them your $5 and ID.
3. the only time i would ever draw is if someone approached me already with weapon in hand.

oh, and from reading some of this thread, I want to point out one thing. Some people advocate carrying into clubs or bars for fear of getting mugged on your way back home late at night. bad idea. worst fking idea ever. edges + alochol don't mix. you're going to regret it when you're drunk and suddenly think your millie is going to teach the ******* hitting on your girl a well-deserved lesson.
 
The only time I've ever drawn a knife was when a friend and I were out looking for something to eat at 3am. A drunk in a parking lot got a little too close to her. I told her to get in the car and I got my knife out. Fortunately, the drunk didn't try anything and he backed off when he knew I had a knife.

I would never use a knife to defend myself, but wouldn't hesitate to defend someone I love... even though I know how bad of a choice a knife is for self defense.
 
If I were you, I'd spend that money on a self-defense class, or martial arts training. Knives come and go, but knowing how to defend yourself without a weapon is priceless. Think about it, are you trained to use a knife in self defense? What's to keep an assailant from taking it from you? Learn to defend yourself without a weapon first. Good luck with your decision.
 
Ah, Azian, I missed the part about the other guy having a blade/weapon drawn. Ok, that makes a lot more sense, and I see that you didn't make an irrational decision. I've just seen people think that pulling a blade is a good way to avoid a fight, and I wanted to reiterate that I don't think thats the case.

I agree with Stormdrane that if your fearful of someone attacking you, martial arts is the best choice. Now, I hope NONE of us ever have to take on a blade unarmed, but I do think its more likely that you'll be able to stop and trap a guys arm when he tries to stick you (with training) vs. pulling your folder, dodging, then slashing back at him.
 
the point everyone seems to miss is that knife fights aren't like the bullshit you see in movies. if you want to win a knife fight, you're going to have to kill. the basic premise in any fight involving blades is that you WILL get cut. that is a given. the idea is to minimize the damage - which basically means, you open yourself up to a few cuts on the arm in exchange for being able to deal your opponent a fatal stab.

if you really think killing someone is worth keeping your wallet, well that's your call.
 
Ammonia in a small squirty bottle (like eye drops for contact lens wearers) Squirt in face and run like hell.

Dont hang around for the law, they are a waste of time in these situations and could'nt care less. Why should you have to jump through a bunch of legal dung when you were the victim?
 
Temper, as I was reading all these 3 long pages it occurred to me early on that clubs, knives, guns etc will either be illegal, hard to carry or hard to explain. In so many movies, usually the ones where someone runs down the road to escape a maniac in a car) I see 100 chemical weapons that could have been used effectively (and screw up the plot). People being assaulted in bathrooms stocked with toilet cleaners, hairspray, perfume, talcum powder, ammonia and shampoo. Hell, think what a ceramic toilet box lid could do to ruin your day. Kitchens are basically the same story with knives and additional pointy things to finish the job a faceful of Comet started. So many accidents happen in the home. ;)
Now back to the street/bus/etc. People purchase and carry all those same items home. If you are fearful and happen to be carrying a shopping bag with a bottle of bleach who is going to fault you for intent if you are attacked? Even a small bottle of something could be carried in a shirt pocket or purse....
Plastic bottles squirt even better if you poke a hole in them with a tanto of course.... :eek:
 
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