I don't think guns make for good defense tools

I'm not saying they don't make great weapons, they obviously do but I'm saying they're kinda trash for self defense

The things they're good at ,range and lethality. shouldn't really be factors in self defense

Range: human interaction distance is only a couple of feet so you don't even have that range, and if range is a factor they probably already have their gun out and so you're at a massive disadvantage anyway

Lethality: holes are difficult to stitch up , but they don't have a lot of stopping power beyond hitting vitals which still might not stop in that instance.

The one thing guns are good at and is useful is intimidation . They're great ways to intimidate someone into getting away from you or staying back , and they're really loud so they can stun and daze someone into a phycological stop even if you missed all their vitals that would have physically stopped them

Them being loud is a negative because you don't wanna go deaf on top of an already shitty situation

Now here's the thing they don't do, make you look larger, disable an attacker , block/shield you , crowd control, be a useful tool outside of self defense.

Looking larger is mostly for animals when you're unprepared for dealing with animals

Disabling is stoping power, because you don't need to kill someone you just need to stop what they're doing, flash lights and pepper spray are great at this because first you can't hit what you can't see then you're in pain and can't see , breaking the hand of someone with a knife also works

Blocking is preventing them from hitting you , a stick is better against someone throwing stuff at you than a gun is because a gun won't stop that thrown object a stick might

Crowd control , you can only aim your gun at one person at a time leaving you open to others closing distance, you want something with sweep if you piss off a group to keep them away from you

Being used as a tool, so you're gonna carry around this 2lbs piece of steel and never use it outside of the worst situations, knives aren't much better at other stuff but at least you'll use it as a tool and get lots of natural practice deploying it

What do I carry, a 12ft piece of dyneema rope with a carabiner on one end and a 8oz steel weight on the other , I've used it as a hammer, to pull boxes and pallets around, used to rope to haul a buddies truck outa the mud, had to defend myself from feral dogs on a regular basis, and use it to carry my water bottle on my hip, really handy tool I could already crack someone's open with if all my other skills failed to deescalate

I also carry a flash light too

Submitted February 06, 2025 at 07:01AM by mrmagicbeetle https://ift.tt/AdDH5Rp