What I mean is .. I hope that you understand that the number 1 factor in any situation is ones will to live. If you have decided that you will live no matter what adversity, you will find a way to survive.
There are certainly tools that will help you carry the day, but number one its the will to live.
Everyone has an inate will to live. Regarding the underlined, I'm not sure that is true at all. I've seen morgue and autopsy photos showing dead people who fought the attacker, obviously didn't give up easily and still ended up on a slab table. These people obviously fought aggressively and had the will to live, and didn't find a way to survive.
Mac45,
Anything can be a weapon [a kitchen knife, a brick, a broom, a cup of coffee, a rolled up magazine, etc.], if properly utilized.
"Unconventional weapons", inanimate objects not normally thought of or designed as weapons, is what you are talking about here. We'll be covering unconventional weapons in the two day unarmed self defense skills course come June in Lake Mary.
Some tools that I personally recommend is OC and a blade.
When your life is being threatened, less than lethal products like OC are not to be relied on. No police officer I know would use OC if his life was being threatened. Neither should the CCW citizen consider it in the same circumstances. Suggesting OC use to address a deadly force encounter is bad advice.
Relative the knife----- a high art of sorts taking numerous hours to be truly proficent by design and not by chance. Yes, many people have defended themselves with blades without any training, however, the carrying of a knife with SD in mind requires some formal skills training in rapid, reliable deployment while under attack [ something that most will not be able to perform based on FoF training ] and then some semblance of actual skill at arms with the blade unless one is going to simply rely on flailing away into the wind and hope the blade connects with some part of the aggressor.
How many have any real blade training who are primarily relying on a firearm with or without a ccw license in the US? Recommendation of a blade for SD with no basic knowledge of it's deployment and use during a dynamic street encounter is not as easy as it seems simply because we have one clipped to our pockets and can open the blade with no physically induced stress.
I'd be leary of advancing the idea that the simple act of carrying a blade of some kind is going to somehow be useful to someone without some idea of how to get it into play.
The potential false sense of security that the suggestion of ones will to survive and simply carrying some tool creates can be very dangerous. It's been shown time and again that simply carrying a tool that could be used in ones defense [ even a gun ] is no guarantee the odds are increased in ones favor without some basic form of training and understanding in it's use.
One should no more carry a knife without training in that tool than their handgun. Increasing ones chances of surviving on the streets isn't due strictly because one has some tool with them.
There are plenty of previous posts from members on mindset in combat and it's importance relative surviving on this forum. I would not encourage the notion that simply carrying some tool will, in and of itself, affect the outcome in one's favor with any reliability.
The will to survive is no guarantee you will find a way to survive. Battlefields of every war have been filled with men and women who died and every one of them certainly had the will to live. Luck plays a major role in surviving a potentially lethal SD situation. The will to train to be as prepared as much as possible prior to an encounter should be the priority. Luck favors the prepared.
Kludo, good luck in your deployment
Brownie
