blake711 said:
If I have to defend myself against someone it ain't gonna be the name of a knife I am telling the court. Exibit "A" is gonna be a Glock or a HK. I have some nice tacticool knifves and their great for cutting rope, opening boxes, cutting up apples and all kinds of useful stuff. As for self defense. I personally don't want anyone to get close enough to me for that to matter. This thread reminds me of the numerous "Which light is best for Self defense?" Threads. The answer is lights aren't for self defense. GUNS ARE.
Although I see your points, and understand where you are coming from, I believe that flashlights and knives can be used in certain scenarios for effective self-defense purposes.
Unlike what you proposed (they are NOT for self-defense, guns are), I beleive that just about anything around you can be utilized for self-defense if need be, and in many situations you don't always have the luxury of saying what is or is not for self-defense.
I find that if you do that, you limit your dynamic options available to you in a time where options are oh so valuable.
The key to a proper violence prevailance mindset is NOT to envision the same proto-typical scenario over and over in your imagination, but to build a intuitive, natural, and threat-specific triggered response to many diffferent scenarios.
In other words, don't constantly see yourself (for example) at the bar with a big guy coming at you with a knife and you drawing your gun to protect yourself. This engrains a response pattern into your amigdala (mid-brain) that may or may not be the best option for you at the time / place / context of the actual incident.
These static "visions of prevailing" are common with many people who study self-defense and martial arts (note that I do not combine those two different terms). The problem is, it gets you into a groove of thought (deep primal thought) that, when the scenario is even slightly different then how you saw it so many times before, it tends to put you into a hypervigilent mode / frozen in the headlights / irrational panic.
I do want to point out however, that it is a good thing to "see yourself prevailing in dire situations". That does in fact serve an excellent role in your psychology. However, if you can, try to vary your "visions of prevailing" to many different situations / attacks / threats / environments / encumberances / etc.
So I would advise that you DO in fact go through the motions and explore inside yourself what you would do in many situations... including if you only had a knife or flashlight as good tools at hand. Don't limit your response options... because many times, you are lucky if you even get to pick between 2 or 3.
My comments are made with all due respect my friend... just something to consider.... and maybe you already have; you sound well educated on this subject. So, maybe I'm the one who will learn from you