not to open a can of worms but...[UV for self defense]

I've heard of members EDCing guns, knives, etc for defense...
of course, theres the flashlights

Could a UV flashlight be used for self defense when it is neccessary or are they useless in that manner?
UV, unlike xenon where your opponents eyes is likely to recover, does it after prolonged direct exposure.
The possibility of a situation where such force is necessary is very slim, but it is possible.

You'd need it super concentrated like a laser to cause damage right away. Otherwise the damage would take much much longer than a traditional light.

I'm reminded of the South Park episode where Cartman tries to kill either Kyle or Stan. When aksed what he was doing he says something to the effect of, 'Hold on I'm killing you. I couldn't afford a real baseball bat, so I have to use this plastic bat. Don't worry, it should be over in a few hours.'

So the warning to the attacker would be something like, 'Stay back our continued and prolonged exposure to this UV light source will cause steady debiliation of your vision starting with low-light vision and eventually causing more serious damage.' That'd stop me in my tracks!

tebore said:

You'd need it super concentrated like a laser to cause damage right away. Otherwise the damage would take much much longer than a traditional light.

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+1 for that. UV causes a sunburn like injury to the eye. The pain is generally not felt at an intollerable level until a few hours later and thats only with a significant exposure, more than 5-10 seconds. I would also think that using a UV light for defense would land you in some sort of legal trouble under an "attampt to maim" statue. Just my 2 cents...

Dave

stop or ill give you skin cancer.


ridiculous.

For temporary blindness, any 2 cell-sized incandescent with standard bulb (like SF E2 or SL Strion) will probably do better than any UV flashlight available. Temporary night-blindess is caused by destroying the rhodopsin build-up in the rods in your eyes, and color isn't nearly as relevant as intensity since rods only detect the amount of light in black and white, not colors.

There was an episode of Future Weapons (on Discovery) that featured a green laser (weapon mounted, I think) that had a wide beam divergence (a few inches across in close quarters), big enough to hit somebody in the eyes easily to blind them temporarily (but not concentrated enough to do permanent damage with brief exposure). If all you wanted to do was to temporarily blind somebody, something like that would be a better choice. I tried looking up info on it, but discovery.com didn't have anything, and I have no idea how to search for it since I can't remember the company.

Having a flashlight for self defense isn't just about blinding/disorienting a bad guy, it's just as much about target identification.

well I had the thought after my accident

at night when your pupils are enlarged you dont need as much light to blind you....well I woke up around 3AM and headed for the toylet...I picked up a small flashlight...of all the stash thats beside the bed I picked up a UV light: single led, coldsolderjoint mod...well, after a good shine in the mirror I had trouble seeing....not that was temperary and I recovered by morning.

my original thought was based on the inova X5-UV, but nevermind

Planterz said:

There was an episode of Future Weapons (on Discovery) that featured a green laser (weapon mounted, I think) that had a wide beam divergence (a few inches across in close quarters), big enough to hit somebody in the eyes easily to blind them temporarily (but not concentrated enough to do permanent damage with brief exposure). If all you wanted to do was to temporarily blind somebody, something like that would be a better choice. I tried looking up info on it, but discovery.com didn't have anything, and I have no idea how to search for it since I can't remember the company.

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Here you go - laser dazzler weapons

Short answer would be "no," long answer would be also essentially be a "no" ... just like it is to the question we see seemingly every other week asking if a "tactical" flashlight is a useful primary defense tool.

Make sure you put your victim in one of these first:

Illum_the_nation said:

well I had the thought after my accident

at night when your pupils are enlarged you dont need as much light to blind you....well I woke up around 3AM and headed for the toilet...I picked up a small flashlight...of all the stash thats beside the bed I picked up a UV light: single led, coldsolderjoint mod...well, after a good shine in the mirror I had trouble seeing....not that was temperary and I recovered by morning.

my original thought was based on the inova X5-UV, but nevermind

Click to expand...

you should get that checked out... (har har har....)

i find that the Blacklight tubes i had in college severly messed with my vision after only a few minuets. could have been... other things though....

Depends which country you live in. In the UK, carrying a purpose built weapon - or in the case where it is fairly obvious that you are carrying a object in order to use as a weapon would cause serious problems for you in court. For example, carrying a large hunting knife in the high street - or carrying a screwdriver where you cannot show reasonable cause for carrying (say into a nightclub). I suspect that if you carried a non standard weapon (high powered laser) in the US, other than a gun for example it could be argued that you had the intention of causing "cruel and unusual punishment" ie: blinding someone.

I think the "danger" of typical UV LEDs is terribly overrated. I doubt that they'll do significantly more damage to your eyes than any other bright light; the wavelength
just isn't short enough...