I have no idea. It hasn’t come up in years and the only times it did (twice), things happened so fast I didn’t have the chance to find out. Both were around 15 years ago.
Does screaming like a little girl and running away count? If so, then yes, I could manage.
I would beat them to death with my ukulele, as long as it was my cheap Lanikai tenor.
Only if you shout “El Kabong!” while doing it.
While you were tip toeing through the tulips. It could work.
yes.
It’s not ever anything I’d want to do. It’s not ever anything I’d ever choose to do, if I had any other choice at all. Its not something I dwell on, or even like to think about, given the Hellish ramifications: Arrest. Jail. Bail. Lawyers. Time missed at work. Explaining to family, to friends, to work.
Sitting next to an attorney on a wooden bench, trying to listen to what he has to say & trying not to panic at the smell of the courtroom: the smell of fear-sweat & dust.
Its literally the single last choice I’d ever choose to choose.
…but yes.
I’ve practiced a few different martial arts, starting at around age 16, so over half my life now. I’ve actually been in a few nasty fights, including a couple where the guy was armed. Being in a fight sucks, it’s scary because you know that if you fuck up too much you could die. I never want to have to fight anyone again, but I know I can if I have to.
Well, that’s what you get for trying to rob the Crazy Cat Lady from The Simpsons.
I’ve never had any training, but my father was in the army, so…
Home invaders would really not fare very well at our house. We have a variety of firearms which are available, including a folding-stock Mini-14 with loaded 30-round magazine. Let me count…right now, loaded weapons in the house include three 9mm handguns, one .44 magnum, and the Mini. Our doors are fairly heavy and it might be hard for someone to just kick them in before we would have time to grab something.
Outside the house I can and do sometimes use my concealed carry permit and either have my Glock 26 in my handbag, or else in a small of the back holster. Unless I was subjected to the “Ninjas in the trees” scenario gun control proponents typically put out, I would be able to defend myself, and yes I would shoot someone if I was in danger. A long time ago I used to carry a 4-inch knife which had a really nice thigh sheath, but I lost it somehow. I would have replaced it but found out it wasn’t legal (and still isn’t, even with a CCW license…that is ludicrous, BTW, that I can carry a Glock 26 with me but not a knife).
Unarmed I would not fare very well, except for stubbornness and being generally physically fit. I rely on situational awareness, trusting my “spidey sense”, and generally trying my best not to put myself into situations where I could be in trouble.
Probably not. I’m not in great shape. When I go biking or walking I carry mace in case a dog attacks me, but I’m not really in situations where I need to defend myself against humans very often. If I were I’d probably learn unarmed combat and carry some kind of self defense weapon like mace or a small knife. But I’m not in those situations.
Either way, no matter how tough you are you can be overpowered. It is more about making sure you are tougher than the person(s) you are actually facing. I don’t want to go down the road of constantly becoming tougher and meaner, esp since I wouldn’t need to use it except a handful of times.
This is actually incorrect. I’ve been in enough physical confrontations to know it has more to do with your opponent believing you will beat him than you being physically tougher or stronger. If your opponent feels more intimidated, or less confident, than you do, then some of the advantage shifts over to you, and his size, weight, and strength can become a liability for him.
I’m getting older and, I’m hopeful, wiser, and am not as prone to snapping because of perceived slights as I was in my teens and twenties, but in the run-up to any fight, I could always tell when guys, to use the vernacular of my neighborhood, had Kool-Aid running through their veins. Those were the guys who lost, no matter how big and strong they were, or how tough they thought they were.
That said, the only street scrape I remember losing was to someone bigger than me, so size and strength are factors.
Correction
In my post above, I wrote that the quoted assertion by Wesley Clark was incorrect. I should have written ‘inaccurate’ not ‘incorrect’.
Apologies to General Clark.
You bet. By the time I get done soiling myself and collapsing in a tearful, begging for mercy heap, even the most ruthless of thugs will be forced to turn away in disgust.
I have no idea and am in no hurry to find out but voted “No” on the assumption that with no training or experience I will probably get my ass kicked.
OTOH I have absolutely no aversion to fighting dirty - just because I’m male doesn’t mean I won’t bite, scratch, eyegouge or reach into your pants and rip your balls off. And I’m in decent shape.
So there’s that.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
Yes - with just about anything. I am usually armed in layers but I have done boxing and other martial arts as well. One of my favorite things to carry used to be a Heinz ketchup bottle in a paper bag. Hold by the neck and tap on the curb and you got something that would make a jigsaw puzzle out of anyone you don’t feel safe around. I grew up in a coal patch little rural town; I guess you could say we grew up tough with some rough horse-play. Attacking someone never really occurred to us (I can’t think of a time when anyone I knew took the first swing) but the few people who tried found the error of their thinking.
This is an important part of it. Attackers want to overwhelm and dominate quickly. Making them think twice is all to your advantage.
Do you mean the old glass bottles, breaking them on the curb to use as a weapon (for as long as I can remember, ketchup has come in plastic bottles so the idea of using a ketchup bottle as a weapon was confusing unless you mean a glass bottle)?
If so, any particular reason you used a ketchup bottle and not a soda bottle or beer bottle?
No problems. What I meant by my statement was that I don’t want to go down the route of becoming a tough guy because at the end of the day there is always some individual or group of individuals who can overpower you, and it seems like it would basically spiral out of control by constantly trying to become tougher and harder. Some of the toughest individuals in the US are locked up in maximum security prisons, and are being dominated by corrections officers so even they can’t win them all. So no matter how hardened, dangerous or tough you are as an individual you can still be dominated. Then you run into issues with gangs being formed because a group is tougher than an individual, etc. So I was saying 'A person should be as tough as you need to be to not be victimized in your day to day life, but no tougher".
I kindof like being soft, I wonder if becoming too hardened would damage my friendships and family relationships. If I lived in an environment where I had to be proficient with weapons (both makeshift and intentional weapons) and hand to hand combat to avoid being victimized, I would. But luckily I don’t run into those situations in my current residence.