With tighter gun laws on the horizon the days of applying for a concealed carry permit and freely carrying a gun on our person may be coming to an end. For some, depending on their location, or their personal preferences, carrying a gun is not feasible. Either way, it is important to consider a few alternative products for self defense.
All of the items listed below may be found online or purchased at a sporting goods/outdoor store. For those who do carry a gun with a permit, you may find a number of these alternatives would be good to have for a situation that did not warrant a lethal response.
For instance, I carry a Surefire flashlight with me just about everywhere I go. Flashlights may be carried into movie theaters (where they would be particularly helpful in an emergency situation), airplanes, and schools.
1. Surefire 500 Lumen Tactical Flashlight. This is a great alternative to carrying a weapon, particularly if you are planning to be out and about after dark, or in a dark, indoor setting. The 500 lumens are enough to temporarily blind an assailant, providing you a few precious second to escape.
Note: Be sure to purchase a model with the feature you need most. Some models offer a two-stage light which comes on at low power on first click and requires a second click to reach the full 500 lumen capacity. If you are using exclusively for self defense, go with the single-stage, single-click model.
2. Personal Alarm. Personal alarms put out quite a sound at roughly 130dB, which will draw a lot of attention to you in an emergency situation. The real beauty of these things is that they can only be silenced by returning the pin to the alarm unit, not by pushing the “dummy” button on top. So even if someone manages to snatch it out of your hand, they can’t silence it without having both the pin and the alarm unit.
3. Kimber Pepperblaster II. A standard self defense staple for women. I particularly like this model over one of the “keychain” varieties, as it is easier to deploy in an emergency situation.
4. Smith & Wesson Tactical Pen. Part writing utensil, part glass-breaking device, part self defense tool. Enough said.
5. Self Defense Stick/Baton. Expandable batons can be slipped into a purse, or carried on your belt relatively easily. A flick of the wrist and the short baton extends to longer cold hard stick, great for encouraging bad guys to keep their distance.
6. Fury Kuba-Kickz. This product is the only non-lethal self defense tool available for your shoes. They fit above the tongue of the shoe and between the laces to provide some extra “oomph” behind a defensive kick to the shin or groin area. These would make a nice addition to your favorite pair of jogging shoes.
Be sure to check your local laws and ordinances, as some of these products may not be legal in your area. For instance, the Kuba-Kickz, or the expandable batons, can sometimes fall under the same legal category as brass knuckles and similar products.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
If Kuba-kickz arn’t available and you can find a pair try wearing steel toed cowboy boots, I wore a pair for years and the steel toes aren’t really visable. Also if you can stand to carry one an old fashioned wooden crook handled cane makes a good self defense weapon.
Steel-toed boots are a great idea. I’m sure a swift blow to the shins would make someone think twice about accosting you.
Go to the office supply store and buy a laser pointer. There is nobody who can call one illegal, they look like a pen in your pocket, and with a little bit of practice, you can put it right into the area you need it to go, then turn it on. A few nano-seconds at the most will distract a perp. If you get several seconds to shoot him, he is blind in that eye. Those line lasers you can get at the hardware store or lumber yard are great, and they can get both eyes at once. These might be a little harder to defend in court, but they are grand, too.
John, laser pointer might make for a nice addition to the list. I do wonder about keeping the laser on target long enough to have an impact, whereas that Surefire light equals instant temporary blindness in low-light situations. However, the laser could offer a distraction or maybe even draw someone’s attention away from a potential attack. Smart idea!
Geeezzzz gimme a break…
Excuse me Mr. Badguy pointing that gun at me in my bedroom, you just better
drop it and run now because I’m a badass with my Surefire 500 Tactical Flashlight!!!!
Jerry, I certainly wasn’t advocating the above options should replace a good home defense firearm. Rather, these non-lethal items may make for handy self-defense tools when/where firearms aren’t practical or legal.
Wasp/hornet spray is much more effective than mace or pepper spray. It shoots accurately at 20 feet or so, putting some major distance between you and your attacker. It costs as little as $2 per can and as a bonus, most likely insures that your unsuccessful attacker can be picked up by the police at the local hospital when he goes to the emergency room for treatment.
Yeah; the wasp spray is highly effective. I carry one in my car and feel that I have great protection. Using a firearm can be a life changing decision; using a wasp spray is not but can be as effective in most cases.
Anything for grandpa? Or are we going to end up like the UK where young thugs can simply overpower senior citizens and rob/assault them without fear? Without something to ‘equalize’ this difference in physical power, restrictive gun laws just trade one group of victims for another. If you are not contacting your elected representatives about this train wreck then you are part of the problem.
Very, very well said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a retailer of less lethal weapons I couldn’t agree with you more on the products you chose for other methods of defense versus guns. If the people aren’t going to be able to carry firearms these weapons are the next best thing. Much needed in today’s society. Great choices!
Why not just give the people the right to bear arms,there was a time when crimes against women were few and far between.
We need the right to bear arms. More now than ever.
What about a good old knife? Nobody mentioned that. Yes, carrying a knife on your person in some jurisdictions could be considered a criminal offense, but given you can’t carry a gun, and most criminal assaults are without guns, a knife is a very advantageous weapon to have on you if you’re going out at night, or alone during the day.
A guy was walking alone in a suburb of Detroit, MI when he was accosted by two thugs out for a “knockout” mission, where gangs will attack a single person or a couple of people and try and knock them out as a game. The 2 thugs came upon the guy and tried their “knockout” tactic. One was stabbed to death, and the other was in critical condition at the local hospital. It took the police over a week to find the guy and the weapon because they had him on a surveillance camera on a light pole. All they did was ask him to turn over the weapon. That was the end of the story.
The guy saved himself by carrying a knife. Maybe if he was attacked by a gang, he wouldn’t have faired as well, but if he got 2 of them, he could have gotten 3, 4 or 5 others, and probably stopped the attack. For seniors, if you aren’t allowed to carry a gun, carrying some of the other items mentioned in this article, including a knife, would be prudent.
I saw a young girl working in a convenience store who had a spray can of E-Z-Off Oven Cleaner under the cash register. That could put square wheels on somebody’s wagon.
How did we as a great people become so passive, distracted and weak as to allow the demented few in our Federal Gov’t to take away the only sure “fire” (pun intended) way of holding back the control-freak Fed. Govt and all its employed cronies who would love nothing more than to reduce it’s citizens to indenture servantry? We were bred to defend our Constitutional Rights. It’s in our DNA. Stop being doormats and start screaming and shouting NO WAY to your local State and Fed Representatives. ACTION speaks a thousand words….Join a bonafide 2nd Amendment Rights Group and do your due diligence.
Come on, its the Gov.gov, you can trust them to protect you!
Guns are so unnecessary, they only hurt people… (roll eyes)
Note to Ms Feinstein, any one trying to take away my ability to defend person & property
is my deadly enemy. ‘Nuff said?
I know I’m going to take a lot of heat for even suggesting this, but a fellow named Richard Kuklinski, a Mob hitman, had a weapon no one could anticipate nor guard against, and one which the police, if they were not looking specifically for it based on evidence provided to them, would not turn up on him– a small Binaca breath-spray-type canister filled with a cyanide solution sufficient to stop the other person’s breathing in a matter of a very few seconds. He claimed he had learned about it from a man who had served in the Green Berets, and he worked out from what the man had told him just how much of a solution (i.e., how many parts water to how many parts cyanide) would kill versus how much would leave the person just gasping after having passed out. Obviously, in his line of work the idea was not to incapacitate. However, it strikes me that a solution sufficiently dilute will do a good enough job if you are not looking to kill someone. There is no nudge nudge wink wink in what I am saying, as it may be necessary to kill an assailant, and it would seem that a longer application of the spray could accomplish this were it necessary, but when the point is to get the hell outta there, something that knocks the person OUT is ideal– and you may wish to stick around for a few seconds to stomp him a few times to make sure he stays down, if you can do so. As with pepper sprays and things of this nature, obviously make sure the spray cannot be turned against you. I have absolutely no idea what the formula is, how to procure the cyanide, or how it is aerosolized with pressure, but I’m sure someone resourceful enough and serious enough about their personal security can discover that for themselves. Just a sort of bottom-of-the-ninth-situation handler should the SHTF and you cannot for whatever reason carry a firearm.
I will give up my gun when the occupants of the White House and Congress give up their weapons and declared that they are officially a “gun free” zone. No longer are their armed guards or bullet proof cars necessary, in fact, they should walk to work and set an example by reducing their carbon footprint.