Practical?

[Maximilian]

What weapon is the most practical for everyday use? Both for carry and improvised.

[bruceflea]

Knife, scissors, although you would probably get arrested for carrying an offensive weapon. Improv, id say a sharp pencil or a pen. Or the belt you wear...a buckle hurled across a face offers little comfort to the person recieving!

[patusai]

A cane or walking stick I would say.

[red dawn]

your brain. Very powerful weapon.

But for actual object, anything can be used as a weapon. As we can observe that most martial arts schools today teach farm tools as weapons. A pen, paper(if you know how ) paper clip, hair pin, chair, table cloth, keys, key chain, finger nails, a car or bus. Pretty much anything you can think of.

[Whitefeather]

Your brain. Very powerful weapon

I could not agree enthusiastically enough.

If you take a smart person with a well developed mind for tactics and defense, and pit them against a regular person with just about any weapon, the smart person will win, hands down, every time, period.

SECOND to the mind, I would say a gun. If somebody is being an idiot, and you can not talk them down, then a gun with a laser sight-preferably one of the cool blinky ones-nine out of ten times will convince the attacker to stop in his tracks. Therein lies the one downside to guns, you have to be ready to use it, and be totally confident in its use, if the one time out of ten happens to fall on your lot. You should absoultly NOT have a gun if you would not be able to, without hesitation or wavering, kill another human who you knew was ready and willing to take your life or, more importantly, the lives of others. If you are not capable of that, and you draw a gun, there are very good chances the attacker will see your weakness, and he will call your bluff, and you will be certifiably screwed.

After a gun, I would say escrimas entirely and swampedly beat out any other weapon, period. They are portable, you can pick up nearly anything (even computer monitors, as I am told) and use it like an escrima, they have way more range than knives, and they can be disguised easily (really sir, these are my juggling sticks!). I would be confident taking on anybody with the equivilant level of training as I have with escrimas with their own weapon.

Well, that is my blather on the topic.

Regards,

David

[UseoForce]

Absolutely: Guns and knives

All impact weapons are farther down the list.

[UseoForce]

I'd just like to add: Any honest Philipino martial arts practitioner worth his salt will tell you a combat knife or even a tactical folder is more dangerous than a stick.

[Fairfax_Uechi]

What weapon is the most practical for everyday use? Both for carry and improvised.

Keys can be a very effective weapon, and one that most folks have handy most of the time. But most pratical really depends on the situation.

[parkerlineage]

your brain. Very powerful weapon.

Someone always has to say that, huh?

I prefer to carry a rocket-propelled-grenade-lanucher. Granted, it can be kind of uncomfortable to sit down with, but it sure beats the stinger launcher that I used to carry. Those things chaffe something awful.

In all honesty, I'd say that carrying any sort of weapon is asking for trouble with authorities - learn to improvise by training regularly with traditional weapons, and then figure out what matches those weaopns in the real world.

In my opionion, of course.

[GOM]

I'd just like to add: Any honest Philipino martial arts practitioner worth his salt will tell you a combat knife or even a tactical folder is more dangerous than a stick.

A stick is just as dangerous as a knife if the practioner has the correct training and ability.