The Gentleman’s Guide to Self-Defense Part 4: Inexpensive Self-Defense Tools

Preface: Also take a look at the BulletProof Shirt and Knife-Resistant Clothing.

Here"s a quick round-up of inexpensive but effective self-defense tools ...

Hoffner Folding Knife

In many "blue" states like mine, it"s illegal to carry switchblades or even assisted-opening knives ...

A reader suggested a Hoffner knife. Made by a top firearm and knife trainer to U.S police departments - law enforcement officer Brian Hoffner - the Hoffner folding knife is incredible.

It is legal in my blue state, because it does not have a spring-assisted opening. However, the Hoffer cleverly uses gravity to easily open with one hand. So even with my tendinitis (I injured my wrists lifting way too much at the gym), I can easily open the Hoffner one-handed with a quick flick of my wrist.

Bottom line: Even in my big brotherish anti-self-defense state, I can legally carry a knife with which I can handily protect myself with quick-deploying, one-handed action.

Purpleheart Armoury Hickory Cane

If you"d like to carry a baseball bat around - but don"t want to look so conspicuous - you can carry an elegant, all-hickory cane with a beefy metal handle. This thing is incredibly well-made, solid hickory, and as elegant as they come:

(My pictures don"t do it justice.)

It is built like a tank - one whack on the noggin and the bad guy is going night-nite - and as classy as any cane in the world.

You can leave it in the car, in your bedroom, or take it with you. 

$85 from Purpleheart Armoury.

Nitecore P12GT 1,000 Lumen Flashlight

I conducted hours of research to find a small, portable, tactical flashlight which would actually work to blind an attacker long enough to mount a defense or get away.

It turns out that there are 4 criteria for an effective self-defense flashlight:

(1) It has to be really bright

(2) It has to have a "strobe" mode. Specifically, it is very hard for a thug"s eyes to adjust to a bright strobe than a constant bright light. It is also disorienting af.

(3) It has to be a great "thrower". That is, it has to shine really far, as opposed to casting a wide arc. Thinking of being able to reach the bad guy"s eyes, and (metaphorically) have the light basically hit the back of their head.

(4) It has to be small enough to easily fit in your pocket.

When I started looking, nothing met all 4 criteria ...

But recently, Nitecore released the P12GT, and it passes all 4 tests with flying color.

At 1,000 lumens, this is crazily bright (there are also 3 other settings for normal household uses).

It has a good strobe. And you can program the button on the thumb-end of the flashlight to "remember" the last setting you used. So you can auto-program the main button to go straight to the self-defense strobe setting.

It is a crazy good thrower ... the light shines 401 yards. (That"s more than 3 football fields!)

And at only 1 inch in diameter and 5.5 inches at length, it can easily fit in your front or back pocket.

I haven"t received a cent for writing these reviews. I received a test sample of one of the above-described tools ... but not the other two. I vouch for all three of them.

Times Change Out From Under Us - Paul Craig Roberts Opens "The Floodgates Of 'His' Memory"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

He had lugged the 50 lb. bag of Milorganite into the garden in order to discover, as on many prior occasions, that he had nothing with which to open it. He blamed this on the war on terror and the TSA. As a youth he, as did every boy, had a pocket knife. Always. It was expected. There was no school rule against pocket knives. Once for a period they even all had switchblades. You could get them for 99 cents, a large amount in those days, enough to buy a case of 24 Coca-Colas. The switchblades met with school and parental disapproval as they smacked of New York gangs. But before teachers and parents came up with a policy, the boys had abandoned the switchblades. The knives had weak springs. Fascinated with the speed with which the knives opened with a satisfying click and locked the blade into place, the boys quickly wore out the springs on their switchblades. Unlike their trusty pocket knives, the switchblades quickly became useless.

He no longer carried a pocket knife. He had learned long ago that things that go into pockets become habitual. He would forget to take the knife out when he rushed to catch his flight, just as he always forgot to put the knife in his pocket when he went to work in the garden. There would be a scene at the airport, confiscation of the knife, which had been his grandfather’s, and TSA questioning. They might want him to be strip searched. He could miss his flight. Such a large expensive organization as TSA needs justification, and so whereas the TSA officers might be reasonable, he could not count on it. Under the law he could be accused and prosecuted. One never knew.

He could remember the air shuttle between Washington and New York. The planes flew on the hour. You could show up 10 minutes before takeoff and be seated. If one airplane wasn’t enough, they would provide a second. There was no security, no delays.

He didn’t like being drawn back into memories of the past. It made him acutely aware how difficult just simple things had become over the course of his life, like carrying a pocket knife.

A couple of weeks ago he had been on vacation at a gated mountain resort. He enjoyed hiking along the streams and visiting the waterfalls. He had managed to rent at the airport a sports sedan and was looking forward to a morning workout at the exercise center and then a semi-spirited drive along mountain roads outside the resort. As he was changing into his workout clothes, the telephone rang. As he rushed to stay on schedule his billfold with driving license did not make the clothes change.

He discovered this at the exercise center. It was 10 minutes back to his cabin and then 10 minutes back in the direction of the exit gate. Why had he agreed to a telephone interview? If he went back for his license, his drive would be rushed and not enjoyable. He could go without his license, but suppose something happened, such as a collision with a deer. Would the police accept a reasonable story and the car rental papers for ID, or would he be hauled to jail, a long flight away from his lawyer? The days of reasonable police, he thought, were bygone days. The morning was shot. The only thing to do was to vent his frustration in exercise and return to his cabin for the telephone interview.

Even the innocence of words had been lost. There were many words that could no longer be used. They had been banished down the memory hole. A professor friend had told him that he was subjected to a dressing down by a dean because he had used the word “girl” in class. “Girl” is now considered offensive to womyn.

In restaurants in the South, waitresses called the men “honey.” “What will it be, honey?” The men called the waitresses “darling.” He wondered about that today. Perhaps in small towns. Since the advent of interstate highways, small towns had passed out of his experience. He wondered if they still had restaurants or just fast food franchises.

It got worse. The floodgates of memory had opened. He was given his first firearm at age 10. It was a single barrel .410 shotgun. When he was 12 he was given a .22 pistol. Many of his friends had guns. The countryside was nearby and many urban families had farm relatives. He remembered, too, that all the kids were subjected to corporal punishment. Today a parent who spanked a kid or provided one with a firearm would be arrested, likely prosecuted, and the kid put into foster care where there was risk of being leased out to a pedophile group.

He could remember riding his horse into the town three miles from his grandparents’ farm with a real pistol strapped to his side and a rifle in the scabbard when he was 12 or 13. No one said a thing. Today a SWAT team would be on the scene. He would be lucky not to be shot dead and never know the fate of his grandparents, who would be guilty of all sorts of offenses, including failure to supervise a minor.

That reminded him of what he had recently read in a newspaper. On a cul-de-sac devoid of car traffic a mother sat in a chair outside the house while her child played in the front lawn. A busybody neighbor, trained to report parental malfeasance, whose view of the mother was blocked by shrubbery, saw an unsupervised child at play and called the police. When the police arrived, they arrested the mother on the basis of the unverified report from the neighbor. The mother was taken to jail. The newspaper did not say what had happened to the child, whether the kid was taken to foster care and whether the husband had to rush home from his job and ply lawyers with money to help put his family back together. These kinds of horrors inflicted on families by public authorities often have worse consequences than the predations of criminals. He wondered if parents and children would be safer if the police were disbanded and outlawed.

Yet, society had accepted these abuses as justified. What, he thought, would have been the public reaction when he was a kid? The policemen would have been fired, the chief disciplined, and the mayor would have lost the next election. It would not have been possible for them to become heroes by destroying a family. The busybody neighbor would have become a pariah in the community.

Just the other day he had seen a grandmother at the supermarket with tattoos and face piercings. A grandmother? How had this come about? At the mountain resort pool and exercise center it wasn’t just the men. He had seen young women who were covered in tattoos. A friend told him that some women not only had face and tongue piercings, but also navel, labia, and clitoris piercings. Piercings were what he remembered from boyhood days of looking through stacks of National Geographic magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. Articles explained with words and photographs facial piercing practices by tribes in “darkest Africa.” Now they were the practices of upper class womyn who played in resorts.

He recalled his father’s first rule of business: “Never hire anyone with a tattoo.” Tattoos were what sailors did who got drunk in Asian ports. They demonstrated poor judgment and a lack of self-restraint. If anyone sober got a tattoo, it indicated a lack of self-respect. If an employee did not respect himself, he would not respect the job. His father would have a hard time assembling a work force today.

A couple of years ago a college classmate told him that their noble old fraternity had been suspended by the college president. A black female student claimed that racial slurs had been shouted at her from an open window. The fraternity was able to show that all the windows had been painted shut for years, probably dating back to when the house was air conditioned. But the college president wasn’t going to dispute a black female’s word on the basis of evidence. It could mean protests, charges of racism, broken windows, newspaper and trustee inquiries. Bad PR for the college. It was safer to hand the fraternity a bit of injustice.

Recently, he had arrived at the supermarket in a cloudburst. There were a dozen parking spaces by the entrance, but they were marked “Handicapped Parking $500 Fine.” He remembered when the handicapped said that they wanted to be treated like everyone else. Now they had privileges. He wondered about those signs. Did they give offense? “Handicapped” was one of those discarded words. They hadn’t got around to replacing the signs.

He remembered, too, when males did not use four-letter words in front of parents or females. Now the young womyn could out-cuss his male generation.

More memories. If you scraped a car while street parking, you were expected to leave a note with name and telephone number and expect to pay for the repair. He had once told some young people this and they laughed at the joke.

Something had happened. He had been brought up to be a citizen in a world that no longer existed.

At least there still were gardens. He put away his thoughts and went to get his knife.

Germany Sees Surge In Stabbings And Knife Crimes

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• Not only are knife-related crimes surging, but the perpetrators and victims of such crimes are increasingly younger and increasingly female.


• Germany"s knife-crime problem is being exacerbated by its lenient judicial system, in which offenders receive relatively light sentences, even for serious crimes. In many instances, individuals who are arrested for knife-related crimes are released after questioning from police. This practice allows criminal suspects to continue committing crimes with virtual impunity.


• More than 1,600 knife-related crimes were reported in Germany during just the first five months of 2017 — an average of 300 such crimes each month, or ten a day.

A Syrian migrant was stabbed to death in northern Germany by another Syrian because he was eating ice cream during Ramadan. The murder — which occurred in broad daylight in a busy pedestrian shopping area in Oldenburg and caused great consternation among local citizens — is not just the latest example of Sharia law being enforced on German streets. The crime also highlighted the growing epidemic of knife violence in Germany.

Knives, axes and machetes have become weapons of choice for criminals in Germany, which has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe. Knives are not only being used to carry out jihadist attacks, but increasingly to commit homicides, robberies, home invasions, sexual assaults, honor killings and many other kinds of violent crime.

(Images source: Pixabay)

Reliable statistics on knife violence in Germany do not exist. A search of German police blotters, however, shows that during the past ten years the number of knife-related crimes in Germany has increased by more than 1,200%. Around 4,000 such crimes were reported to police in 2016, up from just 300 in 2007.

It is also impossible to determine how many of these knife crimes involved migrants. Increased censorship by the police and the media, aimed at stemming anti-immigration sentiments, makes the public incapable of knowing the names and national origins of many perpetrators or victims.

The surge in knife-related violence in Germany does, however, coincide with Chancellor Angela Merkel"s decision to allow in some two million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The number of reported knife crimes in Germany jumped by 600% during the past four years — from about 550 in 2013 to nearly 4,000 in 2016.

Police reports show that both migrants and non-migrants are responsible for the increase in knife crimes in Germany. Merkel"s open-door migration policies appear to have set in motion a self-reinforcing cycle of violence in which more and more people are carrying knives in public — including for self-defense. Her policies appear to be leading to more and more stabbings, especially when alcohol is involved.

Not only are knife-related crimes surging, but the perpetrators and victims of such crimes are increasingly younger and increasingly female:

• In Bochum, a 19-year-old woman stabbed two boys, aged 12 and 13 years. Police said the three had been arguing when the woman pulled out a knife. The boys ran away and tried to hide in a parking garage, but the woman pursued and attacked them.


• In Soest, a 16-year-old boy stabbed a 17-year-old classmate seven times in the chest in a dispute over a girl. The victim was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries to his heart. The assailant was released after a psychiatrist persuaded prosecutors that he could not be held responsible for his actions because he acted in the "heat of passion" (im Affekt).


• In Essen, two boys, aged 11 and 13, pulled a knife on a 20-year-old woman in an effort to rob her of her cellphone. She resisted and called police, who detained the attackers.


• In Wuppertal, a "southern looking man" (südländisches Erscheinungsbild) stabbed a 13-year-old boy after he looked at his attacker supposedly "the wrong way."


• In Kirchdorf, a "southerner" (südländische Erscheinung) pulled a knife on a 12-year-old girl.


• In Nachrodt-Wiblingwerde, a group of teenagers drew a knife on a 17-year-old girl after she "provoked" them.


• In Berlin-Neukölln, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed during an altercation with a 32-year-old man.


• In Neumünster, a 15-year-old stabbed a 19-year-old after two groups of teenagers got into an altercation.


• In Gevelsberg, a "dark-skinned" man (dunkelhäutig) stabbed a 14-year-old girl near the central train station as she was walking home.

Some knife attacks appear to have political or religious motives:

• In Hanover, a 16-year-old German-Moroccan girl stabbed a police officer in the neck with a kitchen knife. Police said the incident, which occurred at the central train station, was the first jihadist attack in Germany inspired by the Islamic State. "The perpetrator did not display any emotion," a police spokesperson said. "Her only concern was for her headscarf. She was concerned that her headscarf be put back on properly after she was arrested. Whether the police officer survived, she did not care."


• In Prien am Chiemsee, an Afghan man stabbed to death an Afghan woman who had converted to Christianity. The attacker ambushed the woman as she was exiting a grocery store with her two children.


• In Munich, a man shouting "Allahu Akbar" and "infidels must die" stabbed one person to death and slashed three others in an attack at a train station.


• In Würzburg, on a train, an Afghan asylum seeker shouting "Allahu Akbar" attacked five people with an axe.


• In Oberhausen, a man shouting "Allahu Akhbar" stabbed a 66-year-old woman and a 57-year-old man who were picnicking.

Knife attacks are also common during brawls involving feuding ethnic groups:

• In Gelsenkirchen, gangs of Syrian and Lebanese youths got into a mass knife fight in the city center. Police said that the level of violence was "brutal."


• In Mülheim, around 80 members of two rival Lebanese clans got into a knife fight in the center of the city. It took hundreds of police, armed with machine guns, dogs and helicopters, more than three hours to restore order.


• In Hanover, members of two rival Kurdish clans got into a knife fight in front of the central train station.


• In Mainz-Gonsenheim, several people were stabbed during a mass brawl between Syrians and Iranians.


• In Dortmund, an immense brawl ensued after a member of one ethnic group pulled a knife on someone from another ethnic group.


• In Neumünster, a 15-year-old stabbed a 19-year-old after two groups of teenagers from feuding ethnic groups got into an altercation.


• In Gütersloh, two men were stabbed and seriously wounded during a fight between two feuding ethnic groups.


• In Leipzig, an Iraqi man was stabbed and seriously injured during a massive brawl in front of a Kebab restaurant. When police tried to intervene, the mob attacked them with bottles and stones


• In Hamm-Herringen, two men were stabbed and seriously wounded during a fight between two feuding ethnic groups.

Other knife attacks are seemingly random:

• In Hamburg, a 16-year-old boy and his 15-year-old girlfriend were walking along the banks of the Alster, a lake in the heart of the city, when a stranger ambushed them from behind and plunged a knife into his back. The attacker then pushed the girl into the water and walked away. The girl survived but the boy died. The suspect, a "southern-looking" (südländischer Erscheinung) man in his early twenties, remains at large. Police say the victims were not robbed and there is no evident motive for the crime: they said that the suspect appears to have randomly stabbed the boy just because he felt like it.


• In Bremen, a 29-year-old man was randomly stabbed and seriously wounded at the Waterfront shopping center. The entire facility was closed after the attack.


• In Dessau-Roßlau, two Syrian asylum seekers randomly stabbed two German female passersby in a pedestrian zone in broad daylight.


• In Düsseldorf, a man brandishing a machete randomly stabbed an 80-year-old man in the Kalkum district. He remains at large.


• In Wrohm, an Eritrean migrant randomly stabbed a 51-year-old woman.

Knife-related incidents are also becoming increasingly common on public transport hubs:

• In Hamburg-Billstedt, two brothers were stabbed during a robbery at the Legienstraße subway station.


• In Frankfurt, two "presumably East Europeans" (mutmaßlich Osteuropäer) wielding knives attacked commuters at the "Bonames Mitte" subway station.


• In Dortmund-Bochum, two feuding ethnic groups got into a knife fight on the S-1 line.


• In Dresden, a man carrying a 20-centimer (8-inch) knife was arrested at the central train station.


• In Schönefeld, a man randomly pulled a knife on a traveler at the airport. It remains unclear how the perpetrator passed the knife through airport security.


• In Baden-Baden, a man wielding a knife threatened passengers on a train.

Knives appear to be the weapon of choice in so-called honor killings:

• In Kiel, a German-Turkish man stabbed to death his estranged Turkish wife in front of a daycare center.


• In Bocholt, a Lebanese man stabbed to death his Moroccan wife, the mother of his three children, because he thought she wanted to divorce him.


• In Scheeßel, an Iraqi man stabbed to death his wife. Police described the murder as an honor killing.


• In Ahaus, a Nigerian asylum seeker stabbed to death a Hindu woman after she seemingly offended his honor by rejecting his romantic advances. The woman was employed at the asylum shelter where her attacker lived.


• In Hanover-Mühlenberg, a Serbian man stabbed his ex-girlfriend after she ended their relationship and had begun seeing someone else.


• In Berlin, a 32-year-old Bosnian man stabbed to death his former girlfriend after she ended their abusive relationship.


• In Hanau, a Syrian refugee stabbed to death his 30-year-old sister, who was 23 weeks pregnant and was accused of having brought shame to her family. Her unborn child also died in the attack.


• In Freiburg, a Syrian asylum seeker stabbed his wife, a Kurdish Christian who had moved out of the couple"s apartment, but had returned to collect some personal belongings.


• In Köln-Buchheim, an Iraqi man stabbed to death his 19-year-old daughter because he did not approve of her boyfriend. The man may never face justice; he is believed to have fled to Iraq.


• In Bonn, a Palestinian brandishing a "Rambo knife" and shouting "Allahu Akbar" tried to behead a doctor. The attacker"s 19-year-old son had complained about the doctor"s treatment for a fractured leg. The man, holding the doctor down on the floor, said: "Apologize to my son. Go down on your knees and kiss his hand."

Germany"s knife-crime problem is being exacerbated by its lenient judicial system, in which offenders receive relatively light sentences, even for serious crimes. In many instances, individuals who are arrested for knife-related crimes are released after questioning from police. This practice allows criminal suspects to continue committing crimes with virtual impunity.

In Berlin, for example, a migrant who stabbed and seriously injured another migrant after he refused to give him alcohol and drugs was released and financially compensated because no witnesses to the crime could be found.

Also in the German capital, investigators discovered that Anis Amri, the 24-year-old suspect in the December 2016 Berlin terrorist attack in which 12 people died, had been involved in a knife-fight in the city"s Neukölln district in July 2016, but police failed to arrest him. Had Amri been deported, as he should have been, the Berlin attack possibly could have been prevented.

According to Arnold Plickert, the deputy national chairman of the GdP police union, much of the knife-violence in Germany can be attributed to certain segments of society that live according to their own rules, not those of the German state. In an interview with knife-blog.com, a German forum for knife enthusiasts, he said:

"We are monitoring a specific target group, which mainly consists of young males who are armed in everyday life and basically are dedicated to armed confrontation. We see this particularly in large Arab families, Lebanese clans, for whom knives are standard gear. Knives are also basic equipment for career criminals and members of youth gangs."

Plickert also noted changes in German society, including a growing disrespect for police and rescue workers: "From my point of view, I can say that the inhibition threshold to the use of violence has significantly decreased."

Meanwhile, more than 1,600 knife-related crimes were reported in Germany during just the first five months of 2017 — an average of 300 such crimes each month, or ten a day. Notable knife-related incidents during the month of May include:

In Freiburg, a Turkish man stabbed another Turk sitting in the passenger seat of a car stopped at a traffic light. In Karlsruhe, a Somali asylum seeker stabbed another Somali asylum seeker. Police said the attack was an act of revenge: the stabbing victim had recently stabbed the stabber. In Aachen, a North African man pulled a knife on a security guard at a grocery store after he was caught shoplifting.

In Schwerin, a Syrian man pulled a knife on another Syrian man in a dispute over a 15-year-old girl who is not Syrian. In Gelsenkirchen, a 20-year-old pulled a knife on a 46-year-old man during a traffic incident. In Bad Oldesloe, four teenagers pulled a knife and robbed a 61-year-old man. In Wiesbaden, a "southern-looking" man pulled a knife and tried to rob a man at a sports complex. In Hofheim, a man with an "Eastern European accent" pulled a knife and tried to rob a store.

In Peine, an asylum seeker from Sudan stabbed and seriously wounded an asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast. In Kassel, a Syrian migrant stabbed a Turkish man during a dispute over money. In Bad Reichenhall, a man stabbed another man in the neck during an altercation at a bar. In Bühl, a man stabbed several people at a public swimming pool. In Wiesbaden, a man was stabbed and seriously wounded during an altercation at a city park.

In Augsburg, two men were stabbed by a random attacker at a grill fest. In Hamburg, an unknown assailant stabbed a migrant from Guinea-Bissau. In Rheine, two men speaking German with a French accent pulled a knife on a woman and robbed her.

In Berlin, a man stabbed and seriously wounded his former girlfriend and her new partner during an altercation at a restaurant in Waidmannslust. In Duisburg, a man pulled a knife on a cashier at a supermarket. In Salzgitter, a man stabbed another man in a restaurant. In Freiburg, an Eastern European-looking man (osteuropäisch) stabbed a 15-year-old boy during an altercation at a restaurant. In Danndorf, three men were stabbed during an altercation over drugs.

In Mölln, a man stabbed a co-worker in the back. In Michelstadt, a man stabbed another man during an altercation. In Essen, a man pulled a knife on his wife at the central train station. In Karlsruhe, a man was stabbed by his girlfriend"s former boyfriend. In Cologne-Ostheim, a 16-year-old student pulled a knife on his classmates and teacher.

In Neuenburg, two men were stabbed during an altercation at a restaurant. In Kassel, a man was stabbed in the neck during an altercation at a café. In Dortmund, a man was robbed at knifepoint at the central bus station.

In Cottbus, members of Syrian gang stabbed five Germans. In Lich, a man was stabbed during an altercation. In Kassel, a man was randomly stabbed by a man with a "southern appearance" (südländisches Äußeres). In Preetz, a man pulled a knife on shoppers at a supermarket. In Dortmund, two men were stabbed during an altercation in the city center. In Frankfurt-Schwanheim, a man wielding a knife robbed a local post office.

In Pforzheim, a 53-year-old Tajik man stabbed to death his 50-year-old wife at her place of employment, a Christian daycare center. It remains unclear if the woman was a convert to Christianity. In Wardenburg, an Iraqi man stabbed to death his wife, the mother of his five children, while she was asleep in her bed.

In Tübingen, a man was stabbed and seriously injured at the central train station during an altercation. In Hamburg-St. Georg, two men were stabbed and seriously injured near the train station. In Berlin-Wedding, two brothers were stabbed during an altercation with another man at a Kebab restaurant. In Kreuztal, a 53-year-old man was stabbed and seriously wounded during an altercation at his home.

In Lübeck, a 21-year-old man was stabbed and seriously injured during an altercation between two groups near the central bus station. In Diez, a woman stabbed a man in the back. In Ründeroth, a 17-year-old was stabbed and seriously wounded at a local festival. In Neuendettelsau, an Ethiopian asylum seeker stabbed his girlfriend in the stomach at a restaurant after she allegedly "provoked" him. The woman, five months pregnant, survived but the unborn baby died.