[I should have maybe said this, rather than assume it's implied, but I am referring to the non-trained average citizen, which I would consider myself in that group. I thought that maybe a hatchet or machete, for the average untrained person, due to their utility and their potential lethality. As I said though I'm untrained and not very knowledgable about these types of weapons.]
May we assume that you are also talking non fantacy, present day joe citizen going about his daily business?
Short of a firearm, I really do believe a stick has no equal in the hands of somebody wanting to protect themselves.
A stick can be carried anyplace, anytime. Its so under the radar, most people won't recognize it when its right there next to them. A towel rack on the wall, a rung of a wooden chair, broom or mop handle that can be kicked in half. Or the ubiquitous cane or walking stick.
I don't think it was an accident of fate that for thousands of years, the staff or rod, or cane, has been a companion of travelers on the roads. From a merchant or tinker traveling on the roads of medevil Europe, to the gentlemen of Victorian era who took lessons in cane defense at special studios set up for that purpase.
A walking stick/cane/hiking staff, is always right there in your hand, ready for instant use. Being a blunt force truma inducing weapon, it's effect is immediate. A hand or arm with crushed bones or nerve centers is usless imediatly, vs a cut which may take a while to take affect due to blood loss.
A stick can be improvised out of near anything. The knowledge of how to use it will always be in your head, once learned. Every office building has a janitors closet with one or more nice ash handled mops in it. There's curtain rods as well. Fire place pokers work well too.
With the Americans With disabilities Act, nobody wants to be sued for taking a cane away from you. I've walked into court houses, onto airlines, and into schools with my walking stick. Nobody ever said a thing. yet there it was right in hand, 36 inches of Irish Blackthorn. Or one of my homemade hornbeams. The few comments made were compliments on what a nice looking stick it was. Three feet of stick and a 33 inch sleeve, gives me approximatly a 6 foot radius of swinging room around me. More than enough to buy me space from a knife wielding street punk. Or used pugil stick style, it can block a knife thrust, and then deliver a root knob to the face/throat (like a butt stroke) followed by a shaft blow to the same area in the space of a heartbeat.
Miyamoto Musashi fought a number of duals against katana wielding foes, using a wooden training sword, killing his opponent. A length of oak can be very deadly.
But even for an untrained Joe, a stick is an intuative weapon. Even chimanzes in the wild have been seen to pick up a stick and swing it at a foe. With very little little forthought and a tad of training, a stick can be used to very very good effect. It is not that uncommon to run across articles in the newspaper of a senior citizen fighting off a mugger with a cane. A stick is intuative enough that the old sailors would preffer a belaying pin in close action boarding to the issue cutlass or boarding pike. When sir robert Peel was setting up the very first police force, The London Metropolitan Police, (Bobby's) he was wondering what to arm them with. Pistols of the day were single shot weapons, and in the rainy damp climate of London, not too reliable. He considered swords. Then one of his Bobby recruits, a former sailor in the royal Navy, told him about belaying pins. He then had some study sticks turned out, and it's been history ever since.
There's been many a person or home thats been protected by a sledge hammer handle or ax handle.
If I can't have my Smith and Wesson revolver, give me a good stick.