Short sticks

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You probably could get away with carrying a short length of pipe, at least in your vehicle as long as you also carried a few plumbing accessories like T's and elbows, maybe a roll of thread tape or a pipe wrench. It would be pretty hard to prove that you were not on the way to do a little home improvement.

Now that I think about it, is there any law against carrying a big 12" wrench in your back pocket?
 
I carry a steel breaker bar with a socket sized for the wheel lugs right beside the driver seat in my vehicle. Measures from elbow to near fingertips. Perfectly reasonable thing to have in the vehicle.
 
I've read in the recent past that some people carry ball peen hammers in their trousers, like on a carpenter's loop on Carhartt's.
 
That's going to be pretty difficult to explain.

And make you walk funny.:evil:
 
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I believe that was the Hell's Angels that used to carry the ball peen hammers. Or at least they tried that.

When you're talking legality that's really quite variable from state to state.
 
I'd question the "success" of something so obvious. Bikers carried wrenches because they had some plausible deniability. Ball penes don't quite fit that.
 
I think it all boils down to what's plausible for carry by an individual.

If you're a flute player or student, flute.

If you're a carpenter, handyman, apt manager, car mechanic/autobody repair, etc, ball peen is fine.

If you're a pool player, .... etc.
 
As I may have pointed out before, all these various dodges to carry "something" to use as a weapon may or may not be effective.... But it boils down to what happens when you use it.
You are introducing a deadly weapon into the equation. If you are justified in using deadly force, you MAY be fine legally. However there is no guarantee of this. That "fight" just became an aggravated assault. The fact that your hammer or pipe or pool cue or whatever isn't technically a weapon doesn't matter once it's actually used as one.
There's also the manner in which you employ your improvised weapon. If you've had some training in various martial arts and you drive off your attacker by well-placed strikes to knee and elbow and such...
That indicated a degree of control and no intent to inflict serious harm.
However, if (as instinct often tells us to do) you engage in head-whacking... Then you face the serious possibility of death, brain damage, disfigurement...
All of which could be the grounds for civil lawsuit as well as criminal prosecution.
 
I would use "head whacking" as an absolute last resort. I train more for hands - especially ones carrying a weapon, which indicate intent to harm me - arms, collar bones, ribs and legs, especially knees and shins.

There's a great quote out of one of Kelly McCann's books about all of this. I'll dig it out and copy it here when I get some time.
 
That "fight" just became an aggravated assault.
Click to expand...

Yep

However, if (as instinct often tells us to do) you engage in head-whacking... Then you face the serious possibility of death, brain damage, disfigurement...
All of which could be the grounds for civil lawsuit as well as criminal prosecution.
Click to expand...

Exactly correct.

Making the decision to carry any weapon, even a tool that can be "improvised" into an effective weapon, brings with it risks and responsibilities. Those risks are of maiming/disabling someone out of ignorance of the use of the tool and of the legal consequences. The responsibility is to know how to use it to minimize your legal risk which means minimizing the permanent injury to an attacker. That means training so that you don't default to the strikes to the head/face.
 
As far as I know all modern military and police riot training forbids striking the head or neck because it crosses the line of lethal force. This is the one good thing that came out of the riots of the late 1960's. The police no longer 'crack heads' because several people died from it.
 
So, here's a simplified account of what I experienced last night
while working out late night with the following tools:

* warm up : running in place, jumping jacks, light dumbbells, dance
* body weight exercises : push ups, pull ups, squats ...
* sticks ranging from 48" to 16", used against bags hanging from rafters
* some music while working with 16" - 18" sticks, one in each hand

The latter is where it happened.

At a higher physiological state than rest,
a near aerobic state, with the music,
using the sticks first in a horizontal hit fashion (as in drum),
then moving the tips to vertical hits (as in torso)
I realized - as a long time drummer - that
moving these two sticks as fast as a drummer moves them
with tips hitting high, mid and low along with much leg action
makes them nearly impossible to fend off.

Think of Manu Katche drumming for Peter Gabriel.
_______

I've more to say about this, but after sleep and more practice.
_______

PS: If you want to see that first track with Manu, Peter and Paula, it's here.

That's Peter's Secret World Tour, stop in Milan.

Should be heard with volume up.
 
Owen,

That's mostly correct. The body is divided into three zones, from preferred striking areas (fleshy part of the thigh, back of the upper arm) to ones likely to cause serious injury (bones and joints) to areas that should only be struck if lethal force is warranted (head, spine).

Red areas should usually be avoided, but would be justifiable if (for instance) a baton was being used against an unarmed attacker, who suddenly produced a knife. In that case, a head strike would be lethal force, but quicker and safer than trying to draw a sidearm when the aggressor is 3 feet away with a blade in his hand.

To anyone who thinks the hand or arm should be the target in that case, the head is larger and slower.

John
 
Taiko

Quick update with a promise for more in a few days.

In post 341, just above, I described an epiphany
that I had about short sticks as a percussionist.

Here are a few more details.

I've played drums for around 15 years.
Mostly hand drums - congas, bongos, etc -
but about five years ago, tried my hand at a standard trap set
(like used in rock and roll: kick drum, snare, toms, symbols, etc
all hit with sticks, except the kick of course, which is more like muay thai).

I still prefer hand drums, including electronic,
but when I'm camping, I usually always find a hollow log
and use my 16" or 18" stick or both to make rhythms on it.

Last night, when using both 16 and 18 to practice,
I realized with the speed of a light coming on that I prefer the 16.
For my anatomy, it's got far more speed and wrist snap potential than the 18,
even though the 18 obviously has that extra 2" for reaching out to touch someone.

So, in a snap decision, I cut off the 18" to a 16".

Well, I gotta tell you, it's changed my whole approach to short sticks.

First, I find that I can use these dual sticks like drum sticks,
the average length of which is 16" (15 - 17).

Second, today, I carried both in my pack.
A pair of sticks is easier to explain than a single: they're drum sticks.

Third, I remembered the name of
a type of Japanese stick drumming
- Taiko - and began to research it.
I've decided now to study Taiko.

Fourth, I started researching Taiko sticks, called Bachi.

The most common size? 1" x 16".

Hmm. I may be onto something here.

I'd be really surprised if I couldn't find a pair in really hard wood.
 
Karen and I went to a performance of those Japanese drummers down at the Kennedy Center a few years back. They were here on tour, and watching them I had the same thought as when I watch the chef at that Japanese steak house we go to now and then; I'd hate to have one of them mad at me. :D

Carl.
 
Shotō bokken

Speaking of short sticks and things Japanese (how's that for a segue), another slightly neglected item is the bokken. Most people think of the 1 meter long daitō bokken that imitates the katana, and those with a little more martial arts experience might be aware of tantō bokken. Often overlooked is the shotō bokken, a 55 cm long imitation of a wakizashi, or short sword.

I'm amused by how a bokken is perceived by Westerners as a "dummy practice sword," little more than a stick a child would play with pretending to be a samurai. Nobody seems aware that Musashi himself killed several people in his career with them. People of lesser skill wielding real, sharp katana. I find it hilarious that many locations I go that actually are wary of martial arts weapons have all sorts of signs about no nunchuku, no chains, no knives and no steel weapons even if blunt, but they take one look at my shotō bokken and say "oh it's just one of those little wooden practice swords. Go ahead." The smaller size seems to be perceived as either a child's toy or just a "symbolic" item meant to hold in the hand during kata. Much like the pool cue story, there's plenty of dojos around places I go as well as parks were people do solo forms like Tai Chi Jian, so it's pretty plausible excuse that I was just on my way to/from practice.
 
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Jim, I'm reluctant to cut off kali sticks, but they're just too long the style I wish to study. They definitely belong in this discussion, though.

Fascinating story, Glistam, about Bokkens. They too belong as part of this discussion, as does bokken technique.

For me, though, my epiphany (of sorts) is that Taiko bachi are not only potentially useful tools for me for SD - because they already match one of my favorite lengths (16") - but they are very plausible for me to carry since I'm a percussionist. (That's relevant to discussions we've had in this thread (and others) about plausible stick or stick-like tools that can be used as weapons: pool cues, flutes, etc.) I've been researching Taiko, also, and really am interested in studying it. As luck would have it, while discussing this with a friend, I learned that another friend (that I know less well) is a long-time student of Taiko.

And, while I'm certainly not proposing that Taiko become the next great martial art form, I do know from my own percussion experience that practice can contribute significantly to stamina, comfort with the sticks, accuracy of strikes, etc.

And as I watch those Taiko drummers in the video I posted, I think about the power, swiftness and agility of their strikes, and think that couldn't be a bad thing during a SD encounter.
 
Nem,
The website I gave you custom makes sticks at whatever length you order. Takes two weeks and come with very nice handles. $45 plus shipping.

Jim
 
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