It’s maybe worth noting that a blade would be my last choice of self-defense weapon. I think it would be too difficult to make a non-lethal measured response. Though a blunt object can be lethal, it’s a lot easier to stun or disable an attacker long enough to escape or call for help without leaving them dead. I’d rather not kill anyone if I can avoid it.
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I have a stun-gun on the end of a six-foot pole.
Oh, God, I think I’m going to go full Charlton Heston on this one.
Yes, I have something nearby. No, I don’t live in a desperate place nor have I ever had to use it. But there’s another thing I keep in the house that I’ve never had to use: a fire extinguisher. If all goes well, I’ll never use it. But if I need it, it’s there. And once in a blue moon, we do hear about neighbors being broken into, robbed, even in a couple of cases beaten by robbers.
Plus, if something does happen, I live in a rural enough spot that if I call the police, they’re just a phone call and 20 minutes away.
Never underestimate the stupidity or violence of a hillbilly junkie looking for pills.
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When we were younger, hubby often had a stabby thing available in the middle of the night…
Honestly it was more of a baseball bat…
~sighs~
Now, not so much…
But I guess I am actually safer now… LOL
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Wait I don’t have anything next to my bed for the purpose of threatening intruders. Should I?
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So a tomahawk with a hammer backside. Perfect size for indoors, also.
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I have two. They’re mostly just large barky monsters. You want to get some biting done? That’s what the bunny is for.
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Picador spear, for me. An item my father brought back from Spain circa 1959, during his navy days. I hope I never have to use it…it’s barbed and very rusty.
In 47 years, at 16-odd residences, nobody unexpected has entered my bedroom at night.
I’m gonna keep rollin’ them dice.
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I’m behind a very heavy steel garage door - the kind that roll sideways, and a steel barred screen door or anti-theft bars on the only (front) windows. The entry door is metal-encased, but I figure a fire axe could take it down.
If anyone’s in here, it’s because they’re a combination welder/cat burglar, or I’ve let them in myself.
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Death by cuteness. It’s a thing, check it out.
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The fire extinguisher thing is a good analogy. Prudent and responsible people put fire extinguishers in sensible places, and examine them regularly. To me, that is not an indication of being obsessively terrified of fire. It means that in the unlikely event of fire, you have a way to deal with it. So that is one thing you don’t have to worry about.
Working on ships, especially in exciting parts of the world, you get into the habit of putting some things where you can put your hands right on them, The assumption is that there is a reasonable possibility that sometime you are going to wake up, and the power is going to be off, the deck house will be tilted 20 degrees from horizontal, and filling with smoke. So I always have a flashlight in the same place, wedged next to the bed in a way that it can’t roll away. And I always have clothes and boots and a radio right next to the bed as well. In my job, I pretty regularly get woken up by a phone call and I need to deal with something immediately. So there is no time to waste looking for the stuff I need.
I don’t turn that habit off when I am home. I always have a flashlight in the same place in reach of the bed. And there is a gun that I can put my hands right on as well. All of my pocket stuff is right there, so that includes some knives. We have been collecting swords for over 30 years, so it is difficult to be any place here without something pointy close at hand.
At home, the prospect of people will bad intentions is probably exponentially less likely than some sort of critter. But I have had to deal with poachers, and a couple of neighbors have been home invaded.
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Handled right, baton comprehensively beats knife.
Retreated and parried until they ran out of room, then one strike to disarm and one more to subdue.
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On the wall near the bed, in the living room corner next to the bookcase, in the other corner next to the other bookcase, in the front closet, in the hall closet, and on the wall over the TV.
I just realized that sounds excessive. But one is really a bat’leth that we bought to cut our wedding cake with, so it’s not that excessive.
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Fire extinguisher ownership isn’t positively correlated with mortality risk.
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If you do, assume that your brain has suddenly been catapult-launched from sleeping zero to adrenaline plaid in an instant. Make it something simple that you won’t regret later.
Personally, I’d make it harder for someone to break-in without giving more warning and time to call police.
I’m not against guns per se, it’s just that they are frequently bad options in that situation, with too much chance of a sleepy brain shooting the wrong person. (No doubt there are carefully crafted NRA-funded studies that prove the opposite.)
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So, you skewer the zombie on the bayonet/sword. This doesn’t kill it because you didn’t hit the brain. And now your gun is stuck in the zombie and you can’t raise the barrel to shoot the head.
You’re right. That would make a good scene.
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I’ve always felt the zombies should be armed.
