Quote:
Originally Posted by Saya
Thats more being reasonable about my limits, if I were lets say attacked, if it was by a much bigger man (and Newfoundland is one of the fattest provinces, my odds of running away and outrunning the guy are better than overpowering him) chances are any weapon I have would be used against me, its common sense. I'm not a big person or by any means very strong. Also one thing I didn't even mention was that I'm more likely to be attacked by someone I know and trust and at home, the other more likely scenario is at a bar and I think its a little dangerous to bring a weapon to a bar, even if a guy on the internet told me how to slice off a finger so they'd bleed to death. And again, I'm not worried about it.
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"A man has got to know his limitations." - Clint Eastwood (from Dirty Harry)
I've always kept that quote in mind, as I think it really applies to all of us.
Saya's comments are a reasonable assessment of what she is capable of and what she may not be capable of. And her assessment of what good a knife would be against a larger, stronger male is spot on. If she was packing a gun it might be a different story, but a knife is very difficult to use against a stronger opponent. She is not being defeatist at all ... she's just being a realist.
There's a thing I dislike more than pessimism, and that is false optimism. If you give a small woman a knife and tell her "Now you can defend yourself", you've probably made her less safe. Because a knife is useless in a gun fight, a knife is not an effective weapon against a larger opponent and a knife requires you to get too close to your adversary. All it will do is give her a false sense of security and possibly lead her to make unsafe choices in a dangerous situation.
I've read lots of news stories about women beating off attackers with purses, umbrellas, canes, pepper spray, mace, guns and moves they learned from self-defense training. I don't ever remember reading a story of a woman fending off her attacker with a knife.
A knife is about the worst weapon I could think of to try to defend yourself with.