We always imagine personal defense weapons as a hand held point shoot thingy.
We do? What is wrong with a baseball bat? Or a sock filled with quarters?
Held in hand. Point. “Shoot”.
Both require a lot more effort to stop a threat and can be captured and disarm you at their effective range.
If the fight starts when you’re already at a close range melee weapons have a very decent chance of coming out on top over firearms. Maybe not the sock but bats and knives definitely.
The loser of the knife fight dies at the scene the winner dies on the way to the hospital
Knives have an advantage at close range at causing potentially fatal damage vs a gun, but a gun can still kill you if you don’t gain control of the muzzle. With a common pocket knife, your best bet is a fatal throat stab or slash to ending the threat because anywhere else you can’t reach or won’t act fast enough. Maybe you can disable an arm if you can separate a muscle or sever a tendon in the forearm, but we are getting into experienced knife combat there. Not that knives are relevant, we were talking bats and a sock with coins.
A gun would easy win against someone with a bat or coins in a sock, the gunman only has to get in contact range to reduce swing force or get out of contact range. The bat or sock with coins is a 3-4ft radius of danger, the gun basically has range dependant on skill.
DMT clouds making them connect to the universe and lay down 4 minutes
Fentanyl dart gun
High voltage contact shirt. You touch me, you fry
also good for making grilled cheese sandwiches
The best defense is avoidance. To that end, a personal time-travel / prognostication device that could both predict danger and chronoport you back to before danger was imminent would be the ultimate defense, though suppose not strictly a “weapon”.
Put it in front of a group of DND players, or any other table top RPG really.
They’ll weaponize it before the session is over.
Foot held point shoot thing
Magical aura that reads intentions and zaps people. Diablo 2 paladin auras essentially.😺
Laser eyes.
Now you can just look at something you want to destroy without using your arms.
Telekinesis helmets.
Now you can just think about destroying something you can’t even see.
Body odour
Or that guy from Mystery Men who farts.
Probably some kind of autonomous thingy. Like, a drone with a Taser or some shit.
Something that makes me disappear instantly and teleports me to the pub down the street. Cold beer is better than hot fight.
What if it’s a bar fight
A small knife? A hand-held stabby thingy.
This is why I have cannons loaded with grapeshot in every room of my house. Never know when I’ll need to remove a thief from existence.
Self defense is a fantasy of control. If you want to eliminate threats to yourself rationally, eat more vegetables, take care of your mental health, and drive carefully.
I was more or less trying not to refer to weapons of mass destruction. Not implying self defense is virtuous.
Ah yes the infallible recipe to never be physically assaulted
the statistical recipe to lengthen your lifespan
Now that’s more accurate
Balls that orbit around you (think magneto of x-men)
a finger on the monkeys paw curls
Im steering clear
Temporary blinding LED flash weapon, stink bombs, vomiting, reciting the Captain Ahab monologue from Moby Dick where he’s telling them to split their lungs with blood and thunder and crack their oars and backs.
Captain Ahab monologue
This one’s kind of cool. What about a voice modulator that makes it seems like your voice is their own internal monologue and you can disarm them by boring them to death or confusing them.
