[Chris B]

To begin by answering the original question:
I ALWAYS carry a Benchmade 910 Tactical Folder (with the primary reason being its use as a tool although it would make a great weapon of opportunity should I need it), and OC Spray. If I am going anywhere where a potentail threat could be, I carry my Glock 32 (.357 Sig) that I used in law enforcement (I do have a concealed carry permit). I also go back and forth between carrying a Surefire E2 Executive Tactical Light (90 Lumen) and leaving it at home.

In response to various posts:
I agree that the best defense is to not put yourself in the situation, but it is a bit naive to ignore the fact that someone could be forced into a situation without looking for trouble as previously mentioned without the ability to escape (ie. blocked exits, small children with you that could not run, etc.). An example from my own life is that I use to have to pick up some of the Boy Scouts that were members of my church's scout troop. They lived in a relatively run down area of Houston, Texas that was predominately African American while I am as white as white can be. He lived in a gated apartment complex but in an apartment that required my leaving my vehicle to get him (11 years old). On more than one occassion, multiple males in their early to mid twenties would circle my car or me once I was out and say things like, this white boy looks lost or what is this white boy doing up in our hood (I kid you not). I felt like I was in a bad 80's movie. Everytime, I had hand on weapon, thumbsnap already broken while I was moving to cover as I talked to them and tried my best to talk the situation down. Thankfully, they never got stupid.

Jermaine, I agree with your sentiment except for a few minor points. I believe the tests you mentioned were as far out as 21 feet. Someone can close 21 feet with a knife and stab before you can unholster a firearm and fire a shot. That research shouldn't say that carrying a firearm is useless, rather it should stress the importance of the hand to hand and control technique training as well. I am former federal law enforcement and heard these types of discussions often. "I could control you before you could get a weapon.....No you couldn't.....yes I could" Pointless to argue, they both are wrong. A person training in weapons based combat would be a fool to ignore weaponless training and a person training with a handgun would be equally as foolish to ignore training without a weapon. They both have there time and place. At MINIMUM, a person carrying a weapon for defense should know how to control an opponent long enough to displace and transition to an intermediate weapon or firearm. The two elements giving a person an advantage with a gun is TIME and DISTANCE. If you take away those two elements, the advantage switches to the one with "hand to hand" training.

People thinking that carrying a weapon is somehow psychotic are extremely naive. Think about being in a restaurant with a family and a gunmen comes in and starts shooting or in a mall in a position where the exit is blocked and your family is with you. This happens in the US all the time (Texas Luby's, School Shootings, Recent Mall - can't recall where, Etc.). My first priority would be to (1) Move to cover and protect my family while working to the nearest exit, (2) make a good witness of the person shooting to pass along to law enforcement on scene during this process at minimum (3) After family is safe behind cover, draw weapon and return fire if safe to people around. There are plently of examples of people carrying weapons that have stopped a massacre by gunmen. (Side note, funniest is two old men that were WW2 veterans stopping two gunmen in a restaurant in Florida because they were armed). Anyways, without getting into a rant, weapon carry does have its benefits under the RIGHT circumstances.

Primarily, I agree that one should rely on their avoidance of the situation, situational awareness, fleeing when the option is present and noone else is in danger, hand to hand technique when forced into the situation without a weapon present in a close encounter and weapons when your life is in mortal danger. For LEO's here, I use the same threat response model as I did when I was law enforcement for my personal protection. I think it is applicable to trained civilians as well. If you are training for a defensive application of martial arts, you have to train in both methods. I would much rather have the skills and never use them, than need them and not have them. It would only take you losing a child, spouse, sister, brother, etc. once for you to have wished you could have prevented it. Not a proposition I am willing to accept.