So, using your line of thinking, it would be useless - or magical - to think to use a folded fingers or straight (curved) fingers hand strike to vulnerable anatomical areas during a dynamic encounter? Yes, my 50+ years of martial arts study have influenced me quite a bit in this regard.
Does the
concept of field expediency fall outside your ken? Imagine what can be done with a boxed deck of playing cards. Or a small tablet device.
The circumstances of the moment, including what's immediately at hand when exigent circumstances force themselves upon you without warning (obviously), may dictate what you have that can be utilized in the quickest, most effective manner. Your hands, even if filled with a cellphone, may be closer to the incoming physical attack than thinking to drop the phone (how many people will do
that??) and take the time to reach for some concealed 'weapon'. Sometimes the hands are faster for first contact, while you try to buy time... and hopefully gain some distance.
Now, this is also one of those conundrums where the answer vary change on the turn of a dime. For example, in some arts it's been said that an
untrained person wielding a blade may easily erase any perceived advantage acquired in the
first 5 years of someone's empty hand training. A sharp edge or point doesn't care what it cuts or perforates, or
how it's introduced to the anatomy. This would probably be the hope of someone who buys a nifty folding lockblade to clip to their front pocket, or maybe they'll pay to an 8hr class (or, to be generous, even a weekend seminar of class instruction), and feel confident they can access, wield and effectively utilize it ... when suddenly caught by surprise and confronted by an attacker who may have acquired
their 'training' using jail/prison shanks, or fighting other violent criminals who aren't concerned about the niceties of justifying the amount of force they use, etc. They might even have some knife scars that make them a bit less concerned about a 'good guy' pointing a nifty folder at them.
Now, my DT training in my LE career was oriented more toward restraint and control, which is appropriate for maybe 99% of what cops need to utilize to do their work. Sure, less lethal impact weapons (batons, ASP's, PR24's, riot batons and even nunchaku, at times, etc) could certainly be employed as lethal force, as could the old steel and aluminum-bodied flashlights, and even the newer plastic-bodied lights. Ditto the short lights, with their points, crenulated notching or their sharp "DNA gathering surfaces" (someone's tongue-in-cheek advertising
). Then, there's always the 'tactical pens' and other 1-handed self defense gadgets (presuming they're legal in any given location).
My point? Everyone needs to decide for themselves what
"actual training, actual weapons, or actual strategy" consists of, for them, and whether they are able to use it. Having invested all of my adult life in studying various martial arts, as well as having received assorted DT training in my LE career, and having been a LE firearms instructor for many years, I'd not be in a rush to think to gainsay someone who thought they could teach someone to use a cellphone (already in the hand) as a field expedient defensive tool under the right circumstances. I'd even be willing to keep it in mind, myself. (And hope my carrier insurance covers loss of the phone due to damage, or being taken as evidence.
)
It's not magical if it's realistic and practical, even if it might produce seemingly magical results.