So, you are walking down the street

I still say, if you're attacked, you counterattack. As quickly and as violently as you possibly can. Make HIM defend HIMSELF. [BLEEP] him up as much as you can, as quick as you can, any way you can. It's him or you, worry about semantics and procedures later.

What if he is running up to you to ask where you got those shoes? What if he wants to know if you have a smoke? I think your best course of action is yelling STOP and pointing at him before he enters your personal space.

If I drew every time some of you are suggesting I would have been hauled away a long time ago. Give me a break, just because someone looks a certain way, acts a certain way, and approaches doesn't mean anything unless they clearly have a weapon. In that case, by all means don't draw on them, give them a dirt nap.

Well, seeing that I am 17, I can only carry a knife and/or a flashlight.:banghead: If someone was running at me and I knew that it was ME that they were running at, then I would pull out my knife. This would be my CRKT M16 Desert Big Dog. I don't care what they are coming for, even if all they want to do is hug me, I am going to draw. Now, that doesn't mean that I am going to follow through with anything, but letting them know that you have a weapon is a serious deterrent.

If I've already identified him as a bad guy it must be because he's presenting some sort of threat by threatening me, brandishing a weapon, hurting someone else, etc..

If he turns that threat from passive to active and immediate then the option that gives me the best odds are to immediately present a gun which I will use if he doesn't immediately stop and run the other way instead.

I'm a middle-aged woman who is double my desirable weight and only 5'3". I'm too slow to run, too small to fight, and probably have at least one small child to protect. There's nothing in it for me to attempt to "fight fair" by using anything less than my best option as my first choice.

Any idea of giving an attacker the benefit of the doubt by trying to take him hand-to-hand belongs strictly to the realm of my Dungeons and Dragons characters, not to reality.

Without intent to offend anyone, I honestly think that plans to "fight fair" when attacked belong to the fantasy realm for anyone who is not trained and practiced in unarmed combat.

Okay... Anything that you have for your close range personal defense should NOT look like a weapon. You want to be deceptive in how you plan to defend yourself. Therefore, I suggest: steel toed shoes.

If a guy comes charging at you and you land a kick anywhere on him with steel toed shoes, you're probably going to break a bone of his. A guy charges me, I kick right for his shins or kneecaps. If you knock a kneecap out of alignment, he won't be able to stand up. You bust a shin bone of his and he'll be hobbling around for weeks.

Now the NEXT thing I'm going to suggest is a camouflaged kubotan. A kubotan is a small martial arts fighting device made out of metal or plastic. It's solid tube about 5 inches long and it has ridges or indentations on it. You can take a kubotan, hide it in your hand and literally beat a dirtbag to death with it in very short order. Now when I say camouflaged kubotan what I mean is for you to use something... say a good metal pen... as a substitute for a kubotan. So you study up on how to use a kubotan, get good at it and then use a substitute for the kubotan. A small woman using leverage with a kubotan as the focus of the leverage can throw a big guy all around and bounce him off of walls like he's a rubber ball. But the key thing is that she has got to really know how to use a kubotan to her advantage.

In order for the dirtbag to grab you or hit you, he has got to get close to you. So, if you take away his desire to get close to you, you win. Take some classes in street fighting or French Foot Fighting. Both types of fighting involve denying a suspect the ability to get close to you by basically kicking him away or even sort of bouncing off of his legs and body. If you keep kicking him away or bouncing off of him, he won't get close enough to hurt you.

Then there are other things that you might consider like plastic or lightweight shin guards, sewing a silver dollar or half dollar somewhere in the lining of a cap to use sort of like a sap.

But whatever you do, don't make your defensive tools obvious or your opponent may have a counter move for your device.

Keys...

Ball up a car/house key in your fist...

...everyone has keys!

Better than nothing,

Bflobill_69

If you're beating someone with a Kubotan, you're doing it wrong.

Depends on the situation. I'm in California, flashlight and OC are pretty much it. I carry a knife but I really don't want to stick anyone, blood can spread disease. If there is no weapon involved,i'm not really worried. If a weapon is involved, retreat and put real estate between you and bad guy.
I'm not one to walk away from a confrontation, but i'm not looking for it either. As for French Kickboxing..........Good luck. Instead of shin guards try impact training the shins and forearms. You better be lightning fast too. I'm not that fast, stand up fighting is cool for the ring. The street isn't a ring, i'm gonna grab something and break it. Don't forget the eardrum,you pop that .....game over.

If he has a deadly weapon in hand: Gun if there's enough room/time to draw. If there's not enough room/time go hands on & access TDI knife or gun as the fight allows.

If he has no weapon: OC out of the front pocket if there's enough room/time to draw. If there's not room/time to draw go hands on until it's appropriate to go to something else.

Hands-on time would, in an ideal situation, start with a good ol eye jab. Those suck to be on the receiving end of.

"You are walking down the street and for some reason there is a person you have already identifed as a bad guy for whatever reason, all of a sudden he rushes towards you. What would be, or what do you think would be the first weapon/tool you would reach for? Be realistic and choose something you almost always have with you."

The proximity to and type of threat perceived is important, for hopefully obvious reasons, however, if the scenario must remain generic then so must my answer, "nothing." Change a few factors, and my tools are readily accessible.

The world is not a square range and all its problems must not be solved as if it is.

Move offline to create space / buy time, pepper spray in strong hand, fend with weak, yell something like "leave me alone!" escalate if needed, phone cops when leaving area if not.

I always carry a folding knife of some sort on me so I guess it would be a knife.

Quick thrust at the juglar, kidney's, or groin area will stop threat.

If I'm carying it's probably a S&W 442 or 642 and I'll fire it from my pocket at close range.

Well, I live in GB, so this presents a problem...

My only offensive recourse is my own body, and while I am fairly knowledgable on the theory of dealing damage, actual realistic combat training is extremely thin on the ground here (actually nonexistent within 300 miles)...

However, on and off I practice freerunning (whenever I can find a quiet spot where I won't be trespassing and the fuzz won't be called on me) so that opens up a lot of escape routes - providing I'm unencumbered...

Another vote for "run away" if you have that luxury. If not, I would sidestep ("get off the X") and draw my gun, covertly if possible. If he alters course towards me then I know for sure what I have to do.

I figure there's a small possibility I'm mistaken and he's running to greet someone behind me, save a kitten from being run over, saw a $100 bill in the gutter, REALLY had to suddenly use the restroom, or whatever. Moving to the side several feet will answer that question for good.

My getaway sticks. The average joe can't catch me

Straight thrust to his throat.

i hated these q's in nursing school.." you see a patient on the ground..what do you do? I loved to ask a TON of questions of the instructor prior to engaging the situation. Do I see anything obvious like a smoldering lamp to suggest electrocution? Do I know what drugs the patient is on? Is there a code cart nearby? yada yada...

Of course the instructor knew what the outcome was to be..driving me toward oh say...choking...to get me to recite vebatim the process for the ABC's etc..

That being said..i think Mercop has been leading us all toward thinking outside whatever box you are in..gun guys think " get off the x, draw, center, extend, frontsight PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS.."

MMA guys think..well...whatever MMA guys think..grapple, choke, kimura..whatever.

So I've ID'd this guy as a threat..distance? what is my 360 environment..am I in an alley? Am I alone? Do I need to protect my family or is it just me? Night or day?

I make eye contact and let him know I see him.. reset his OODA, stink eye and I quickly take stock of options and the force continuum..can I verbally control the situation? Nope? Distance is closing and now I KNOW he is a BG..if I have time and distance I draw and use verbal commands to control. If "it's on" I pull my little fixed blade from my MERCHARNESS ( nice plug huh?) and we dance.

Of course we could change any one of these factors and the outcome and D of OODA changes as well.

gosh i love these!

Another vote for the obvious.

run away if able

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right?

Well, I'm over 50 years old and still under 150 lbs.

I've had a two surgeries in the last two years that have slowed me down a bit, and I'm carrying some metal hardware in my back that I was not born with.

As a result, neither running nor fighting HTH is a viable option for me, at least against a young, full sized, determined aggressor.

But that's okay; I don't go into bad places after dark...actually not at all. I don't go unarmed anywhere unless the law demands it, and that is mostly within my control.

And I have no reservations about fighting hard. I am under no illusions--it has been many years since I've been in a fight, and these days punks play for keeps. At this point the next fight I find myself in may very well be my last.

I intend to avoid it if at all possible, and that is not possible, I intend to win it. I don't expect it to be easy, so I practice regularly.

I don't carry OC, Mace, nunchucks, a knife or a policeman. I carry a gun, just one, and I know how to use it.

I hope that I will never use it. And if I ever use it, I hope I do my part.

Because I love a happy ending.

And this is not a "what to do" answer ...

What do I reach for? Space. Retreat to maintain separation. Then vocabulary, warn him. Lastly, hand ... on gun ... he don't stop he gets stopped.

So no how to do it ... just what ... (feet, voice, hand ... gun) they're always with me.

well lets see, if I knew this guy was trouble and I had not already moved out of the situation then shame on me. Now obviously that's not always practical but it would still be my first course of action. Lets say he was still following me and started to rush me, I would promptly draw my pistol or revolver (depending on what I have with me, and flashlight *if I have it with me (at night) and proceed to yell various warnings/commands such as STOP, get on the ground etc.

So I guess I'm not understanding your question right, but my "mechanical force options" in order of my likely deployment of them are as follows

0 activate brain... hehe
1 distance myself. Leg force is powerful...
2 pull strong side handgun/flashlight if perceived threat continues
2.5 yell simultaneous to draw attention/warn the potential assailant/person who wants to get in my personal space
3 Immediately call police to report suspicious behavior, or to report I drew my weapon. Don't need to be thrown in the slammer
No one wants to shoot anyone (I hope, especially arm chair commando's like myself, despite tough talk). The best force out there is your brain. It provides you with situational awareness and hopefully levelheadedness.

So, you are walking down the street

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Am I singing Doo Waa Diddy, Diddy Dum Diddy Doo?

i'd wait till he was next to the 'No Parking' sign and than wrap it around him. smile. walk away. humming 'Doo Waa Diddy..........

If I couldn't get away I'd have one hand on the OC in my left back pocket and one on my gun. If the first one doesn't work, the other will. I'm in pretty good shape, but at 120lbs I'm not about to get into a fistfight or a wrestling match with some thug on the street. I don't care if he has a weapon or not. If he's at least average adult male size, he is a weapon as far as I'm concerned.