No, you're not going ot chop off someone's arms, or split them from "neck to nethers" with it, but there's no doubt any reasonable healthy person can take someone else out with a baseball bat. Hard as it may seem, people are actually easier to knock down than oak trees are.
Someone large and armed who is trying to kill you at the time? I think you want to do as much damage to their body as possible, as quickly as possible, until the imminent deadly threat is gone or no longer imminent. A baseball bat, whatever its merits as a sporting implement, is nowhere near as potent a weapon as people think it is. Unless your foe is sitting in a chair with the back of his head to you, there is no way to guarantee that first and all-important blow will do any more than bruise his arm or maybe give him a minor break. Look at the punishment criminals have taken from cops with clubs in the past. These things are woefully weak as even less-than-lethal weapons. They can break bones, but unless you happen to break the exact right bone and break it badly enough, that will not keep him from stabbing or shooting you.
It's long been my philosophy of self defense that you should use the meanest, most powerful weapon at your disposal to save your life. Do not compromise out of fear of what a jury is going to think. By definition your LIFE is on the line and unless you somehow stop the attacker YOU WILL BE DEAD. There is no appeal from death, boyos. So if you have a choice between a big axe that will cut a ribcage open in one sweep or a bat that might break a finger or bruise a face, GO WITH THE AXE!
Hit someone in the head with a hammer and you're going to end an attack, period.
Nonsense. I've been knocked on my cranium with harder things than hammers and not even lost consciousness, though I had a heck of a headache and bled a lot. You MIGHT drop the attacker on the spot *IF* you happen to get a good solid hit on the head. But think about it for a second. THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU. THEY ARE NOT STANDING THERE WAITING FOR YOU TO HIT THEM ON THE FOREHEAD. I'd say a hammer is a better murder weapon than a self-defense tool. You can sneak up to someone sleeping and kill them with it, by hitting them rapidly over and over again. That's not an option you have, legally or practically, when you are defending yourself. You have to expect to get only one hit IF YOU ARE LUCKY and you'd sure better make that one count!
Heck, if you can bring a boar spear into play in time, by all means gut the man with a boar spear. That will stop him better than any hammer strike.
When you were in a competition, did you ever get your axe stuck in a log when seconds counted? You really don't want that to be a risk when your life may hang in the balance of those seconds.
OK, if your axe is stuck in the guy's chest I think he has a rather larger problem than you do at that point! LOL
This business of advising people to use BALL PEEN HAMMERS and BASEBALL BATS to defend life is absolutely absurd and unrealistic. I don't think those suggesting it understand how quickly things happen, and how tiny your opportunity to defend yourself actually is when death comes to take you. You may have one chance if you are lucky, so you have to make that one chance count for all its worth. Do not compromise because of some fear of what you think some jury will do. Surviving to GET to the jury is the first goal.
I vote for a morning star with pieces of skin and hair stuck to the spikes.
