In extreme close quarters defensive situations a little poke poke would suite better than a little bang bang. Silent, no way to malfunction, never needs reloading. With so many reasons as to why you should, why do so many look at me sideways when they find out I do. Funny thing is not long ago I was one of those on lookers with my head canted and eyes squinted muttering under my breath, why not just carry a folder?

Flash forward a few years, after taking a few different classes (FPF TRAINING With John Murphy) Doing a little force on force, and drooling over videos from knife experts like Doug Marcaida and Fred Mastro and here I am trying daily to be as awesome as the men mentioned above. All the while doing my very best not to draw my own blood while fiddling with these tiny sharp pieces of metal.

Before anyone asks, yes I carry a folder. Two to be exact. I would be more likely to leave the house without my keys, wallet, or phone than without a solid folding knife. A small fixed and a couple of folders can address every problem you can run into on a daily basis.

The draw is FAST! There is absolutely no chance of not fully deploying the blade under stress. The carry locations are endless. Also no chance of the knife closing on your own hand in a scuffle.

Now for the down side, there’s always some stipulation, some moronic ideology that somehow crawls its way out of some idiots head and into a law book. The fixed blade laws nationwide are a collection of jargon focused on being murky, ambiguous, confusing, elusive, obscure, vague, shadowy… Wait I got lost in my thesaurus for a second. You get the point, they are outrageously unclear and left up to interpretation. No real answers on legality of concealed v open, Blade length, blade shape, and most importantly intent.

I am by no means a lawyer, and will never give law advice. With that being said maybe you could find some magical gnome and have him explain to you the convoluted work around to these idiotic laws.

Take from it what you will, personally the positives outweigh the negatives.

Stay sharp… Oh yeah and StaysSuspicious

Knives pictured bottom to top
Cold steel safe marker 2
Boker CLB
Spyderco ARK
Ka Bar TDI

In self defense situations it is always best to leave the house with the odds stacked in your favor. There is no fair fighting when fighting for your life, cheating is encouraged. Your every day carry load out should do exactly that give you the upper hand in every situation you may find yourself in. The application of a bright white light increases your unfair advantage tremendously.

What are the benefits?

It allows you to identify the threat or non threat in any lighting condition. Allowing you to differentiate between someone who is approaching you with a weapon, or a harmless cell phone should be enough reason to carry a light.

You also gain the ability to use the light as temporary concealment from attacker, to temporarily blind, and or disorient. I don’t know about you but simultaneously highlighting a threat while concealing yourself from said threat is a win win.

But let’s throw the tacti-cool talk aside and think real world non life or death situations. You drop your keys in a movie theatre. Date night at Olive Garden and the power at goes out. Or the worst possible non life threatening situation you can find yourself in. Let me set the scene, you’re minding your own business. Pants around your ankles in a public restroom stall doing the “doo” and some dimwit leaves the restroom and kills the lights on his way out… There’s nothing worse than pooping in the dark.

The applications are countless, ranging from preventing loss of life to comedic spectacle. Lastly to put it Simply, You can’t shoot what you can’t see. So in closing if you carry a gun, carry a quality white light. If not you will be left in the dark… Pun intended.

Pictured is a Klarus xt11
Brands I trust
http://www.klaruslight.com
https://olightworld.com
http://www.powertacusa.com
http://www.nitecore.com
http://www.thrunite.com
http://www.surefire.com