Armed to the Teeth
For a number of years, I've been looking into the prospect of handguns. This is of course due to the fact that I'm a weakling. There was a time when I exercised regularly, but the fact was, it was boring, messy, and too light to provide any progress. The fact remains that, like with any other attempt to improve myself, I on my own don't have the motivation to keep it up. Consequently, I am, in terms of physical might, unable to compare with any full-grown, healthy man-or most women. Added with the fact that the average male human is much more mentally capable than I, I tend to have a bit of an inferiority complex. Consequently, I have seriously contemplated learning some way to defend myself-after all, violence is treated as a saintly quality by human male society and media, to the point that it has become, to me, one of the greatest concepts of beauty.
At times, I actually considered training. In college, I was required to take some PE, so I tried fencing. Again, I was turned off by the fact that, even after three trimesters, I was less physically fit and skilled than those who appeared for the first day the next year. Further, it was soon obvious to me that it was just a game. The techniques of fencing are at a handicap unless they are used in a confrontation between exactly two combatants, both armed with fencing swords, in a setting that allows them to move only in two directions.
A more obvious option would be normal self-defense methods, but these are all martial arts, and thus stereotypically Asian. Over 13 consecutive years of public schooling, a great shame for Mother's heritage was ingrained in me, which I have only overcome since then. Even then, I still had some naïve hope that I could find a "dignified" technique that would not use the legs. This was probably started by the time some old Japanese bastard ridiculed me in front of three PE classes because I didn't kick high enough. However, I also came up with the idea of focusing on mobility, since between marching band and fencing, I've become rather light on my feet. (I even decided to use this method as the signature style of the most ridiculously skilled fighter in any of my projects: Ms. Inferne from Project Artificer.) Unfortunately, as far as my research has shown, there are no martial arts that don't use kicks, with three exceptions: throwing arts, like aikidō; grappling arts, like jūdō and jūjutsu (no, I have too much respect for the Japanese language to say "joo-JIT-soo"); and weapon arts, like kendō. Unfortunately, aikidō is said to emphasize mental control and flowing movements, which are hardly appropriate to my capabilities, and the emphasis on it as used as a defense against more powerful opponents just doesn't seem like it would boost my pride as much as some. In the second case, I really don't like the concept of wrestling with big, hairy men.
In terms of weapon arts (which are martial arts, despite the stereotypes of them being unarmed due to that variety's utility in the modern world), my first choice was kobujutsu or kobudō, but those are hardly arts for which it's easy to find training. When I went to uni, I tried visiting their kendō club (which would be useful even if I were in a wide-open area as long as I had a solid cane or umbrella or something), but a number of problems arose from that. For one thing, I happened to get into a big fight with Mother on the day of the second meeting, so I didn't have a chance to ask if I could go, and thus missed the continuation of the basics. Further, I was required to buy a shinai, which is of course bound with leather straps. (I probably could have found somewhere that was selling cruelty-free versions, but I never bothered to go that far with it.) And most significantly, this was still a martial art, which meant rote memorization, mental training, and submission to tradition-all of which anathema to my unstable mind. In particular, I had a lot of trouble with the footwork exercises, which required me to keep eye contact with the male human practicing opposite me. Again, the 13 years immersed in homophobia had conditioned me to find this rather difficult.
Anyway, I'd been thinking about guns ever since I actually started having significant contact with something that used depictions of real guns-in this case, d20 Modern, the franchise that I seriously approached that was set in a version of the real world. Early on, I bought the two chief firearm references for the system (a third-party one and the official one-the latter of which being very sloppily put-together but with a broader scope than the former), and these were the bases for my study.
I went through several frames of mind in my idle fiddlings with the (not really serious) idea of getting one or more firearms for myself. The first was the silenced handguns, as I like the idea of not permanently destroying my hearing as is the fashion with modern youth. The main problem with this one was the fact that autoloaders require a lot of maintenance to keep in working order. As someone who hates work of any kind, I didn't see myself bothering with that much for a gun that I'd likely never fire. So I considered concealable, small-caliber revolvers and deringers. Of course, I have heard that it takes a reasonably large caliber to be of any use against a human assailant. Also, even with such simple guns, it requires licensing (which might be difficult to acquire for someone of my medical history) and significant numbers of finicky laws (which would be a pain in the ass to manage). Further, such an efficient killing weapon might be too tempting for me in certain circumstances.
Recently, I've looked at knives instead, as these are simpler both mechanically and legally. I decided that the best would probably be the longest ones I could conveniently hide under my coat, as this would provide the best reach and of course intimidation factor. In particular, these ones look particularly nice, with the multi-blade sheath-Although the longest one is a bit long for a shoulder sheath worn by someone at the 25th percentile in height, the sheath looks flexible enough that I could leave that one off and fold it down. There are, of course, several issues with this. First and foremost is the fact that the item listing, as with most amazon ones, is missing pertinent information-in my case, whether the sheath or wrappings are made of leather. Also, the company is apparently goofy enough to call it a "Ninja Sword," which makes it a bit inappropriate to buy a real weapon from them (although of course my motives are not entirely serious). I may not be as xenophobic as I was in high school, but I still don't like it when people brand me as a "fanboy." (Well, Japanese people think ninja are cool, too, but if they make up new swords and call them "Ninja Swords," then that's pretty fannish.) There are plenty of machetes on the market, but I didn't see any with such a nifty sheath, and I don't know if there are any intended for combat or concealed carry. If these are problems, then I could default to these, as they too have a good dual sheath, but the smaller size does tend to fall back on the criteria I put forth in the second sentence of this paragraph.
By the way, the chief reason for the dual sheath is the fact that I try to keep both hands working properly. That's why many of you may have noticed that I alternate which one I use as primary on each consecutive day. The problem is with things that I don't do every day. The main problem is of course writing, the only thing I ever do that requires significant manual dexterity (other than typing, which is done with both hands). I don't write anything with my left hand, except my one crossword a week, which is all capitalized Roman letters. I should get back to practicing that when I have the chance. Anyway, the dual sheath allows me to keep them both where I would be ostensibly reaching for a wallet, and it's good to have a backup even if you do use only one hand.
Incidentally, I also considered throwing knives to deal with the range problem. After all, this (where would I be without Wikipedia?) suggests that actual combat throwing technique wouldn't be all that hard to learn. Unfortunately, the utility of such a thing wouldn't be too great. It isn't usually good for civilians to try and kill people who are already running away, and if an enemy is still attacking me, either he would get close enough for me to fight back with a handheld blade, or he would have a gun, which would make it rather difficult to dissuade him with throwing knives. It would on occasion be nice to be able to prevent someone from reaching someone else who is closer to him than I to him, but that would often require precision to prevent friendly fire, which is likely to be beyond my casual capabilities.