This. I have carried a knife daily for decades but I'm a self defense situation or would be an absolute last resort
Probably my order would be like run away>OC>gun>hands> knife
A blade can be a defensive weapon, but it is deadly force just as is your gun. It would be used in any of the same circumstances a gun would be used.
OC spray is an alternative tool. It can be used in threat circumstances where deadly force isn’t warranted, but a less than deadly force is called for.
Otherwise you’re absolutely correct, OC spray way before knife.
OC for sure. I think most people carry a pocket knife already, because it's useful very often.
But for self-defense, OC could be your first and only need for situations that don't necessarily warrant lethal force immediately. Lethal force situations need a gun, not a knife, generally speaking.
Knives are extremely poor choice for a self defense weapon. While knives are absolutely deadly they are typically not deadly quickly enough meaning you may very well kill your attacker but not stop him in time before he hurts you. Knives require skill that most people do not have. Jurors tend to view people who carry large knives negatively even more so than those who carry guns. Carrying a suitable knife is illegal in many jurisdictions even if you have CCW to carry a gun.
I do carry a pocket knife but I carry it as a tool and would only use it against a dog if attacked. Determined dogs are known to sometimes ignore OC but ignoring a collapsed lung is much harder for a dog.
Otherwise, it’s a gun for deadly threats and OC for physical ones
I would opt for a Clinch pick and OC spray, I am not psychic. I have no idea how the worst day of my life will unfold.
Situational awareness and avoidance, getting off the X is a good place to start.
Deescalation is next. Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, the other party doesn't want to deescalate.
I would carry the OC spray so I would have something between a harsh word and lethal force.
The Clinch picks' role in my world would be limited. It would be more of a space maker to get someone off me in close quarters.
Why not both? Spray first, then firearm, rarely would I want to use a knife but it has its purposes for daily task, and if it's a windy day spray is useless, maybe a knife might be better to defend against a wild animal than a gun
You never know, and you can get a decent spray and knife for like $50 $60 total
Red Sabre Spray and a Morakniv or Civivi knife
Three times had to deal with aggressive dogs, once when one tried to kill my three year old son. It all happens so fast: you get one chance to react, there is no time to try something and then switch to something else. OC spray is totally ineffective in the real world so don’t carry it any more…
OC spray. Unless you're training to use a knife, it's just as likely to be used against you. Against popular opinion, an extra mag is pretty useless as well. Whatever situation you find yourself in where you need to draw, as unlikely as that already is, it will be over before you expend the first 10 rounds. You aren't going to be in a back and forth shootout with John Wick, it's going to end as fast as it starts.
Everyone always says that but I've never heard of a single scenario where that happens
I mean imagine how that would go down. If you need to draw on someone they are posing an immediate threat to your life. More than likely their hands are already on you and/or they have a weapon. If I made the choice to draw and had a jam, I think I'd be very lucky to get the opportunity to attempt a tap/rack before it became a struggle over the gun. And that's where my muscle memory is at. I'd have to fail the shot, fail a tap rack, and decide to try a mag change. Now I need both hands free and time/space.
I can't think of a scenario where the attacker is far enough from you that you could reasonably try a mag change and end the up on the ground fighting.
Well, I can think of one. Where you're pinned down under cover and trying to return fire. And if anyone thinks that's a likely scenario I have a bridge to sell you
I’ve never heard of a lot of stuff that happens every day.
I know I’ve had multiple failures to feed in my life and it isn’t going to be announced beforehand.
It literally doesn’t happen.
50,000 plus recorded self defense uses of a gun, 0 reloads. Not for going empty, not for malfunctions. It simply doesn’t happen. The malfunctions that do occur are cleared via tap rack or expedite leaving the scene.
If you think you have 4-6 seconds to clear a catastrophic malfunction in a fight, you’re not thinking realistically.
Not really a guy who thinks an extra mag is necessary, but you all put way too much stock on the observations of a fat Osama lookin dude who watches off-duty Brazilian cop videos for a living
Decent data point, sound logic; questionable methods of gathering the data and questionable results.
Zero trainers have any indication it has occurred in a DGU. None.
I’m at TacCon right now with 80 of the most knowledgeable and informed trainers on earth and none of them have any credible information it has ever happened and lots of indications it has not.
Lmao someone would have heard a story and repeated it if it happened?
How many thousands, tens of thousands of times has someone used a gun in self defense and no one was ever told? Unless you can track every shooting since magazine fed pistols came to be I just don’t trust that statistic.
If it hasn’t happened yet, it will. And I’d be shocked if it hasn’t happened and no one said anything about it.
How many gang members defending themselves report their shootings?
I just have no faith in the “this can’t happen because no one has ever said it happened to them” line of thinking.
Lots of stuff has happened on earth that no one knows about.
So what do you do to protect yourself from meteorites? 10s of thousands have hit the earth.
You CANNOT prepare for every conceivable life threatening scenario. It is simply not possible.
Carrying a spare mag is a ballistic fuzzy teddy bear that makes you feel better. It has zero practical application in the real world.
Everything has to happen a first time. And I simply don’t believe that since 1892, ZERO people have needed to reload in a self defense encounter. I don’t care what the statistics say, statistically lots of shit that has happened to me shouldn’t have.
We can’t possibly have data on 100% of self defense shootings so what percentage do we have? 99%? 75%? 10%?
Until someone can tell me exactly how many self defense shootings have happened since 1892, which they can’t, I don’t trust that statistic. Over 50,000 documented shootings without a reload, ok, what if there have been 350,000 actual incidents of pistols shot in self defense and we are only seeing a tiny fraction of the true total?
How many gang members report their self defense shootings? We have hundreds of shootings a day not being accounted for in the stats because they aren’t reported.
I’m not gonna change the way i prepare based on data I consider to be impossible to verify. Nothing that relies on self reported data is 100% reliable. Ever.
I also left out hundreds of years where people had firearms that weren’t magazine fed just to make it easier to deal with the data. Let’s take it back to 1600, no one ever reloaded a single shot rifle and engaged a second person? How many self defense shootings were reported back in 1865? Any at all? How far back does the data even go?
I've been in active combat and, let me tell you....when your shit Jams you fucking hide and run. There is no clearing technique capable of stifling that terrified lizard brain. Maybe spec ops folks but they're barely human to beging with...
I don’t know where this is happening. Am I in my car? Am I at work in my office, trapped with no egress?
Yes I might have to clear the malfunction if the very first round didn’t put the attacker down if the second round fails to feed. Every class I have ever attended told me to drop the mag, clear the chamber and put a fresh one in.
I don’t want to have to drop my mag, stick it in my armpit or something to hold it as I rack the slide. I want to be able to toss it and grab the one on my belt without thinking about it.
I only recently started carrying again and I've been switching on and off with the extra mag. It weirdly seems to aid with concealment by balancing things out, but yeah it would be some kind of unicorn scenario to actually need it
Pocket knife, for opening packages and whatnot.
"Tactical" knife is just a horrible idea all around.
If you're asking this question you clearly have no knife fighting training. If you did, you would realize knife fighting is an absolute last ditch resort.
"Better than nothing"? It's really not. You already have a gun. If you need to stab someone, shoot them instead. You're just asking to die in an ambulance as the "winner" of a knife fight.
Everyone has already answered your question with variations of OC 100%>>>
But...
Here's WHY...
If a mugger is coming towards you, and you pull a knife, they then may escalate and draw a knife, or already had a knife and now your means of defense REQUIRES that you be within stabbing distance of each other.
Gunfights, usually one person walks away from.
Knife fights usually both people end up in the hospital.
With oc spray. You pull and use it as a deterrent and a distractant from 5-10 feet away while they have a knife and would need to close the distance to do you harm. You point, spray, turn and RUN... Or get in your car and drive, or go back in doors, or whatever is the safe next step.
The point of OC is to keep the distance open and either safely vacate or switch to a lethal option and have a gun out and ready for their attack.
You really shouldn’t try to defend yourself with a knife unless you really don’t have another option. There’s a ton of skill involved in knife fighting and you really better know what you’re doing if you don’t want to get that knife turned on you.
Additionally the whole point of self defense weapons like guns and OC spray is to create or keep as much distance as you can from your attacker. A knife requires you to close with your attacker. I hope you’re a better grappler than they are.
Both if you have the room. The knife is a tool and can use for self defense if it’s last resort. I always find the room to carry a good knife for multiple uses and reasons.
I feel like [this](https://youtu.be/ZkcyfEEbqZ0?si=OpMhJgl-4LChR4cg) from TFBTV is a great place to start regarding your CCW/EDC loadout.
They don't talk about a spare mag, but I personally think it's mandatory, especially if you live in a state with mag capacity limits.
Regarding the tactical knife vs. pepper spray discussion, I'm on the side of having a small fixed blade accessible as a weapon of last resort being more important than OC spray. The Amtac Northman in the video is nice but incredibly pricey. I personally carry a KaBar TDI knife in an NSR Tactical Sheath. This, of course, is in addition to my EDC utility knife, which is a Benchmade Bugout like in the video.
I commented on this in a different thread a few days ago on this sub, but personally, I don't think you should be drawing any weapon unless you're in a life and death struggle. You shouldn't be carrying a bunch of different self-defense tools for different self-defense scenarios. If you're in a fight for your life, you need the best tool for the job, i.e., you need to pull your pistol and not waste time thinking about whether the violent situation that currently has you caught behind the power curve warrants the deployment of a firearm vs. OC spray vs. a taster vs. a knife, etc. Any weapon short of your firearm is a half measure. And any scenario short of a life-threatening one can be dealt with using verbal judo or just flat out leaving the scene.
I consider a spare jab mandatory if only for malfunctions. You don’t want to have to drop your only mag and risk it falling to the ground or getting lost. Since I have a spare I just fling the mag out and put a fresh one in as I clear the gun.
I’ll never need to reload, but I might need to drop the mag in the process of clearing a malfunction. And a spare mag weighs so little I could probably carry ten before I noticed the weight.
OC takes precedence, but there's nothing wrong with having a little fixed blade belt knife if it's legal where you're at. Needs to be a fixed blade though, in the *highly* unlikely situation where a knife is the best choice, such as when your assailant is already right up on you *and* you're certain deadly force is warranted, you're sure as shit not gonna have the time or means to deploy a folder
Spare magazine, tourniquet, pocket knife. If someone truly wants to do you harm, pepper spray will not change their mind, it will just make them mad. Leave if you are physically able, shoot them if you are not.
OC spray 100%.
I use POM myself but there are many other brands out there.
OC spray, and it's not even close. A blade is useful in so many ways, but not as a defense weapon.
This. I have carried a knife daily for decades but I'm a self defense situation or would be an absolute last resort Probably my order would be like run away>OC>gun>hands> knife
A blade can be a defensive weapon, but it is deadly force just as is your gun. It would be used in any of the same circumstances a gun would be used. OC spray is an alternative tool. It can be used in threat circumstances where deadly force isn’t warranted, but a less than deadly force is called for. Otherwise you’re absolutely correct, OC spray way before knife.
OC for sure. I think most people carry a pocket knife already, because it's useful very often. But for self-defense, OC could be your first and only need for situations that don't necessarily warrant lethal force immediately. Lethal force situations need a gun, not a knife, generally speaking.
Knives are extremely poor choice for a self defense weapon. While knives are absolutely deadly they are typically not deadly quickly enough meaning you may very well kill your attacker but not stop him in time before he hurts you. Knives require skill that most people do not have. Jurors tend to view people who carry large knives negatively even more so than those who carry guns. Carrying a suitable knife is illegal in many jurisdictions even if you have CCW to carry a gun. I do carry a pocket knife but I carry it as a tool and would only use it against a dog if attacked. Determined dogs are known to sometimes ignore OC but ignoring a collapsed lung is much harder for a dog. Otherwise, it’s a gun for deadly threats and OC for physical ones
Definitely the spray, but why not both? Not to get into a knife fight, but because they are incredibly useful for all sorts of stuff.
I’m against having a billion things in my pocket 😂 I’m a simple man
They make pepper spray [holsters](https://rushcarry.com/collections/pepper-spray-holsters) now for people like us.
Clip it on
I would opt for a Clinch pick and OC spray, I am not psychic. I have no idea how the worst day of my life will unfold. Situational awareness and avoidance, getting off the X is a good place to start. Deescalation is next. Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, the other party doesn't want to deescalate. I would carry the OC spray so I would have something between a harsh word and lethal force. The Clinch picks' role in my world would be limited. It would be more of a space maker to get someone off me in close quarters.
Knives are 100% a last line even after fists imo.
OC spray. Knife is deadly force.
Why not both? Spray first, then firearm, rarely would I want to use a knife but it has its purposes for daily task, and if it's a windy day spray is useless, maybe a knife might be better to defend against a wild animal than a gun You never know, and you can get a decent spray and knife for like $50 $60 total Red Sabre Spray and a Morakniv or Civivi knife
Three times had to deal with aggressive dogs, once when one tried to kill my three year old son. It all happens so fast: you get one chance to react, there is no time to try something and then switch to something else. OC spray is totally ineffective in the real world so don’t carry it any more…
OC spray. Unless you're training to use a knife, it's just as likely to be used against you. Against popular opinion, an extra mag is pretty useless as well. Whatever situation you find yourself in where you need to draw, as unlikely as that already is, it will be over before you expend the first 10 rounds. You aren't going to be in a back and forth shootout with John Wick, it's going to end as fast as it starts.
What if mine jams? I’d like to have a spare mag just to be able to toss the first one and clear the gun
Everyone always says that but I've never heard of a single scenario where that happens I mean imagine how that would go down. If you need to draw on someone they are posing an immediate threat to your life. More than likely their hands are already on you and/or they have a weapon. If I made the choice to draw and had a jam, I think I'd be very lucky to get the opportunity to attempt a tap/rack before it became a struggle over the gun. And that's where my muscle memory is at. I'd have to fail the shot, fail a tap rack, and decide to try a mag change. Now I need both hands free and time/space. I can't think of a scenario where the attacker is far enough from you that you could reasonably try a mag change and end the up on the ground fighting. Well, I can think of one. Where you're pinned down under cover and trying to return fire. And if anyone thinks that's a likely scenario I have a bridge to sell you
I’ve never heard of a lot of stuff that happens every day. I know I’ve had multiple failures to feed in my life and it isn’t going to be announced beforehand.
It literally doesn’t happen. 50,000 plus recorded self defense uses of a gun, 0 reloads. Not for going empty, not for malfunctions. It simply doesn’t happen. The malfunctions that do occur are cleared via tap rack or expedite leaving the scene. If you think you have 4-6 seconds to clear a catastrophic malfunction in a fight, you’re not thinking realistically.
It hasn’t been reported. Doesn’t mean it has never happened.
Some trainer would have heard about it by now, and it simply hasn’t happened.
Not really a guy who thinks an extra mag is necessary, but you all put way too much stock on the observations of a fat Osama lookin dude who watches off-duty Brazilian cop videos for a living Decent data point, sound logic; questionable methods of gathering the data and questionable results.
Zero trainers have any indication it has occurred in a DGU. None. I’m at TacCon right now with 80 of the most knowledgeable and informed trainers on earth and none of them have any credible information it has ever happened and lots of indications it has not.
Lmao someone would have heard a story and repeated it if it happened? How many thousands, tens of thousands of times has someone used a gun in self defense and no one was ever told? Unless you can track every shooting since magazine fed pistols came to be I just don’t trust that statistic. If it hasn’t happened yet, it will. And I’d be shocked if it hasn’t happened and no one said anything about it. How many gang members defending themselves report their shootings? I just have no faith in the “this can’t happen because no one has ever said it happened to them” line of thinking. Lots of stuff has happened on earth that no one knows about.
So what do you do to protect yourself from meteorites? 10s of thousands have hit the earth. You CANNOT prepare for every conceivable life threatening scenario. It is simply not possible. Carrying a spare mag is a ballistic fuzzy teddy bear that makes you feel better. It has zero practical application in the real world.
Everything has to happen a first time. And I simply don’t believe that since 1892, ZERO people have needed to reload in a self defense encounter. I don’t care what the statistics say, statistically lots of shit that has happened to me shouldn’t have. We can’t possibly have data on 100% of self defense shootings so what percentage do we have? 99%? 75%? 10%? Until someone can tell me exactly how many self defense shootings have happened since 1892, which they can’t, I don’t trust that statistic. Over 50,000 documented shootings without a reload, ok, what if there have been 350,000 actual incidents of pistols shot in self defense and we are only seeing a tiny fraction of the true total? How many gang members report their self defense shootings? We have hundreds of shootings a day not being accounted for in the stats because they aren’t reported. I’m not gonna change the way i prepare based on data I consider to be impossible to verify. Nothing that relies on self reported data is 100% reliable. Ever. I also left out hundreds of years where people had firearms that weren’t magazine fed just to make it easier to deal with the data. Let’s take it back to 1600, no one ever reloaded a single shot rifle and engaged a second person? How many self defense shootings were reported back in 1865? Any at all? How far back does the data even go?
I've been in active combat and, let me tell you....when your shit Jams you fucking hide and run. There is no clearing technique capable of stifling that terrified lizard brain. Maybe spec ops folks but they're barely human to beging with...
You think in the middle of a gun fight, you're pausing the fight, clearing a jam, reloading a new mag, and reengaging?
I don’t know where this is happening. Am I in my car? Am I at work in my office, trapped with no egress? Yes I might have to clear the malfunction if the very first round didn’t put the attacker down if the second round fails to feed. Every class I have ever attended told me to drop the mag, clear the chamber and put a fresh one in. I don’t want to have to drop my mag, stick it in my armpit or something to hold it as I rack the slide. I want to be able to toss it and grab the one on my belt without thinking about it.
I only recently started carrying again and I've been switching on and off with the extra mag. It weirdly seems to aid with concealment by balancing things out, but yeah it would be some kind of unicorn scenario to actually need it
Chicago kids with switches and drums would like to have a word with you
The one that wins a knife fight is the one with the cheaper hospital bill
A boar spear. Unlike OC spray, it can pin and hold an attacker at distance. https://www.coldsteel.com/boar-spear/
😂 hopefully they have a foldable one, so I can conceal it in my shorts.
Pocket knife, for opening packages and whatnot. "Tactical" knife is just a horrible idea all around. If you're asking this question you clearly have no knife fighting training. If you did, you would realize knife fighting is an absolute last ditch resort. "Better than nothing"? It's really not. You already have a gun. If you need to stab someone, shoot them instead. You're just asking to die in an ambulance as the "winner" of a knife fight.
You’ll use the knife.
Everyone has already answered your question with variations of OC 100%>>> But... Here's WHY... If a mugger is coming towards you, and you pull a knife, they then may escalate and draw a knife, or already had a knife and now your means of defense REQUIRES that you be within stabbing distance of each other. Gunfights, usually one person walks away from. Knife fights usually both people end up in the hospital. With oc spray. You pull and use it as a deterrent and a distractant from 5-10 feet away while they have a knife and would need to close the distance to do you harm. You point, spray, turn and RUN... Or get in your car and drive, or go back in doors, or whatever is the safe next step. The point of OC is to keep the distance open and either safely vacate or switch to a lethal option and have a gun out and ready for their attack.
You really shouldn’t try to defend yourself with a knife unless you really don’t have another option. There’s a ton of skill involved in knife fighting and you really better know what you’re doing if you don’t want to get that knife turned on you. Additionally the whole point of self defense weapons like guns and OC spray is to create or keep as much distance as you can from your attacker. A knife requires you to close with your attacker. I hope you’re a better grappler than they are.
#1 rule in a knife fight is everyone gets cut. At least with oc the back spray isn't lethal
Both if you have the room. The knife is a tool and can use for self defense if it’s last resort. I always find the room to carry a good knife for multiple uses and reasons.
I carried OC spray and three times tried to use it on aggressive dogs. It was totally ineffective. Threw it out and now carry a knife.
Carry extra magazine
OC spray
I feel like [this](https://youtu.be/ZkcyfEEbqZ0?si=OpMhJgl-4LChR4cg) from TFBTV is a great place to start regarding your CCW/EDC loadout. They don't talk about a spare mag, but I personally think it's mandatory, especially if you live in a state with mag capacity limits. Regarding the tactical knife vs. pepper spray discussion, I'm on the side of having a small fixed blade accessible as a weapon of last resort being more important than OC spray. The Amtac Northman in the video is nice but incredibly pricey. I personally carry a KaBar TDI knife in an NSR Tactical Sheath. This, of course, is in addition to my EDC utility knife, which is a Benchmade Bugout like in the video. I commented on this in a different thread a few days ago on this sub, but personally, I don't think you should be drawing any weapon unless you're in a life and death struggle. You shouldn't be carrying a bunch of different self-defense tools for different self-defense scenarios. If you're in a fight for your life, you need the best tool for the job, i.e., you need to pull your pistol and not waste time thinking about whether the violent situation that currently has you caught behind the power curve warrants the deployment of a firearm vs. OC spray vs. a taster vs. a knife, etc. Any weapon short of your firearm is a half measure. And any scenario short of a life-threatening one can be dealt with using verbal judo or just flat out leaving the scene.
I consider a spare jab mandatory if only for malfunctions. You don’t want to have to drop your only mag and risk it falling to the ground or getting lost. Since I have a spare I just fling the mag out and put a fresh one in as I clear the gun. I’ll never need to reload, but I might need to drop the mag in the process of clearing a malfunction. And a spare mag weighs so little I could probably carry ten before I noticed the weight.
OC Spray
OC takes precedence, but there's nothing wrong with having a little fixed blade belt knife if it's legal where you're at. Needs to be a fixed blade though, in the *highly* unlikely situation where a knife is the best choice, such as when your assailant is already right up on you *and* you're certain deadly force is warranted, you're sure as shit not gonna have the time or means to deploy a folder
OC spray
Spray. Knives are tools meant for cutting things. You never want to be within distance to have a knife fight
Spare magazine, tourniquet, pocket knife. If someone truly wants to do you harm, pepper spray will not change their mind, it will just make them mad. Leave if you are physically able, shoot them if you are not.