I see it more as a situation where you know someone is in your house/school/some other place, so you take it off while waiting in case they stumble on you (assuming you have no better weapons nearby and don't want to risk finding one). Personally I would prefer to have a knife or gun nearby but I guess that's not always possible.
That's reasonable.
"Some" people who, let's say expect to be in an altercation, only put their belt through two loops on their pants to make it faster to remove. I'm told the US military khaki webbing belt makes a great flail.
@Kong Soo Do - what, precisely are you disagreeing with? That weapons will be taken away by TSA when I'm traveling? That thinking you have a weapon you don't have with you is bad?
I do sometimes carry a cane, and most of mine were selected because they'd be usable as weapons, so you have a point there. I always have pens that would be usable as weapons, but I guess I view them as pens first, and among those "what's around you" weapons, so wasn't looking at them as part of that list. As for the firearm, I travel to too many places, with too many different laws. In many, I wouldn't be able to even have it in the seminar room with me (some states restrict concealed weapons at events where people pay to attend), so I'd have to leave it in the car (and sometimes I don't have one, so have no place to leave it). It just ends up being too much of a logistical nightmare to carry consistently, so I made the choice to get used to not having it, rather than expecting it to be there.
Most of what you're referring to is what I'd put in the "what's around you" category, rather than considering it part of the list I referred to. I typically have a couple of useful metal pens with me, sometimes my cane (if my legs are troublesome), and things like magazines are often nearby.
Yeah, I remember many moons ago having to leave my kubaton key chain at the security check at PHL. That made me become a huge fan of what are sometimes called tactical pens. I don't get the ones with window breaks or "dna catchers", LED flashlight tips etc, simply a good solid pen that is wide enough and long enough for a full grip (meaning a twist open) that is made out of aircraft grade aluminum. This is the one I currently carry all the time, though it does go into the "pen pouch" inside my back back I use as carry on. UZI Tactical Defender Pen 8 Kubaton (Black) TACPEN-8 - Blade HQ in the pen pouch next to this I will have my my Mont Blanc (with a blue cartridge vs black). The sizes aren't wildly different so the Uzi takes on a less "offensive" appearance. Yeah I try to be sneaky but the Uzi's, being made in China are still decent quality and like $20 so even if it does get taken its not a big loss.
As I said, the biggest issue for me isn't reciprocity (when I lived in SC, I had permits that covered nearly all states). The issue is that many states' laws mean me leaving the gun behind most of the day, and sometimes I have no good place to leave it (already checked out of hotel room, not going back to hotel before flight, no rental car). It happens often enough that I just decided to change my habits. Add to that the frequency with which I arrive at the airport too late to check a bag because of scheduling (which, if I have my firearm, means I don't get to go home), and it was just not feasible.
Let me clarify, it's not that I don't see them as weapons. It's that in replying to the post I was referring to things I carry specifically as weapons, so I didn't count them against that list because they are among the items I referred to as being "what's around you". When I select pens to carry, I normally ensure there's at least one that's a viable weapon (sturdy metal). When I buy a cane, I always think about how it would perform as a weapon (and even have two similar to the Hapkido cane mentioned earlier, bought from Ed Martin of the Bujinkan).
Oh I figured that but...how do I describe my mind set now? Okay, here we go. Picture walking into a room for the first time and looking at the objects and then having a Robocopesque LCD readout as follows.
