Expedient Weapons
Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:22 pmMy two books on expedient weapons are described at the Black Medicine web site, which is here. That would be volumes 2 and 4. If you know how to use the basic twelve families of weapons, then almost anything you pick up can be deadly.
I admit I’m having trouble figuring out how to fight using a bag of marshmallows, but I suppose I could always freeze them.
In every house in America there are knives either in the kitchen drawers or on display in a rack beside the stove top. Somewhere near the kitchen is a broom. In the garage there are shovels, hoes, wrenches, screwdrivers, crowbars, and spray paint cans. There are more spray cans in the bathroom. There is usually a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and another near the bedrooms. Light chairs like typical kitchen-table chairs make excellent weapons.
That’s for any house. Now for your house.
The trick is to decorate with objects that double as weapons. You need to know where they are and how to back up to them while facing the front door. In my living room the front door is in the southwest corner. There is a katana on the wall where I can reach it with my right hand while opening the door with my left. The fire irons are in the southeast corner next to the wood stove. There is a broom with a stout, hardwood handle hanging on the north wall at the entry to the kitchen. There’s a fire extinguisher three feet farther into the kitchen, and the knives are three feet beyond that.
The hallway to the south leads to the bedrooms and contains another fire extinguisher. From that point we near my office and the possibilities multiply. You can imagine how many interesting objects might be in there. (For instance, there is a body bag containing a grappling dummy on the sofa.
This makes visitors do a double-take.)
It’s not enough to decorate with durable objects. You have to pre-position them in places where you are likely to be cornered by an intruder. Make sure there is something hard or sharp in every corner of the house.
Why not just put loaded guns in all the corners of the house? I know people who keep '"hide-out guns" in every room. The wisdom of that approach depends entirely on who will find the guns when your back is turned. I had a house full of teenagers, so this strategy never crossed my mind.
I admit I’m having trouble figuring out how to fight using a bag of marshmallows, but I suppose I could always freeze them.
In every house in America there are knives either in the kitchen drawers or on display in a rack beside the stove top. Somewhere near the kitchen is a broom. In the garage there are shovels, hoes, wrenches, screwdrivers, crowbars, and spray paint cans. There are more spray cans in the bathroom. There is usually a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and another near the bedrooms. Light chairs like typical kitchen-table chairs make excellent weapons.
That’s for any house. Now for your house.
The trick is to decorate with objects that double as weapons. You need to know where they are and how to back up to them while facing the front door. In my living room the front door is in the southwest corner. There is a katana on the wall where I can reach it with my right hand while opening the door with my left. The fire irons are in the southeast corner next to the wood stove. There is a broom with a stout, hardwood handle hanging on the north wall at the entry to the kitchen. There’s a fire extinguisher three feet farther into the kitchen, and the knives are three feet beyond that.
The hallway to the south leads to the bedrooms and contains another fire extinguisher. From that point we near my office and the possibilities multiply. You can imagine how many interesting objects might be in there. (For instance, there is a body bag containing a grappling dummy on the sofa.
This makes visitors do a double-take.)It’s not enough to decorate with durable objects. You have to pre-position them in places where you are likely to be cornered by an intruder. Make sure there is something hard or sharp in every corner of the house.
Why not just put loaded guns in all the corners of the house? I know people who keep '"hide-out guns" in every room. The wisdom of that approach depends entirely on who will find the guns when your back is turned. I had a house full of teenagers, so this strategy never crossed my mind.