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Author Topic: If Brass Knuckles Were Legal, Would You Carry
Them?
K Williams
Senior Member
Posts: 208
From: USA
Registered: Nov 98 posted 11-24-1999 11:29 PM
If brass knuckles were legal would you carry them? I was just wondering if you all think they are a good self-defense weapon.
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K. Williams
kel620@aol.com
Modern Arnis Student
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Snickersnee
Senior Member
Posts: 1108
From: Florida
Registered: May 99 posted 11-25-1999 01:19 AM
Being an avid practioner of combative boxing my answer would be;
HELL YES!
In fact, I used to carry them even though they aren't legal. `Still have a pair.
Plain and simple, they make a punch much more effective. Not so much because of weight, mostly because they offer a hard and strong surface to punch with.
The bit about boxer's breaking their hands in real fights is largely overstated when used in relation to sport boxers, and is just plain untrue of combative boxers. Boxing is a bare
knuckle art that has been practiced for ever so long a time in the West and has proven itself time and again.
But, I can't punch a brick wall without hurting my hand. With a good pair of knuckle dusters I can take chunks out of the brick...
I don't like the kind that have the holes for each individual finger, since they more or less have to be custom fit to the user. I like the kind that have only one large opening for all four fingers. That style is more comfortable too.
You can still seize an opponent with your hands while wearing knuck's, so no real drawback there either.
You can make your own by getting a 2x4 and spacing two nails in a rectangle that your fingers will fit into, and then placing two more just below that rectangle, which will form the part that braces against the palm. You'll have to work out
spacing on your own since everybody is different.
Anyway, then get some .25-.5 inch steel rod from the hardware store and wrap/bend it around the rectangle and inside then to the outside of the two that form the bend of the part that braces against the wrist. Like in so many other endeavors, a pair of pliers and a blowtorch will make this easier...
Anyway, I wish I had a diagram for you, but after you get the hang of it you can make better knuckle dusters than anything you can buy. You don't have to use steel either, brass, copper, or aluminum will all work just fine. Or stainless steel if you can get it.
I don't like spikes/blades on knuck's because they limit your options. Plain and simple, you can kill with knuckle dusters, but you have the option to only hurt and maim. Blades and spikes will cause worse injuries by default, I don't want to permanently disfigure/kill everyone I'd use knuckle dusters on. Some people just need to be taught a lesson and they'll be fine.
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KELT34
Senior Member
Posts: 267
From:
Registered: Aug 1999 posted 11-25-1999 01:45 PM
Hey, Williams, that's what you have those stick skills for! i've been looking at my rattan sticks i got from that Dog Brother and wishing i had someone to play with! sniff, sniff...
Snick, good to hear from you! what do you guys think about that Kelly Worden Kerambit; i guess he designed it. could you really hit hard with it? any other options like dusters that aren't made of metal. it seems that we're getting better and harder synthetics and polymers. it seems that the DTL tool/kerambit would pass a cursory check by LEO anyway.
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Don Rearic
Moderator
Posts: 261
From:
Registered: Oct 98 posted 11-25-1999 02:07 PM
Man, I did not even want to click on this thread, 'cause I have seen the legal this and ineffective that statements against Knucks.
Dude, I have seen them used on the street, Snick is the MAN. They will bust you up. We disagree in only one aspect though...I think the W.W. I Trench Knife, Double Edged with HUGE Brass Knuckles and a Skull Crusher in the form of the screw on nut to affix the tang into the knucks...was the single most effective, widely issued combat blade the U.S. EVER gave our Fighting Men.
I also agree that individual finger hole Knucks are somewhat inferior in that they never quite fit right and you can break your own fingers with them if they fit you really badly...the oblong finger holes in the W.W. I Trench Knife eliminated that for the most part...I myself would like to construct a pair as Snick described...
The Worden DTL is a great source of controversy...I personally like it!
The Koppo Stick from JSP I think is the greatest trade-off between all...I love it.
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Smoke
Senior Member
Posts: 846
From: U.S.A.
Registered: Oct 98 posted 11-25-1999 02:20 PM
I think Brass knucks are going through a mini revival. Some sell/use them as paperweights. Some gangbangers use them. Kerambit wise, I like the Szabo/Greco version. Some kind of mean there.
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K Williams
Senior Member
Posts: 208
From: USA
Registered: Nov 98 posted 11-26-1999 05:10 PM
Thanks for the replies everyone.
Snickersnee: That sounds like an interesting project for when I have some spare time. Wish you had a picture of it.
KELT34: It would be nice if there were a lot of different synthetic knuckledusters/self-defense tools that didn't fall into the illegal category. I don't even know why they are still illegal. The crooks are using guns now...
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K. Williams
kel620@aol.com
Modern Arnis Student
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Smoke
Senior Member
Posts: 846
From: U.S.A.
Registered: Oct 98 posted 11-26-1999 05:46 PM
Kelt, I neglected to mention the other 'legal' knuckle duster, the carabiner.
While not perfect, it can do okay and comes inexpensively in
various sizes.
Since I do a lot of deliveries, rain can be a factor, so I hook a carabiner on my bag so I can attach an umbrella. 'Open Carry' if you will. When it's not raining, just leave the carabiner on. I admit, it's a secondary weapon/tool but it helps.
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KELT34
Senior Member
Posts: 267
From:
Registered: Aug 1999 posted 11-26-1999 06:58 PM
Smoke, that's an excellent bit of advice; have to run down to the local climbing/diving store and get to work! I always prided myself on being an environmental user and finding new and fun ways to get and use various "tools." I'm sure you and Snick know what I mean...those carabiners are strong as hell but do they make them wide and long enough for your fingers to fit through? heck I'll get a strong ring and put my keys on them also! can be a nice takealong when I can't bring the ASP along with me.
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Root
Senior Member
Posts: 162
From: Baltimore MD US
Registered: Apr 99 posted 11-26-1999 08:12 PM
I second that as a great idea smoke. I may have to check out REI for a large carabiner myself.
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Tuff
Senior Member
Posts: 906
From: New Hampshire
Registered: Jun 1999 posted 11-27-1999 09:38 AM
I would personally not use them....
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Ken Cox
Senior Member
Posts: 529
From: Bend, Oregon, USA
Registered: Dec 98 posted 11-27-1999 12:26 PM
Smoke, more on the Szabo/Greco thing, like a picture, please.
This distinction between combative pugilism and sport pugilism escapes me.
The sport boxers I have known, whether personally or by reputation, do devastatingly well in informal engagements.
For that reason, many states equate a professional boxer's hands with a deadly weapon.
Very few "black belts" can take their supposed combative boxing skills into the ring, but boxers can take their skills onto the street with effect.
We have a ranked middleweight contender visit our Judo dojo on ocassion.
He also has his own ju-jitsu dojo.
His "combative boxing" moves in the dojo look exactly the same as they do in the ring.
Many sports apply well to combat.
We even recognize them as sublimations of warfare.
I met the center linebacker of the Dallas Cowboys in a New Orleans bar at three in the morning, some years ago, right after the Super Bowl.
Assessing his physical prowess in a brief encounter, I came away thinking his football skills and general athletic training would give him complete dominance over all but a very few men.
He very easily "moved" me.
Go poke a college level "sport wrestler" or a golden gloves level "sport boxer" in the eye and then come tell me how it went.
I had a barracks fight with the captain of the Arizona State boxing team, and I can assure you his sport boxing skills transferred quite effectively to a street fight.
Boxers break their hands in street fights.
Mike Tyson broke his hand on Mitch Greene's head.
With training, a person can learn to hit much harder than his or her hands can tolerate.
I compare it to a power lifter who can train his muscles to lift more than his skeleton will support.
Boxers wear gloves and hand wraps/tape to protect their hands, not their opponent.
I have a "brass knuckle" type of crash axe with a sharpened axe edge, saw, glass-cutter and "can-opener."
I have, in the past, worn it on helicopter fire-fighting contracts.
Everyone who has held it says it fits their hand, whether small, medium or large.
If I could predict a fight, I would tape my hands and/or use metal knuckles.
At this time, I would not expose myself to unnecessary legal liability by carrying "brass knuckles" on a day to day basis, but I would carry them if legal to do so.
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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11, Freedom
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Smoke
Senior Member
Posts: 846
From: U.S.A.
Registered: Oct 98 posted 11-27-1999 01:23 PM
The carabiner thing isn't new, but it's well forgotten and brings out an old saying "sometimes we make the obvious a secret."
Hi Ken, with the Szabo/Greco kerambit, a pic is in Keating's Modern Knives onling mag.
There is no other online pic unless Black Cloud makes new site or the Szabo Bros. create their own. Personally, I wish they would make their own site.
I think Fenris has a Kerambit. Jason?
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Snickersnee
Senior Member
Posts: 1108
From: Florida
Registered: May 99 posted 11-28-1999 12:57 AM
Sport boxing is considerably more martial than sport fencing, and is a pretty good combat art all by itself.
However, there is a difference between the older combative forms and modern sporting forms. Basically, there are no illegal strikes, there is extensive use of grappling and throws, and you don't wear gloves, mostly use vertical punches
to specifically vulnerable targets, and don't wind up with broken hands.
Boxing is/was a bare knuckle discipline. Its designed so you can strike powerfully with bare knuckles without damaging them, it's just that this is no longer taught to sporting boxers, who still manage to give good account of themselves anyway.
And the gloves actually are there to protect your opponent, maybe not so much anymore, but originally they were. Boxers use penetrative strikes to vulnerable areas that can otherwise easily result in severe internal injuries or death. Boxing as it stands is a good fighting system, in its combative form its much more well rounded and damned hard to beat, especially considering the training methods boxers use that tend to produce superior fighters.
Oh, I'm not sure if you got the impression that the combative boxing I was referring to was an Eastern discipline or not. I am referring to the Western originals as practiced in England and America until the turn of the century. I know of absolutely no black belts in any of the Asian arts who practice traditional Western boxing in its combative form.
Anyway, knuck's will definitely put you ahead of the game any way you cut it. I really wish they weren't seen as "badguy weapons".
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Attila
Senior Member
Posts: 181
From: PA
Registered: May 99 posted 11-28-1999 01:10 AM
A great stealthy alternative to "knucks" is a good pair of "Sap Gloves"... ESPECIALLY during the winter months. I've got a pair I had made & they are REALLY comfortable, low key & it's like a pair of knucks...
I DO NOT recommend for ppl to wear these, as they are illegal. I've had mine for around a decade now & luckily have had no problems other than having to give a bg a three piece & man THEY WORK... ^_^
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Attila
[This message has been edited by Attila (edited 28 November
1999).]
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thekuntawman
Member
Posts: 28
From: sacramento, ca
Registered: Nov 1999 posted 11-28-1999 02:45 AM
i have never use them, but i had cousin and friends in the philippines who take strips of cow or pigs skin (dried) and soak it to make a kind of glove with it. when it dry again, they make almost a brass knuckle. you can put it in your pocket and get into clubs with it. if you shape it, you can put points in front of the knuckle. i agree that one size fit all can hurt your own hand, but when you shape it to your hand the fit is better.
personally i would feel more effective with that kind of weapon than a knife because i never been in a real fight with a knife, but i use my hands all the time. now that i thought about it, i think i will make a pair...>)
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Snickersnee
Senior Member
Posts: 1108
From: Florida
Registered: May 99 posted 11-28-1999 03:58 AM
You guys should get a kick out of this, taken from Price's most excelent work "The Science of Defence. A Treatise on Sparring and Wrestling"(New York, 1867);
"A man without a head could by no possibility become a Boxer. The same negative would be also implied by the absence of the arms, or a corresponding deficiency of any other member or members of the body. Such an implication, however, would have to be accepted with a wide difference. Legs or arms may be and have been supplied by the surgical machinist. Perhaps the last of these may not at present be perfectly able to perform all the duties, demanded from the realities by the scientific Boxer, but in the continuous progress of all positive manufacture, we have no right to presume that its competency will be forever an imperfect one. Should it ever be perfected, the blow from an iron clenched hand, delivered as it might be, would be so decidedly advantageous to the man who gave it; that if that point of completion were reached in our time, we might not be unwilling to undergo amputation for the purpose of replacing the amputated member with a much harder and more rapid hitter."
You've got brass knuckles and cyborg enhancements all rolled into one there. How can you beat that? You can't.
Price was probably a bit desensitized to the idea of amputation considering that during the American Civil War Ol' Saw Bones had a free reign.
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Ken Cox
Senior Member
Posts: 529
From: Bend, Oregon, USA
Registered: Dec 98 posted 11-28-1999 02:47 PM
Snick, I liked your exposition on boxing.
I couldn't help but think of the Romans and Greeks who bound their hands.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the western European tradition you described of bare knuckles and hitting so as not to damage the hands.
It makes more sense in a normal-life self-defense application than gloves, brass knuckles or hand-wraps.
Who teaches this nowadays?
Thanks.
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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11, Freedom
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Snickersnee
Senior Member
Posts: 1108
From: Florida
Registered: May 99 posted 11-29-1999 12:48 AM
Ken;
Actualy the Romans and Greeks bound their hands in order to cause more damage to their enemies. The cestus was all about offense.
It's kinda hard to say who's still teaching this stuff. In it's original forms, no one that I know of. However, there are still individual gyms that teach modern styles of combative boxing that are the descendents of the earlier forms, but having worked with the older material I can say that it was generaly better.
Anyway, I got my start from a gym, or several actualy, that taught how boxing works in sport and combat. There aren't any big names doing this that I know of, your best would be to go to the gyms in the rougher quarters of your town and ask around. Be careful though, some of them would just as soon teach you a mix of boxing and some Asian art. If you already have a background in boxing, I can send you some copies of the old manuals I have. It's pretty easy to retrofit your skills.
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SB
Senior Member
Posts: 704
From:
Registered: Oct 98 posted 11-29-1999 11:58 AM
A minor point since this topic seems to be well-covered. As I am typing this, I have a Petzel(?) screw link beside me. You can get them big enough to fit your hand like an improvised brass knuckle. I've played with them and I can't say I like them. They move around on your hand too much. Snap-links too. Might be better off to tie it to the end of a cord and use it as a flail instead.
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SB
Senior Member
Posts: 704
From:
Registered: Oct 98 posted 11-29-1999 12:00 PM
While I'm at it, make mine a push dagger. If I have to hold something, it might as well have a sharp edge on it.
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Rugger
Senior Member
Posts: 228
From: New York, NY
Registered: Jan 99 posted 11-29-1999 02:38 PM
Once upon a very long time ago (1982?), I got into a hassle at a punk bar where I spent too much of my time- on my way out I slipped my carabiner keychain on my hand (out of pure habit) & waited at the front door for my girlfriend to get out of the bathroom. One of the tractor-sized bouncers had a psychotic episode when he saw me slip my hand out of my jacket pocket. I nearly got clobbered, but guessing from the reaction I got, it had to be really effective for them to flip as they did. Then I went out & got another one...
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Runs With Scissors
AKTI# A000107
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freezergeezer
Member
Posts: 2
From: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Registered: Oct 1999 posted 12-01-1999 06:17 PM
Reference Don Rearic's contribution - could someone tell me what a Worden DTL and JSP's Koppo stick are? They sound like tonfa-type weapons, but this is the first I've heard of them.
The only reference to Koppo I've seen before is in books by Eric Lustbader (Ninja, Kaisho, etc.), where it is described as a martial art specifically for breaking your opponent's bones, often with deadly results. Does this art really exist as Mr. Lustbader describes?
Getting back on topic - I have seen knuckle dusters on sale overseas that followed the WW1 Trench Knife pattern of elongated finger holes. It seems like a reasonable way of ensuring a wide range of fit, while still providing bracing to the striking edge. Two sizes were on display where I last saw them, to cater for those of us with LARGE hands.
I'm not sure that I would carry them if they were legal, as unless you can clearly see a fight coming, you are unlikely to have time to get them out and on.
Personally, however, I studied Aikido, which as taught to me, placed little emphasis on kicks and punches, rather it used flowing movement to use the opponent's momentum against them, with pretty impressive and devastating results, WHEN DONE SUCCESFULLY. I certainly would not care to have to rely on it in a bad fight. Every Sensei I had agreed that they would sooner run away than fight, if possible, and they had all studied for far longer than me!
Don, thanks for your reply to my posting on the 29th. Can't e-mail you direct for some reason.
Apologies for rambling.
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Snickersnee
Senior Member
Posts: 1108
From: Florida
Registered: May 99 posted 12-02-1999 02:54 AM
In regards to putting your knuckle dusters on before the fight and the time it takes, I used to carry mine in my pockets. Either pants or jacket.
I could slip them on and off without anyone being the wiser. I also developed a signature sneak attack/retaliation when wearing a jacket; slip the knuck's on and when a badguy stepped up to start something, I moved one arm backward and the other launched an uppercut. This was done with the jacket still on. I could withdraw the hands from the jacket while the other guy was still recovering from the stunn of the opening blow, and then dominate from there. No one who recieved a well executed preliminary strike ever gained the upper hand on me, not even when they were way bigger. Knuck's are real mean. Unless you've been hit by one or hit someone with one you have no idea.
This one works well as an ambush too. If you're wondering why I would ambush someone, it's cause I have an outdated sense of honor. I don't allow people to mistreat women, and those who do who I can get my hands on get an attitude adjustment. Just the way I am. Like a superhero, only without the special powers. Which is why I have to occasionaly use an ambush. Sometimes you know someone is gonna be trouble, and it's best to take care of it right away, too.
Note: Knuck's are not for a friendly brawl, only very serious encounters.
If you're wondering about the jacket, and what I'd do if you pulled it down over my shoulders, I had people try to pull this one. The proper response is an immediate headbutt to the bridge of the nose, and if that hasn't been enough to make them let go(usualy is), lift your arms up inside theirs and bring them down on top of your opponent's arms while executing a headbutt to break his hold. That has never failed. A simple shrug of the shoulders and the jacket is back on properly, or off completely.
I have found a jacket of some sort to be more a help than hinderance in most any situation. Especialy in fights or when it's cold outside and a lady is waiting for a bus, store to open, or in a line of some sort.
Hey, I may be a little rough around the edges, but I'm still a gentleman. As a side note for any/all of you who don't know how to properly treat women, note that "gentleman" is really "gentle man". That is a good start, a model for your conduct, if you will. Note also that not all "gentlemen" are nearly so gentle to men who aren't.
I ain't say'n you got to be an angel, just that there are some lines you don't cross, there's a certain way to be and a certain way not to be. You gotta have a degree of class. I guess I'm getting tangental. I'm just a little pissed right now because I had to adjust an attitude just a little bit ago. Some males("man" doesn't apply, you need more than a ding-a-long to be a man) just don't apreciate what they've got, you know? There ain't an excuse for it.
Besides, if I'm telling you how to hurt, I guess it's only proper I should also offer some advice on how to help, so to speak.
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