USMC taught us to use anything and everything, e-tool, T&E, Kevlar, whatever you could find.
So what's yours?
Broken bottle? Belt buckle?
What do/would you grab to go into a fray with 5 minutes prep?
I've always been fond if the Irish nightstick.
Folded over section of newspaper with a few dollars in change twisted up into the end.

Straight claw hammer.

The curved ones always seem to bounce off their skull in a pinch, don't they? So annoying.

Aluminum Louisville Slugger

Five minutes?


Guns.

Piece of rebar

Aluminum bats transmit too much vibration. I stick with Hickory!

Bigass cup of charcoal lighter fluid.

Boot or running shoes!

It depends on whether I need to get a message across or eliminate a problem.

A pissed off wife.

A take-off barrel... It can leave a mark..

My wife and her sisters.

This particular wrench has some history behind it, first thing I grabbed in an incident about 20 years ago, you wouldn't believe the damage it can inflict. 😁😁😁

5 foot metal fence post.

What's handy, I've heard of a tiling spade.

As a beekeeper I always have one or more hive tools handy in my truck, and often on my person. I frequently carry them in places where knives are forbidden, or restricted in length. The cutting edges can be honed razor sharp.

Yeah, a bear hunting wrench!

I've carried a cold steel entrenching tool in my truck for years after putting an edge all the way around it. It's just a little shovel sitting there minding its own business. But it probably wouldn't be a good idea for somebody to try to come in my truck uninvited.

I've got a Mag-Lite flashlight in my driver's side door panel. It's a 3 or 4 "D" cell.

claw hammer or roofing axe

3/4 ton truck

Piece of 3/4 steel pipe

Beat me to it. Totally agree!

I took a large decorative solid wooden fork off a kitchen wall and nearly beat someone half to death with it back in the 70's. So I reckon my answer is anything that's handy...

screw driver , legal everywhere

I'm surprised that Alabama has restrictions on length of knives or forbidden places. What's up with that? Sounds like England.

I like that.

When it was common...could break off an antenna from an older car and be quite well armed in a dim parking garage if approached lol

Imagine that would hurt like a SOB

Running away .......

My grandmother would send us out to pick a switch off the willow tree, with the caviat that if we didn't pick a "good" one, she would pick a "better" one. Quite an effective deterrent, for an afternoon, anyway.

An empty beer mug, a steel folding chair, a rolled-up magazine, stainless T-Ball jotter, a heavy duty belt with a very heavy buckle,a legal-size clip board,> Those are what I've used in the past that I can remember. Almost forgot a bar of soap in sock.

Two socks and a full can of soda.

https://greatwar.nl/quotes/immortal38.html

In any case, the bayonet isn't as important as it used to be. It's more usual now to go into the attack with hand-grenades and your entrenching tool. The sharpened spade is a lighter and more versatile weapon - not only can you get a man under the chin, but more to the point, you can strike a blow with a lot more force behind it. That's especially true if you can bring it down diagonally between the neck and the shoulder, because then you can split down as far as the chest. When you put a bayonet in, it can stick, and you have to give the other man a hefty kick in the guts to get it out.

A can of chili will work.

No beans cans have more heft I've been told.

We had the same grandma!

Black walnut trees were abundant in our region. Nasty little switches would leave nice bright welts. Kept my sorry little ass in line though, and in all honesty I never got a lickin' that I didn't deserve.



Five minute prep time - I'm with Jim. Gun. That's plenty of time.

I'd grab my 13-yr-old son and an axe: https://i.imgur.com/rJPCgqz.mp4

"All Quiet On The Western Front"

Must have read it at least a dozen times while in high school

My cane. basically three feet of one inch steel pipe. It's always very close by.
Paul B.

Another example: https://i.imgur.com/1RIt5bB.mp4

Military Installations. Redstone Arsenal for example forbids knives over 3".

When I was working in Dallas when I was 20, I and two friends got in an argument with a black guy and a couple of mescans. they had double-parked so when we pulled in next to them they couldn't open the car door. one pulled a screwdriver, my buddy reached down in the bed of the truck and grabbed a carpet knee kicker and hit him on the left cheek of his face, it was pretty ugly, we boogied out of there.

Everything is a weapon.

5 minutes?

I can purchase a rifle, load it and be in position in 5 damn minutes.

improvised weapons are fraction of a second decisions.

A cup of hot coffee. Sadly, I don't drink the stuff, so I'm rarely packing.

Five minutes is plenty of time to get a gun if anywhere near the house. And the pickup is a wonderful second choice.

But for alternatives to the alternative, for many, many years, there were times when I was too far from the house to make it into the gun room. During those times I usually had a pair of bale hooks in my hands or a Pony featherweight no 0 irrigating shovel.

The irrigating shovel was always kept very sharp for cutting sod or stubborn roots. It would have been a formidable weapon of self defense against anything but a gun. It could be used as a cudgel for less than lethal blows. Or used as the entrenching tool previously discussed, only with almost three feet of extra reach.

As a kid I heard that a few Idaho residents had been murdered with a shovel. Most often over water disputes.

I keep a hickory hoe handle in the back of my truck, right behind the cab and close to the fuel tank fill. I'm usually not far from my cane. In 5 minutes I'll have a gun and 4 minutes and 50 seconds left to make a plan!

keep a break over bar in my truck for when I have to change a flat, sits in the side pocket of my door

but I'm seldom unarmed.

As long as there's a can of twisted tea around?

I ALWAYS have this in my pants:



And this in an unzipped camera bag under my driver's seat:

Used a hymnal (church song book) to whoop up on a punk who sucker punched me in grade school. Told my parents, teacher called, got an "atta boy" from my mom.

don't forget the twisted tea.

A frozen turkey is my go to, when concealment is required a cornish game hen will suffice.


mike r

Day-um, a knee kicker! Bet that left a lot of marks.

yeah, it shredded his cheek.

Handle from an old reloading press. With the big ball on the end.

I like that scene in Bad Boys when Sean Penn throws a couple cans of pop into a pillow case.

Then proceeds to smash some skull. LOL

I imagine the first blow or two would be pretty awful.

I keep a pillow case full of rubber black snakes in the back of the truck for crowd dspersal.

Watched my wife (5'-0" 110 lbs.) brake a 12 oz. full long neck on a 6'-2" 260 lb guy then kick the $hit out of his nuts when he hit the floor....he grabbed her butt....nobody in the bar saw anything when the amblance and cops came.....

Got sucked punched in the jaw then another guy tackled me knocking some pool sticks down I came up swinging a pool stick both went to the hospital....when the cops looked a the video they asked if I wanted to press charges on the 2....I was 64 at the time....they were 30....

You get a collapsable umbrella like this, and hollow that mfker out, go to harbor freight and buy a set of box end wrenches and zip tie all of them around the shaft.

Slide the canvas cover back up, keep the wrist lanyard.

Be good for antifa punks unless they crack your skull with a flag pole first

We'll, I looked around within arms reach. Discounting two handguns and four knives, I have a Gerber hatchet a tractor Jack and a socket set.

Three handguns. I was wondering where that one was.

Pressurized assgun.

Hands and feet. Feet to first run away.

Hands, if cornered, to attach toe tag to perp.

...and a shovel.

Older son is a bit more sane: https://i.imgur.com/HAgex6K.mp4