Random Thoughts: Here are 4 Reasons Why Using Keys as Your Self Defense Tool Is a Terrible Idea

Using keys as your go-to self defense tool is stupid.

I can’t count how many people — often younger women who were instructed by their high school teacher to do this — tell me that they don’t need to carry a firearm, or even pepper spray, because they’ll just use their keys as claws.

Here are four reasons why that’s insane.

1. If you’re this close, you’re already at a massive disadvantage.The entire point of self-defense is to neutralize a threat while staying as intact as possible. If you’re at melee range, the threat is as high as it can be while virtually guaranteeing you’ll sustain some form of injury, even if you know a little self-defense.
2. Keys employed in a “Wolverine” style are going to push right back into your hands, hurting you, too.
   If you put keys in between your fingers, poking out like they’re so many claws, you’re wrong. If you manage to strike someone in just the right way to make them theoretically effective, they’re going to push back into you, too. It’s a lose-lose, and you’ll be losing the use of your hands. Not good.
3. Keys thrown as a ranged weapon, are a short term semi-solution that create a long-term problem.
   Can they be distracting? Totally. Will they be painful? Quite possibly. Will you then be unable to use your car if you manage to escape to it? Yup. And if the criminal picks them up, you’re just stuck for a while. It’s not a good look.
4. Keys as a melee weapon limit what you can do with your hands.
   Push, shove, claw, punch, climb, dial a phone for help — all lovely things you can do if you aren’t occupied with your hands. If you cut your hands to uselessness with your inner Wolverine, your hands are out of commission.

It’s a last-ditch effort in most cases. It’s better to have something else at hand (ha!) that will be more effective with getting the job done.

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