Originally posted by manta78
Other than the traditional weapons mentioned, anyone here ever use a flare gun for emergency defense, or is that just in the movies?

This is an extremely bad idea.

Cheaper signal flares - ones commonly used for recreational boating - will bounce off the target, inflicting very little damage. Not even enough to char a denim jacket. Go ahead, ask me how I know.

The flare, after ricocheting around the room, will land on something. Like a sofa, perhaps. It'll burn through that in a couple of seconds and start on the floor below. Your assailant will be laughing quite hard at that point, so maybe you could jump him then.

Using a high powered signal flare (one that's designed to be seen for 40 nautical miles or more) would certainly knock over your assailant, but then you'd have a massive ball of burning magnesium to deal with.

I think about these types of things every day, but have never had to respond since I have never been burglarized or robbed while I was at home... The poster that mentioned running the scenerios through your mind over and over and having a plan is the best thing.. be prepared to use anything as a weapon...
I keep a 300 mW green laser pointer under the bed , one shot in the eye for a milisecond cause permanent retina damage...and overwhelm their eyes long enough to really put the brute force hurt on the perps.. This type of thing is quite effective at night... I would never shine it in a person's eyes until I knew who they were though...
I don't know of a better weapon that is cleaner than this for night time defense...and would cause less secondary trouble for the person than a gun would...

the only way available and legal in the uk - trained dog (i used sicballs as the command) and a cricket bat stored with corkie ball of course.

my illegal more deadly options in the beadroom are an iron cross (razor sharp martial arts sword) and a legal limit semi auto co2 20 shot pistol which goes straigth through a well padded jacket and jumper and stings like a b*tch, as such would easily break skin if no lacket on, my thought are if they get past the dog - i'd use the pistol, then the bat!!!

p.s. the swords for the mrs as a last line of defence

Bear mace. I'm not even joking here, this stuff will drop you. Its like liquid taser.