Never trust people who want to make you helpless to defend yourself.
People who consider it inhumane to declaw their pet cats and render their animal companions helpless to defend themselves, are perfectly capable of demanding the same helplessness from their human friends, neighbors, and relatives.
Thanks to my friend Dmitri Artamanov for sending the link. Dmitri also shares with us a TR quote: “No man, however courageous he may be, likes to face a resolute woman with a hatpin in her hand. – Theodore Roosevelt.”
Hatpins, hell – I’ve always gone out of my way to make sure the women I cared about had guns.
While I’m a better shot with a handgun than my wife, she’s a MUCH better rifle shooter. Her dad taught her from a young age, with admonition, “NEVER let them take your guns.”
Same here. Out of all the guns in the safe, the scoped .308 is my wife’s favorite and she shoots it well. So if push comes to shove — SHTF, property defense, amelioration of tyranny, etc. — I cover and spot, she shoots.
Team work makes the dream work. 😀
Good one Dmitri and Mas. Wonder if hatpins are still available. Not a bad backup.
Flea markets.
@ jo ann – “Wonder if hatpins are still available?”
Amazon still sells them. Just go to Amazon and search for “Alilang 2PCS Women’s Pearl Jewelry Vintage Hat Pin”.
Now, if you could also locate a source for a bottle of curare in which to dip the points, you would be all set! 🙂
Great quote from Theodore Roosevelt!!
The story has been told about my grandmother (or her mother) using a hatpin to determine if her school teacher was as well formed as she looked. Opinions of the class were mixed so the hatpin was used to prove that the teacher’s front was a front.
Yessir! Absolutely! Now if I could just convince her to carry the damn thing!
When I was a kid, my mother showed me several hat pins that had belonged to her mother. All of them were 6″- 8″ long & had a round wooden knob on the dull end to hold on to. She told me that women used them for self defense at the turn of the previous century & that they were very effective. It was easy to see why they would be because they were light weight, concealable, easy to reach, & easy to handle even for a weak person. If grabbed by an assailant, a quick jab to his arm or anywhere else would undoubtedly force him to release her. In addition, a determined thrust to the torso could easily cause a deep penetrating wound. Even today, it would be a good thing to carry for self defense.
This reminds me that, recently, I saw a video on the internet where a young woman demonstrated how she could escape from a rear naked choke hold no matter how big or how strong her assailant might be. She had a large man put her in a choke hold & dared him to choke her out. When he did, she simply reached into the front pocket of her jeans, pulled out a disposable butane cigarette lighter, & burned his forearm with it. Needless to say, he released her immediately allowing her to escape. It seems to me that a lighter like that could be equally effective when grabbed from the front or from the side, especially if the victim were to carry one in each front pocket or rear pocket in case one of her arms was grabbed. What’s even better, is that those lighters are small, inexpensive, light, extremely concealable, & completely legal to carry anywhere, unlike some tasers or pepper sprays. It may be a modern equivalent of the old fashioned hat pin.
Whether you should be allowed the means to defend yourself depends upon who owns you. If you own yourself, then of course you would value your own life above that of one threatening to take it.
But if someone else owns you, whether you’re an old-fashioned slave or if your life is part of the collective property of the society, then it would be presumptuous to assume that this society values your life over the life of the person trying to kill you. That might not be the case.
From a practical perspective, a hatpin is not a serious self-defense tool. At least, not unless the point of the pin has been dipped in curare!
It seems that the real point (please excuse the pun! 🙂 ) of using a hatpin is simply to display feminine displeasure at boorish male behavior. Even back around the turn of the previous century, there were much more effective self-defense tools available. For example:
The Sears 1902 Catalog shows that a plated leather club (of the life-preserve type) could be purchased for 19 cents. A Rosewood patrolman’s 14-inch club cost 45 cents. The 1908 Catalog shows that a 6-inch double-edge sticking knife cost 26 cents and a leather sheath to fit it would add 15 cents more for a total cost of 41 cents for the pair.
Moving up to firearms, an Iver Johnson top-break revolver in .32 S&W caliber (with 2-inch barrel) cost $2.95. The classic Remington double derringer, in .41 rimfire caliber cost $4.55.
Meanwhile, the cost of hatpins ranged from 6 cents, for a plain cheap one, up to $1.25 for a gold plated one with a fancy head design. So, while the hatpin was certainly less expensive than a firearm, the sap, club, or knife options were cost competitive with a hatpin and would have been far more effective in the (serious) self-defense role.
It seems irrational that anyone would want to ban hatpins but, once they started to be used for self-protection, they would become a target for the Left.
One needs to understand that the left-wing mindset is a “religion” rather than a political belief. A true leftist literally “worships” Government. The Government becomes the Godhead to a true leftist. It represents that thing, greater than himself/herself, to which one should bow before in awe and prayer. (I am surprised that Leftists don’t face Washington, D.C. and kneel upon a “prayer rug” five-times a day! – Perhaps some do, in private. 🙂 )
To a leftist, the Government answers all things. It feeds and clothes the people. Provides them with education, shelter, and employment. It provides healthcare, old-age benefits, and protection from violence and crime. It raises their children.
From the left-wing perspective, when one lifts a hand to do these things for oneself, one is committing the sin of apostasy. It signals a disbelief that “Government” is (and should be) all things to all people.
To own a self-defense tool (of any type – from hatpins to air-guns to knives to firearms) is heresy against the “True Faith”. To lift your hand and commit an act of self-defense is to usurp the role of “Godhead Government”. It is not merely wrong, in their eyes, it is the commission of a sin against the True Faith.
Don’t you see why Leftists must punish people for their sins of owning self-defense tools and (horror of horrors) to actually use them? Don’t you see why they must ban anything and everything that could possibly be used for self-defense? A true leftist REJECTS the very concept of self-defense. In their minds, that is not something to be undertaken by the individual. God Government is there to watch over and protect his children!
Don’t you see why the Left must seek to punish sinners, like Kyle Rittenhouse, for their actions?
While they charged Rittenhouse with legal counts like murder and attempted murder, his true crime (in their eyes) was to usurp the power of the left-wing God and to defend himself. If the Left could have done it, they would have burned Rittenhouse at the stake for his SINS. He committed the sins of apostasy and heresy against the Left-wing Faith, by arming himself and then by acting in self-defense.
We all need to understand that we are not in a political battle over the 2nd Amendment. Rather, we are soldiers in a religious war fighting against religious fanatics who believe that we should all “burn in hell” for our heretical disbelief in their Godhead of “Big Brother Government”.
“Never trust people who want to make you helpless to defend yourself.”
Tyrants like Hitler, Stalin and Mao disarm their victims before they murder them.
When TN_MAN mentioned the Left’s heretic Kyle Rittenhouse, I couldn’t help but also think of Bernard Goetz.
This article reminded me of an old John Wayne movie, “MCLINTOCK” from the year 1963. In it there is a scene of a large brawl which involved his screen wife Maureen O’Hara who pulled her hatpin and stuck one of the unfortunate fighters in the behind. A tongue in cheek movie but well acted with a pretty good cast.