Besides, any guy with a lick of sense is expecting that. And it's not all that hard to make you miss. Or the simple expedient of wearing a cup. Never assume a kick to the groin is going to work.

A nail file or your car's ignition keys (get a blank if you don't have a car), held between the fingers of your clenched fist, makes a good improvised gouge.

__________________
[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Heck, if you really want to go all out, learn a martial art.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Not between the fingers. That ends up working against you if the attacker is able to grab your hand and squeeze.

Grip it in your hand with some length sticking out of the bottom of your fist, and hit with that. If you're carrying a key chain with multiple keys, carry them with the one key you're going to need to unlock the door sticking out the top (so you don't have to fumble to find it at the door) and the rest of the keys out the bottom (to hit with).

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Didn't one or two of the planes have flight attendents who were murdered by slitting their throats?

5 or 6 baseball bats could have come in very handy. If I see a terrorist start to kill a flight attendent and I've got access to a baseball bat, I'm going to bash his head in.

One of the biggest mistakes kidnapped people make is not fighting back. That allows the kidnappers to murder them without a whimper from them.

Nobody's going to kidnap me. I've got my canes, long metal pipes, and some other things in and around my house and in my car to always fight back with. I've got them placed out in my yard at various places in case a pit bull gets into my yard. That pit bull will never make it out alive. I'll wear his skin as a hat. The same with a mugger and a carjacker.

Not to my knowledge, but even if they were, my point stands. The passengers would not have needed weapons to counter the box cutters if they knew what was on the line.

__________________
[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

It's baseball bats any day, against box cutters. The plane should have had them stored away. Anyway, passengers should fly with canes... and a little limp to justify the canes.

"She also reported that the passenger in 9B had had his throat slit by the hijacker sitting behind him and appeared to be dead."

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...lnk&cd=1&gl=us

The point isn't whether they could have overpowered the hijackers. The point is that until recently, hijackers were not considered a danger to an airplane's welfare or passengers, as they were not prone to kamikaze style attacks.

You're thinking of the '60s and '70s. This was the '90s, after the first attempt to topple the World Trade Center.

They had no defensive weapons on the airplanes at all. They should have starting carrying defensive weapons back in the '60s.

Hindsight.

Also, what happens when some whacko gets a hold of the bat and kills another passenger?

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þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Irrelevant.

Had the first attempt used airplanes? No. Was there any reason to draw a connection at the time? No. Had there been an attack using airplanes in that manner before? No.

In other words, there was absolutely no evidence pointing to it as anything but a basic hijacking until it was too late.

You do whatever you want, and I'll do what's right for the occasion.

Not so. These things can be anticipated. After the '93 attempt on the WTC I was wondering how long before they'd crash into it with an airplane. But I was in the news business all my life. I learned how to anticipate trends. If they looked like young Arabs, well, doh, then all the passengers and crew members should know what that means.

Never trust a guy who kidnaps you and then tells you that if you'll be calm and quiet he'll let you go. Never. Never.

If I see the guys have only small box cutters, and they are cutting passenger's throats, then I go for them with the bat.

You don't seem to get it. Their best defense is surprise. Your best offense is surprise. They aren't expecting you to aggressively go after them with baseball bats.

Well, I wish you had let the rest of us in on your insight. Meanwhile, it was one heck of a shock to me.

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No, he's getting it just fine. It isn't a matter of being able to overpower the hijackers or not - it's a matter of knowing whether to try or not. If you have every reason to believe that you'll be fine if you do nothing, then you do nothing. This seems to have been the case on 9/11. Turns out that the passengers' expectations were incorrect.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Exactly! Fight back,hard.
Most criminals count on cowing their victims into submission,that's why they attack quickly,they're counting on the element of suprise.But when it's turned against them most times they'll turn & run,there's countless examples of it happening.

Criminals want an easy score,the harder you make it for them the better chances you have.I'm not recommending always go against one that has a gun on you,but if you see an opening,take it!

I'm a gun advocate,if you are allowed to have one then you should have one.Learn how to use & maintain it,it's not really that hard.Criminals won't attack someone they suspect is armed.

If you're a woman (referring to the OP) in a jurisdiction that doesn't allow firearms then your best bet is one of the many small,concealable blades on the market.Keep it in your hand (careful,you don't want to cut yourself) if you're anyplace where you might possibly be attacked.A spirited defense coupled with even some superficial cuts on an attacker could well result in him breaking off the attack.

But then your best defense is always Situational Awareness,looking around,noticing anything that looks out of place,having eyes in the back of your head.

__________________
"An armed man is a citizen
An unarmed man is a subject"

Robert A. Heinlein

Well, I was barely on the internet back then. In early '01 I had been arguing with a guy about the OK City bombing. He was saying the first news reports about other bombs in the OK building indicated a conspiracy. I told him that the early news reports always contain errors and the early reports about other bombs were errors and rumors.

I told him what we needed to do was wait for the next large building bombing and have blank tapes ready so we could start recording right after the bombing, so we could capture those early first news reports, and then I could point out to him the early news errors. I was in the news business a long time and I'm familiar with early news errors and rumors. I told him that in about July or August of 2001. I had my blank tapes ready on 9-11, 2001.

What informed me about this Arab type stuff was back in the late '80s when I interviewed some Arab students. It was a feature story just about "foreign students at our local university". Well, these guys started telling me the entire history of the world, the history of Jews and Christians, the History of Islam, the history of the old Arabian Empire, and about how the world has fallen apart since the fall of the Arabian Empire.

So I got the feeling that they and other Arabs wanted to see a world-wide revolution and a new Arabian Empire. So I asked them about that, and they got really excited then, because that was exactly what they wanted and what they wanted to talk about, but they were afraid to bring it up until I brought it up. So, then they explained the whole thing to me. Before that, I thought the Middle-East Arab stuff was mostly just a regional dispute in North Africa and the Palestine area. But they explained it in terms of a full world revolution, that they not only wanted, but that was coming down the road soon.

Well, dang!

So when the bombing of the WTC took place, and it was NOT a federal building but an international trade building, I figured "Arabs" rather than "home grown Militia" type perps like OK City had been a "Militia" type attack. And when the bomb went off in the basement, that indicated to me that they were trying to topple the whole building, not just bomb it. So I figured "what next"? I thought maybe a private airplane loaded with explosives, but they hijacked the big planes instead.

Plane bombings and hijackings have a long history going way back, and they've had different motives over the years and different types of people doing them.

If it's a Cuban guy, hijacking an East-Coast plane bound for Miami or just leaving Miami, then he'll most likely take it to Cuba and let everyone go. If its a variety of types hijacking an East bound trans-Atlantic plane out of New York, then maybe he wants to go somewhere in Europe or Africa, so as long as he doesn't kill anyone, then we'll see where he takes us.

But West bound planes from Boston with a bunch of Arabs with box cutters but no guns who turn the plane around early in the flight and head toward DC and Manhattan? Then it's time to get out the baseball bats.

If they have guns, they'd show them. If they don't have guns and claim to have a bomb, well, anyone can claim to have a bomb.

Plus there were all those attacks on US facilities and Embassies. More attacks on US facilities abroad. That means the attacks inside the US will soon follow.

Just wait until they get a dirty bomb ready or get their hands on a suitcase nuke. NY and DC would be the last places in the US where I would live.