[Updated: 21 August 2006] Your souvenir sword may save you some day

[Arkhandus]

This is cool. Souvenir katana (and angry defense of home and life; never discount a man's drive to fight for survival) saves the day! Sure, they might not've gotten hurt if they just let the stupid jerks take their stuff, but I'd have done the same thing they did; make those jerkwads pay for trying to steal someone's hard-earned property and/or livelihood, and for threatening their lives in the process.

I'd damned well have taught them a lesson about respect for other peoples' lives and property, same as these guys did. A lesson with lots of blood and screams on the criminals' part, and probably some broken fingers or arms involved (or severed fingers and toes). Because people like that NEVER learn without being taught the error of their ways through violence. Violent people just won't learn if not given violent reprisal.

I never got bullies to leave me alone except by beating some respect and fear into them with my bare hands and feet. Getting humiliated in front of peers by a short, quiet kid in glasses, the class scapegoat, is never good for one's pride and arrogance. I never saw hide nor hair of those jerks again, and never heard any of my friends grumble about being harassed by them again. I'm pretty timid by nature, but I get really riled up and berserk when someone threatens me in all seriousness (not just normal, stupid jerk/bully threats).

Getting beaten up when trying to intimidate or beat up someone else is, really, the most direct and effective lesson in not trying to do that ever again. I'm sure those attempted burglars will probably never try anything so brash again, now having experienced just how crazy and dangerous people can be when acting in defense of friends and self. Now they'll probably worry that any random person they try to rob could very well have a gun or other weapon and be entirely ready to use it, and they'll likely be scared as hell even when just thinking about trying to rob someone again. Getting a sword swung at them in a real fight, or a gun pointed at them in a real fight, will put the fear of death into them and make them much less likely to try something so stupid again.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

No, really, it doesn't. Not if the fingers were against a hard object (like a gun).

Yep, you could cut someone's fingers off with a baseball bat.

 

[Oscaron]

Article said they were cut off, not cut off cleanly.

Could be the reporter just assumed or that the editor said no to the 'hit so hard the finger was ripped out of a socket" quote.

OR....

It was a Cold Steel, baby!

Osc

 

[RangerWickett]

On the other hand, one of my friends' dad is a forensic investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. One time he got called in on a case where there was the body of the home-owner, dead from multiple small stab wounds to the torso. The walls all around him were rent with huge gashes, feet long in some places. There was no sign of the murder weapon.

It turns out that the home-owner, who was about six and a half feet tall, heard a burgular (a burgularizer?) coming into his house, so he grabbed his 6-ft. antique claymore off its display mount next to his bed, and went to drive off the burgular. He found the guy in his living room and started swinging, cutting huge gouges out of his wall with the massive arc of the sword.

The thief, who they eventually discovered was about five-foot-four, took his 4-inch knife and just ducked inside the reach of the home-owner, stabbing the guy multiple times until he fell. Then he robbed the place and left unscathed, taking the sword with him.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

And that is why you STAB

Basically the guy who picked up the claymore died because he tried to use it like a two by four. It was way too long to be useful inside a closed space. That's why in close quarters you use a short blade and stab, stabbing is far more lethal when the parties involved are unskilled. In the process of slashing at a person unless you strike one of a particular set of vulnerable areas the human body is rather resilient and doesn't usually die straight off. A quick stab from a good heavy stabbing blade is almost certain to penetrate a vital organ if you aim at the center of mass.

And I truly hope that the people who hacked up the burglar aren't victimized by the lawyers. If a person doesn't have the legal right to defend their home and property against theft and aggression they they don't actually own it, they're only using it on the sufferance of others.

 

[wmasters]

I've read before that Medieval swords weren't actually very sharp. As others have said, it's simply not practical to keep them that way, and they did their job anyway. If you swing something with enough force it doesn't need to be very sharp to cause damage. Have you ever seen a knight on a TV show or movie who braces his sword with two hands, one on the hilt and one on the end of the blade, as if he were holding a quarterstaff? Ever wonder why he doesn't cut himself? It's simply not sharp enough.

I used to hear that samauri swords were the exeception to this rule, but I also remember hearing that new evidence has shown that samauri swords weren't actually any sharper than the European variety. So I really don't know either way on that one.

As I understand it (and I could be wildly wrong) medieval swords like the broadsword and the claymore etc were to kill people in heavy armour, and a sharp blade is no match for a heavy blade in those cases, so they made a big sword shaped club, basically, in European warfare. In oriental battles though, people were more less heavily armoured and more mobile, so they wanted a sharp sword to take their opponent down faster so they used a katana. There's something about the forging of a katana that keeps it sharp I believe, but I can't remember what.

 

[RangerWickett]

As I understand it (and I could be wildly wrong) medieval swords like the broadsword and the claymore etc were to kill people in heavy armour, and a sharp blade is no match for a heavy blade in those cases, so they made a big sword shaped club, basically, in European warfare. In oriental battles though, people were more less heavily armoured and more mobile, so they wanted a sharp sword to take their opponent down faster so they used a katana. There's something about the forging of a katana that keeps it sharp I believe, but I can't remember what.

What's amazing about katanas is that the Japanese used the sub-par iron in their islands and made effective swords with it. Europeans, Middle Easterners, Chinese, and so on didn't need to go to the same fanciness level, because the local iron wasn't so crappy.

Katanas do not keep their edge especially well once they're in combat. They chip and knick just like any sword. IANASwordExpert.

 

[Oscaron]

Katanas do not keep their edge especially well once they're in combat. They chip and knick just like any sword. IANASwordExpert.

Correct, but the angle of the edge is optimized and the wedge on the tip is superior.

In comparing designs, even a katana with a dulled edge could easily be shoved thru a metal chest plate with much less force than a European sword.

Osc

 

[Oscaron]

Basically the guy who picked up the claymore died because he tried to use it like a two by four. It was way too long to be useful inside a closed space. That's why in close quarters you use a short blade and stab, stabbing is far more lethal when the parties involved are unskilled.

Yes, while the 2x4 method was good at breaking bones of a chain-wearing individual, to make best use of crowded battlefields and heavy armored opponents, the stab was better.

Part of the reason some claymores had edges only on their last 2 feet or so. It would have been a waste of labor to sharpen the remaining length that would not be used. Plus, leaving it unsharpened made for a better grip so the user could use it like a spear.

Chances are, though, this guy had one of the cheap sweat-shop-made 'cosmetically sharpened' variety that ships out of Thailand and that you see at every Ren Faire. And he probably spent one entire afternoon butchering all available edges with a rock he found out back so that it had an edge that would not keep past one hit on the plaster, but would have opened his hand up but good if he HAD tried to use it properly.

Not that I've known anyone like that *rolls eyes*.

Osc

 

[Nellisir]

I don't know about swords, and I haven't been burgled, but if I had my choice of impromptu weapons -- my 22-oz waffle-head framing hammer, baby. And even if the guy closes, you choke up on the head and beat him with that.

Gotta love the posturing.

In reality, I would go for the hammer. And a knife. And my two dogs.

Cheers
Nell.