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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2584 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

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What do you carry in your pockets every day?

For me, it used to just be my keys, wallet, and phone. When I started to consider concealed carry, I realized that I had a pocket knife and pepper spray that I never carried around even though it's really not much more cargo than what I already had, and I just need to build the habit. I don't have the pepper spray oriented in a way that makes it very easy to get out and use, but the pocket knife has already been quite useful; at work, cutting off zip ties or opening packages is useful. At July 4th, other people handling the fireworks were asking to borrow my knife quite a lot. The knife you bring with you is a lot handier than the knife you leave at home! Even a dull one.

I also bought an OLight Mini 2 for my keychain. Pretty nice, though I think it's only really come in handy once or twice so far. It seems to be marginally brighter than my phone light, and a lot quicker to bring to bear. It was cheap.

Things I have considered:

  • A telescoping baton. Like the pepper spray, I was considering it for dog defense, mostly, but apparently it's legally questionable to carry one and actually ever use it in a self-defense scenario. I wonder if one would be useful for anything else.
  • A lighter. I don't smoke. When lighting off fireworks for the 4th, I was using someone else's long lighter for lighting grills, and it was very unreliable, bad for what we were trying to do which was synchronize 4 different mortar tubes of fireworks at once. I thought that if I had my own lighter, I could have just used my own and not been as frustrated.
  • A multitool. These are commonly carried, but I don't know if I would use most of the functions or not. Many people swear by them, though.

I recently reported on a series of stabbings that took place in Dublin at hip hop concerts, and a recurrent sentiment I've seen expressed by multiple people independently is that a person who brings a knife with them to a gig probably fully intends to stab someone at said gig, and the fact that they were carrying a knife on their person should be judged evidence for premeditation.

I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion. If I was hosting a party or barbecue and someone brought a knife with them (without a good reason, like they were coming straight from work), I would mentally strike them off all future guest lists.

EDIT: I got a lot more pushback on this than I expected. Give me credit lads, at least I can laugh at myself.

I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion.

My good man, all I can say to that is don't set foot in the United States. I can't remember the last time I attended a social occasion where somebody didn't have a blade on them. That's not even getting into guns.

I live in the US, and there's only been one time I can think of when someone had a knife at a social event. I can't say it's common in my experience. Bringing guns is completely unheard of.

I imagine it can be uncommon in some areas in the same way that some people might not know anyone who owns a truck. As for the guns, though... the point of concealed carry is that it's concealed. You almost certainly have been around random civilians with guns and you just didn't know it. Unless you're in some hell state like New York or New Jersey or something.

In Texas concealed carry is often enough not concealed very well.

Well yeah, of course you won't know if someone has something but conceals it. I think it's fair to count that as evidence in my favor though, because there's no way to distinguish "someone has X hidden" from "someone doesn't have X" when comparing casual experiences.

That's wild. I work at a few venues where weapons are banned for basic common sense reasons (trip hazards, flammable gas, etc), and even there I clock at least a dozen people with poorly concealed pistols each night. Knives are so common we literally have the equivalent of a coat check at one place.

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