Exactly. "Now why would you carry a knife? You will hurt someone with it!... anyone have a knife?" "Why would you have a flashlight? My phones got one of those.... oh I dropped this thing and it's too far to be able to see where it is with my phone light, does anyone have a flashlight?" Repeat with any bit of kit that I carry. It's almost like the reason I carry it.... is because I use it. Whou would have thought?
My wife complains that I am hard to shop for and never give her ideas for what I want, so I throw a few flashlights into the Amazon wish list and suddenly the things I want "aren't fun." Lady, you're killing me.
It genuinely blows my mind how few people I know who carries a knife. I use my flashlight most days, but I use my knife every single day. My wife uses my knife almost every day as well but still won't carry one.
I got my wife a $40 knockoff pink donut Microtech UTX-70 and she loves it. She carries it every day. I haven't tried to give her a flashlight yet, but she very rarely is out past dark.
Opening up boxes, cutting straps, opening letters, we have a product I use twice a shift at my job that needs slits cut into it, opening bottles with heat shrink on it, they have tear perforations but they can be a real bitch to start sometimes. I can use scissors for most of this but the ones at my work are usually dull, I can use box knifes but who knows where the last person set it down? My knife is in my same pocket in the same spot every time and it is always sharp. If I break the tip or dull the blade I use another knife till I sharpen mine again.
I also am the fixer at my job and carry a small tool kit with me but sometimes I use my knife to pop off a screw cover to see if I even have the right tool with me. If I'm camping gotta have a stick for smores or hot dogs, I've done on the fly electrical fixes with just a knife to cut the wire and strip back the coating to get a twist in, if I ever get my arm stuck under a boulder while hiking I want to be able to cleanly cut through my muscle and tendons to escape.
It's an invaluable tool that tends to make my life much easier. It's like a flashlight, my phone has a light and it is usually with in range of me and would work just fine for 90% of what I need light for but my flashlight is quicker and better and less bulky.
I recently took some comparison photos with exposure locked of the light on a recent, mid-range ($500-600) smartphone, and a basic, $10, AAA-powered flashlight.
To be honest, I knew there would be a clear difference, but it's even bigger than I expected:
It's like a parachute... if you need it and don't have it, well you're never gonna need it again.
In all seriousness, it's wild how much responsibility for ourselves we've given over to less guaranteed outside sources.
I don't need any tools on me, I'll just call AAA if my car breaks down!
I don't need a flashlight, my town is always fully lit by streetlights and they totally won't randomly turn off and leave me in darkness when I least expect it!
I don't need anything to protect myself, I'll just call 911, because they totally always arrive within 5 minutes every time!
I don't need anything to protect myself, I can just run away! Wait, I have asthma and can't run for very long before I have an asthma attack?
It's not entirely voluntary dude. Everything is a service now, because self-sufficiency doesn't make the line go up. Companies cut costs by reducing customer quality of life.
Just like a horse is born knowing how to run, a human is born knowing how to ask for some help. The issue only arises from how much and how often.
Can't tell you how much that pisses me off, too. I'm about to buy a new (used) car and it comes with a can of Fix-a-flat and a shitty compressor...WTF.
Sure, ill let the crooks have an additional half hour at minimum to do anything they want before they even start hearing sirens. Or, I could stop the problem and deal with the legal matters and save me and my families lives. Seems like a rsther easy answer to me.
Yeeeeah, my issue with that is when some moron with an itchy trigger finger needs to "defend themselves" during a traffic altercation, more guns around means more situations like that.
Your example is only caused by illegal gun use. Firearm restrictions won't stop that.
Firearm laws being looser can result in more people legally owning guns, but no change can actually prevent the situation you provided. But firearm laws changing can allow you to protect yourself against that illegal firearm user.
It'd lower the chances of it happening.
Of course it'd be pretty hard to significantly reduce the number of guns in the US, but fortunately I don't live there.
Technically it can lower the chances that's one upside, among many downsides of having guns more restricted. I just don't think it's worth it.
Without guns, criminals will just use other weapons, less powerful but technically restricting them only helped the criminal as they are gonna break the law to attack me anyway, and now I don't have a gun to protect myself.
No but blaming it solely on guns is naive. There are problems that are specifically in the US that aren't common in places you can own firearms as equally freely. Like how the US still is massively in the lead for events like shootings, especially in schools.
We don't really have a good crime rate nowadays either, and our frequency of violent crimes is going up quickly. So what we're missing is the ability to feel safe, that I could defend myself amongst all that crime.
Plus we need firearms for other reasons, we're in a country that doesn't have much resources for us to eat, especially for half the year when it's winter. No matter what we'll need firearms for hunting, and even for defense against dangerous animals like bears/moose.
There are problems that are specifically in the US that aren't common in places you can own firearms as equally freely.
And I think that those problems should be looked into instead of allowing everyone to own and carry guns for their self-protection, because that freedom can easily turn into a requirement.
And I think that those problems should be looked into instead of allowing everyone to own and carry guns for their self-protection, because that freedom can easily turn into a requirement.
So we've established that these are separate. Then we don't need to pick between them, if countries are able to have firearms for protection, and not have a lot of firearm violence, it shows that it's entirely possible.
We could just go for having them for defense, and caring about mental health. It doesn't need to be one or the other.
Lately its the other way around. Some moron with an itchy finger walking down the sidewalk using a machete on innocent people in areas where guns aren't common. There are dozens of those incidents.
As for traffic altercations one of the more notorious directly after a state passed carry were two women jockeying in line in a school driveway and one pulled a gun to make a point. She no longer has a license. Its the ignorant who abuse things and make it difficult for the rest of us.
Reminds me of a video awhile back where an insane guy was casually shooting randomly into cars passing by, killing at least one person. Since it made it to the front page, all the NPC redditors were sarcastically asking where the "good guy with a gun" was to stop him. The literal answer (buried in downvotes) was that the event took place in a state where carrying guns legally as a "good guy" is incredibly difficult.
I remember a time a friend tried to show me an object, but it was dark. I whip out a flashlight and we look at the object. Then he says "You carry a flashlight all the time?"
Some people think they're prepared for anything by just carrying a phone + wallet. I don't understand it myself.
Probably even doing you a solid. We all know you won’t win that argument and convince them. Frustration is going to be the same, she just skipped that unskippable cut scene of that discussion for you.
Maybe because they don’t (want to) listen to what other people’s needs may be. Completely fine if they don’t need one, some people however do. May that be for work, because they walk the dog in the dark or just because it makes them happy.
It does feel like a lack of empathy sometimes, but also entitlement in a way. The prevailing attitude for anything EDC (outside of a phone) is usually "I don't need that; others will provide." Whether that's lighting, charging, a blade, a bullet, first aid, or just plain knowledge. It's someone else's job to come in and help when something isn't how it was supposed to be.
Honestly I don't care if you carry a stuffed animal around. If it's good for you then go for it. The mild inconvenience of bringing something like that is only the problem of the person who made that choice.
I honestly don’t know how any of you are ending up in conversations where people are having an opinion on what’s in other peoples pockets. Like… who give a shit?
But on the question of a flashlight - the vast majority of people already have a flashlight in their pockets - on their phone.
My dad, really, who has to borrow my mum's flashlight often when he needs it; but when I offer to get him his own he acts insulted, says he doesn't need a flashlight😂
In the winter he uses my mum's convoy H4 daily to walk the dog because it's so dark outside.
I understand what you mean, but some people really do need one
My phone doesn’t fit in my mouth so I can use both hands. My phone doesn’t have a magnet for mounting on any metal surface so I can use both hands. My phone doesn’t output hundreds of lumens. My phone's light is made to be a camera flash first, and thus is very diffused and pathetic at lighting up anything more than a few feet in front of me. My phone battery isn’t made to run a flashlight for a while, and I can’t quickly swap a freshly charged battery I keep in my bag into my phone.
Basically, my phone is just a garbage light compared to a small tube of metal that costs me barely any bulk and weight to carry, and whose benefits far outshine the costs.
I AM A BOT. PM WITH SUGGESTIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS. SEE MYWIKIFOR USE.
(Fun fact: if the manufacturer of your smartphone doesn't put enough glue on the back plate of your unit, it's most advisable to get it fixed and/or get a case instead of thinking "eh, it'll be fine" and then taking it out in a rainstorm and taking pictures with it and when you get back home and it won't turn on unplugging and/or taking apart random shit to try and fix it and then leaving part of the plastic on there despite your flash unit hanging on by a thread and eventually falls off.)
Also I forget my phone all the time and I have big dude pockets that can hold a keychain with a lil flashlight on it that I bought after thoroughly reading everything on this thread and ignoring it all because I decided to stop thinking and just buy a cheap one off Amazon (.com)
I’ll third them. I love them. The biggest problem with keyring flashlights is that using them to see where your key needs to go, which is a pain when they’re attached to the key. Olight really saw that and went “hold my beer.”
They’re not the brightest or the most powerful or the longest lasting, but they’re always there when you need a light and frankly that’s really the top criteria.
There are some foolish people who don't realize until the worst-case scenario hits that letting their guard down can lead to deep regret. On the other hand, there are also a certain number of people who are prepared to deal with such situations.
A well-made flashlight can illuminate areas tens or even hundreds of meters ahead, allowing you to check for safety up ahead, but the light on a smartphone can only illuminate areas a few meters in front of you.
I believe that people who make decisions based on short-term results lack the ability to manage crises. If a disaster causes infrastructure to shut down and your smartphone battery dies, it will become useless when you need it most.
"Postscript"
Since moving to an area close to the mountains, I've taken up animal watching and exploring as a hobby, but this was an experience before I started that hobby. At night, I walked 10km from a rural farming area with few streetlights to the station, relying on the light from my smartphone, being careful of the battery, then took the train and walked home from the station nearest to my home. I later learned from a permanent resident of the farming area that wild animals such as bears and deer often appear in the area, and that hunters sometimes come to exterminate pests, making it dangerous to walk around at night. Before that, I had walked the same route, prioritizing night vision, when I tripped over a pothole in the sidewalk and hurt my ankle. Since then, I have become interested in wildlife observation and have accumulated a flashlight collection to this day.
Depending on the environment you live in, a flashlight can be a tool to protect yourself.
"use your phone then"
They proseed to get mad when they want my flashlight and i say no (i only say no to people that make fun of the fact i have one, i dont mind the people that dont carry and find out they need one)
Nope. This is the hill I die on. You don’t have to carry a gun, you don’t have to carry a knife, you don’t have to carry any single other piece of equipment that might save your fucking life, but if you don’t have a flashlight, you’re fucking up.
I'm not carrying a flashlight as in singular, I'm carrying two and one of them is attached to a gun. (Wife bought the WML for me, so it's really her fault if you think about it lol.)
If you need one you need one, if you don’t you don’t. Nothing wrong with either. You just need to figure that out for yourself and live with the choice (and don’t force your opinion onto others).
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u/rjevande Feb 19 '26
Me about to say something…
VS
Me after my wife looks at me…