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The first thing I want to say is this: if you are disabled, you are not defenseless. I don’t care what anyone else has told you. I don’t care what the world has tried to grind into your head.

You may not fight like an able-bodied person, but you are not defenseless.

Now, the world does stack the deck against you. People will see your chair, your cane, your limp, your brace, your slower gait, and they will think “easy target.” They will think you are prey.

Some of them will even convince themselves they’re doing you a favor by targeting you because you. These people are cowards. And cowards fold when they realize their target has teeth.

So, let’s talk teeth.

✦ Weapons are your best friends. If you can legally carry something; pepper spray, bear spray, a taser, a collapsible baton, do it. If you can’t carry those, improvise. A heavy flashlight. Keys threaded between your fingers. A cane with weight behind it. Don’t underestimate what a steel chair armrest or the hard edge of a crutch can do if swung with intent. Your mobility aid is not just support; it can be a weapon if you need it to be.

My warning is thus, never carry a weapon you cannot deal with if it is turned against you.

My advice however is also twofold: If your attacker has a weapon, and you can turn it against them, you should.

Now we continue.

Leverage over speed. You might not be able to run or grapple. That’s fine. You don’t need speed, you need angles and pain.

Aim for soft spots: eyes, genitals, knees, throat. Strike fast and mean. Your goal is not to “win”, the only "win" state in this situation is living, your main goals should be to break their focus long enough to get away or for someone else to intervene. Barring that, to disable them long enough to leave.

Learn positioning. If you use a wheelchair, practice locking it down and using your arms to defend yourself (More detail further down)

If you use crutches or a cane (which I do sometimes), practice swinging them with both accuracy and balance.

If you have chronic pain (which I do always), practice two to three you know you can pull off in a rush of adrenaline, and train them until they’re automatic.

One solid move you can do, is better than a hundred theoretical ones in your head that you can't. And you need to practice, being in your own head isn't practice. Make the movements, it's also good exercise, so you win even if you never have to use it for real.

Train your voice. People underestimate yelling. A sharp, loud “BACK THE FUCK OFF” can disrupt an attacker’s confidence. More importantly, it can draw attention. Think of your voice as another weapon, one that makes witnesses look your way.

Try to avoid starting with yelling threats, as it can make people more violent, but if they keep coming, do threaten, partially because it may make people balk, and partially because in many states (mine for example) you may not be allowed to physically defend yourself if you do not make your intention to defend yourself known.

Where I live, I am allowed to injure, maim, or kill another person if the following criteria are met:

I genuinely believe my health and safety may be at risk from an attacker

I warn my attacker of my intent to injure, maim, or kill.

My personal go to is a firm, but not shouted "If you continue to approach me, I will defend myself with lethal force"

Or rather, my personal go to is "If you take another step towards me I'll fucking kill you", and this has actually made people back off most of the time, but if you can be more reasonable than me, you should try to be.

Get comfortable with being ruthless.

You don’t need to fight fair.

You don’t need to fight “clean.”

If they’ve decided to prey on someone disabled, they’ve already forfeited the right to mercy. Bite if you have to. Spit in their eyes, or better yet, pop their eyes with fingers, keys, a pen, whatever you have.

Jam a cane into their throat and then again into their mouth, aim to break teeth, if you live where you are allowed to defend yourself with lethal force, like I am, just drive down all the way through the back of the throat with the entirety of your weight and force.

There are no style points in survival.

society already tells you that your life is worth less or altogether worthless. That you should sit down, shut up, and take whatever comes. Refusing to die quietly is rebellion. Refusing to be a compliant victim is justice.

Every second you keep yourself alive is a rejection of the lie that you are easy prey.

You don’t need to be fast. You don’t need to be strong. You just need to be willing.

Self-Defense for Wheelchair Users

Here’s something nobody wants to admit: a lot of predators see a wheelchair and think “easy target.” They see you as immobile, fragile, unable to fight back. That assumption is their weakness. Because the truth is, you are sitting in a likely 200+ lb battering ram with steel and aluminum edges, and if you learn to use it, you are a lot scarier than they expect.

So let’s talk tactics.

Weapons:

Pepper spray, bear spray, mace, there are many sprayables, whichever is legal where you live is your best friend. Especially when deployed at seated height. Most able-bodied attackers expect spray aimed at face level; from a chair, you should aim upwards directly into the eyes from below, or the nasal passages depending on how close they are.

Mind the wind, you don't want it to spray back towards you.

Keep something weighted or pointed but casual in an easy-to-grab spot: a heavy flashlight, a tactical pen, or even a heavy padlock on a short strap ( <- This last one was one my dad used)

Your chair itself is a weapon. The footrests and armrests are hard edges. The frame is likely solid steel or aluminum. A quick shove into someone’s shin or knee can cripple their momentum.

Your Tactics:

Lock your wheels if you’re absolutely cornered. This turns your chair into an anchored platform. Your arms are free, and now the chair won’t roll away from your own hits.

Ram forward. 200+ pounds of momentum into someone’s knee, genitals, or shin is no joke.

Side strikes. Swinging the chair sideways into someone’s legs can knock them off balance.

Grab and pull. If someone leans close, grab their clothing and yank down hard while ramming forward, you’ll destabilize them instantly, from here you have the advantage and may, if legal, use maiming force with ease. Be mindful not to bring their mouth near you, humans can and will bite when pressed.

Upper Body Strikes:

Eyes. Throat. genitals. Knees. Do not waste time punching shoulders or ribs, you won't do a thing. Go for disabling targets.

A closed fist is fine, but a sharp jab with keys, a pen, or your nails is better. You want pain and shock, not boxing form. I sometimes talk about the time I blinded a man, and when I did so I did so with keys.

Take the keys, close them in your fist so they jut between your fingers/knuckles (whatever works with your hand abilities) and aim for soft issue such as the eyes. I always say go for the eyes first with whatever you have, a blind attacker is no longer an attacker. Society wants you to believe that being disabled means being defenseless. But you are not defenseless, you just fight differently. You must fight from a seated angle, but you have weapons already built into your mobility.

You don’t need to run. You don’t need to stand. You need to be willing.

And once you’re willing, you are no longer prey.

Every time you fight back, every time you remind someone that your body is worth defending, you reject the story this world has tried to write for you, the false narrative where you are weak, passive, disposable.

Refusing to die quietly is rebellion. Making an attacker bleed because they thought your chair made you easy is praxis.

Self-Defense for Crutch and Cane Users

People look at crutches or canes and see fragility. What they don’t realize is you are literally walking around with a stick, and a stick is one of the oldest, most reliable weapons in human history.

Predators see a limp and think “slow.” What they should be thinking is “that person has a metal baton in their hand.”

Weapons:

A cane isn’t just a mobility aid, it’s a baton, a crowbar, a spear, and a club all in one.

Crutches are even scarier: you’ve got leverage, length, and a blunt end that can hit like a hammer.

Anything with a rubber stopper has more grip than they expect. The thud of rubber against bone is devastating.

Tactics For Canes:

Jab forward. Straight to the solar plexus, gut, genitals, mouth, eyes, or skull. Fast, sharp, and as hard as you can. Now is not the time to worry about hurting or killing someone. You must make peace with hurting someone now.

Sweep low. Take out ankles. Once they're on the floor do not stop: If you are allowed to use lethal force to defend yourself, bring the end of your cane down through their mouth into the back of their throat or one of their eyes with as much sharp force and weight as you can manage.

Hook strike. If your cane has a curved handle, hook it around an, ankle, or neck and yank with as much force as you can, pull your whole weight back.

Overhead angles. If they’re close, bring it down on collarbones, noses, or the tops of hands. People underestimate how much damage a 'stick' can do until their bones fracture.

Tactics for Crutches:

Two-handed ram. Plant both crutches, lean forward with your full weight, and drive them like lances into knees, genitals, or faces.

One-handed swing. Hold one like a baseball bat and strike from the side. Aim for faces, throat/neck, or head.

Stomp assist. If they go down, you’ve got the rubber tips, stomp down hard with the end onto ankles, genitals or hands. Painful, disabling, fast. If you are allowed to use lethal force, do the same thing driving down through the mouth and the back of the throat.

Leverage push. Crutches give you long reach. Use them to shove someone back, create space, and buy time.

A lot of people hesitate because they don’t want to “break” their mobility aid. But ask yourself: would you rather replace a cane, or replace an eye, a tooth, lose your life?

These tools are extensions of your body, they are there to keep you safe.

A cracked cane is nothing compared to a broken rib. Society frames canes and crutches as shameful, as signs of weakness, as proof you’re “less than.” But in reality, they are connection to every human who ever fought with a staff or club. You carry a weapon openly, and the world pretends not to see it. That invisibility is to your advantage.

You do not need to apologize for fighting dirty. You do not need to be polite when your life is threatened. If someone sees your cane and thinks “easy target,” then the most revolutionary thing you can do is swing that cane so hard they never think it again.

You’re not fragile. You’re armed.

Self-Defense for Walker and Rollator Users

Walkers and rollators are usually thought of as cages, barriers, or slow, clunky tools. But in a fight, they’re cover, armor, and battering rams. They give you reach, stability, and more steel tubing than most people expect. Used right, they are terrifyingly effective.

Weapons:

A walker is a steel frame. That means it’s blunt force trauma waiting to be used.

Rollators (with wheels) often move faster, and the brakes and frame give you control points to shove, pin, or trap someone.

Anything with a seat doubles as a shield.

Tactics for Walkers:

Ram. Grab the sides, put your weight behind it, and drive it into shins or knees. The square frame makes impact hard to dodge. Your goal is to get someone on the ground.

Lift and drop. If you can lift even a little, bring the front legs up and drop them down onto a foot. Metal legs + gravity = broken toes. If you can get them on the ground first, you can access more places: Ganitals, Throat, Face.

Pushback. A walker is a wall. Shove forward into their midsection to knock them off balance or pin them against a surface, do it hard, as hard as you can, use your full weight. Your goal is to at least wind, better yet to damage organs.

Use the Edge. The corners of a walker frame can be targeted like a spearpoint. Drive the edge into genitals, the side below the ribs, throat, or gut.

Tactics for Rollators:

Brake, bash, repeat. Roll it fast into someone, then slam the brakes so it hits with sudden force.

Wheel trap. Catch their foot under a wheel, then twist the frame sideways to torque their ankle as hard as you can, your goal is to at least twist it, but your bigger aim is preferably to break it.

Use the seat as a shield. Flip it sideways and you’ve got a barrier between you and them. Buy yourself seconds to yell, escape, or counterattack.

Swing. If you have the strength, rollators can be tipped on their side and swung. Even a partial swing will hurt.

People often freeze because they think walkers are “delicate.” They’re not. They’re built to hold your full body weight and then some. They can handle ramming into walls, they can handle ramming into an attacker.

If it bends or warps, that means it did its job and kept you safe. Better a busted frame than a busted skull. Walkers and rollators symbolize dependence in the public imagination, and people love to project weakness onto them. But that’s their blindness, not yours.

You are armored in plain sight, carrying a wall of steel tubing every time you step outside. You have reach, stability, and force multiplication.

If someone thinks your walker makes you easy prey, then it’s time to turn that frame into a weaponized reminder: you are not fragile, and you are not unprotected. You are the tank in this fight.

Self-Defense for Amputees and Prosthetic Users

First, the truth: fighting without a limb or with a prosthetic is not a handicap in self-defense, it’s just a different fighting style. The world assumes disability equals weakness, but the second you lean into your body as it is, you will find new, unexpected forms of strength.

Prosthetics as Weapons:

Leg prosthetics: A solid prosthetic leg is blunt force incarnate. Kicks with a prosthetic can break ribs or knock someone down with far less effort than a meat limb. Even stomps hit harder, no pain nerves means no self-injury holding you back. Or at least that's the case for me as someone with a condition that lowers pain feedback in certain parts of my body.

Arm prosthetics: Depending on design, they can be used to block blows, trap wrists, or outright strike. A prosthetic hook, clamp, or even a simple padded grip can crush fingers or tear skin if you clamp and twist.

Detachable intimidation: Some prosthetics can be quickly removed. Nothing unsettles an attacker faster than someone yanking off their arm or leg mid-fight and swinging it like a club.

Amputee Fighting Without Prosthetics:

Leverage matters more than symmetry. If you’re missing a limb, your balance points are different, which means attackers can’t easily predict how you’ll move. Their assumptions become your camouflage.

Ground game power. If you get knocked down, use your full body mass like a battering ram. Throw yourself into knees, ankles, or genitals, it’s harder to stop someone who isn’t fighting by the “expected” rules.

Teeth, headbutts, elbows. If you’ve got fewer limbs to work with, make every strike count. Close range brutality wins fights faster than shiny fancy moves.

Attackers often do not expect resistance from amputees or prosthetic users. That hesitation must become your edge. If you hit back hard, fast, and unexpected, you’ve already broken their mental advantage.

Shock factor counts. Survival means using every tool, even intimidation. Disability doesn’t erase your right to fight back. People with visible disabilities are often targeted more, because predators assume you’re vulnerable. That assumption is a weapon you can flip. A prosthetic isn’t just medical tech it’s a weapon, and it’s proof that your body adapts. You already survived once.

whether you swing a prosthetic like a hammer, kick with precision, or fight with what’s left of you with all the brutality you can muster, you are not less dangerous. You are unpredictable, resourceful, and harder to put down than anyone who has only ever lived in a body they've never had to adapt to.

Self-Defense for People with Chronic Pain and Joint Issues

Step One: Ditch the Fantasy You are not training for a cage fight. You are not proving toughness. You are surviving. The bar is not “be able to wrestle for 5 minutes straight.” The bar is “make them hurt enough that they let go and you can escape.” Short, sharp, and dirty wins over long, athletic combat.

Pain is Information, Not Failure

Your body already knows its limits. You don’t have to pretend those limits don’t exist to defend yourself.

What you can do is practice micro-movements that hurt less but still hit hard: short-range elbows, low kicks, heel stomps, headbutts. These don’t need big, joint-risking swings.

Remember: nerves screaming in your knee or shoulder don’t mean you’re weak. They mean you need different tactics.

Joint-Friendly Techniques:

Palms, not fists. Punching risks your wrists and fingers if there's already something wrong with them. strike with the heel of your palm, or hammer fist instead. Less joint strain, more surface impact.

Low-line attacks. Kick shins, stomp feet, knee genitals or stomach, your legs don’t have to swing high to cause pain. Small movement is less risk to hips/knees.

Leverage traps. If someone grabs you, twisting their fingers or bending their thumb back takes almost no force, but it’s agonizing, keep going until you feel and/or hear a snapping sensation, it will take more force than you think, keep going.

Close-range weapons. Pepper spray, a flashlight, a cane, even keys, these save your joints from overextension by turning little effort into big damage.

Managing Pain While Fighting

You don’t have to move like a sprinter. Use timing instead of speed. A single stomp, well-aimed, is worth more than a flurry of shitty-anyway punches that blow out your shoulder.

Think bursts: one, two, three seconds of brutality, then disengage. Don’t get dragged into long grapples for many reasons.

Accept that adrenaline will mask some pain in the moment, but backlash will come later.

Survival is worth a flare-up. Living with chronic pain or fragile joints means you already carry a fight in your body every day. You already know strategy: conserving energy, making choices that minimize harm, enduring waves of sensation. Those same skills apply in self-defense.

An attacker expects you to fold. Instead, they get someone who has lived with pain long enough to weaponize patience and precision. You don’t need to “overcome” pain to fight back. You can fight within it, letting your body dictate efficient, vicious answers.

Your fight style is not less-than. It’s merely stripped down, efficient, brutal. Every move you make costs something, so you make sure every move counts.

Self-Defense for Blind or Low Vision Individuals

First: your eyes don’t define your ability to fight. Society wants you to think that sight is survival, that a lack of vision equals helplessness.

You and I know; That is bullshit.

You survive every day without relying on vision alone. You already have the skills to fight back, you just need to weaponize them.

Confidence is your superpower. Predators assume blindness equals passivity. Use their assumptions against them.

Trust your instincts, your ears, and your touch.

Weapons:

Your voice: Shout, scream, bark like a fucking dog if you have to. A loud, commanding voice disorients attackers and draws attention.

Objects at hand: Cane, backpack, keys, umbrella, water bottle, anything you can reach quickly. A single well-placed strike to vulnerable areas works wonders.

Tactics:

Low-line attacks: Stomping, kneeing, elbowing, target areas that disable. You don’t need precision; you need effect.

Reach with what you have: Cane or other object doubles your arm’s length, giving you distance while striking. Don't let people get near you.

Close-range strikes: If someone does get near you, elbow to the ribs, headbutt, or a strike with the heel of your palm to the nose, or fingers in their eyes can break their grip, continue until you feel something soft give way and don't stop until they back off.

Keep your feet planted and balanced; small shifts of weight give leverage.

Use walls, furniture, or railings to anchor yourself and limit how easily they can push you around.

Adrenaline will mask fatigue, use it to strike decisively, then retreat to safety. Your goal is disruption. Blindness doesn’t make you passive. You must fight differently, yes, but unpredictability is a weapon. You can anticipate, react, and counter in ways sighted attackers will never expect. You don’t need to see every movement, you just need to decide to react and carry through with reacting.

Your body, your awareness, your voice, and your environment are your allies.

Self-Defense for Neurodivergent and Self-Regulating Disabilities.

First: your brain is not a handicap in a fight, I assure you. Predators assume that someone neurodivergent is “less capable” of fighting back, but this is a massive underestimation. Your nervous system might work differently, but it can be trained, and even weaponized.

Recognize your triggers and your patterns. If your anxiety spikes, your fight-or-flight is unpredictable, you can still channel that into decisive action.

Practice and repetition can make certain strikes or maneuvers instinctual.

Weapons:

Familiar, practiced tools: Items you always carry — pens, water bottles, fidget objects, can become weapons. Because you touch them constantly, your body knows where they are even under stress.

Sound and rhythm: Some neurodivergent bodies respond to rhythm or cadence very well. Turning striking motions into a “sequence” you’ve practiced until it becomes physical memory can assist reaction time and increase precision.

Simplicity is key. Your nervous system may overload under high stress. Choose one or two strikes you know instinctively, a stomp, an elbow, a palm strike.

Train them until they are automatic.

Auditory and visual cues; If you process information differently, use what you can reliably detect: sound, vibration, peripheral movement. You can anticipate or react based on your strongest senses, don't bother trying to train up senses you know are shitty. I know my eyes suck, so I don't bother to try and make my eyes 'okay', I focus on what doesn't suck and I make it great.

Fatigue or meltdown risk exists. Use micro-movements and high-effect strikes: one stomp, one elbow, one jab can create the space you need.

Use walls, furniture, and familiar terrain to channel attackers into spaces where you have advantage. Your body remembers familiar spaces use that muscle memory.

Predictable patterns in your environment help compensate for sensory overload.

Anchor yourself to what you know. Neurodivergence is often framed as weakness or disorganization, but in reality, it’s just different wiring.

In Closing:

Self-defense is not one-size-fits-all. It’s about understanding your body, your abilities, and your environment, and then refusing to be an easy target.

Every disability, every limitation, every difference is a lens through which you can adapt, strategize, and survive. You do not need to fight like anyone else. You fight like you.

If I left your disability off this list, and you want me to append it, you do not need to pay or justify anything, simply let me know, and I’ll add it.

Every body deserves to defend itself.

No one gets left behind.

And remember.

Better to maim than be maimed.

Better to kill than be killed.

And don't let nu-leftists who have never been in a position where they've almost died at the hands of another tell you that it's morally wrong to defend yourself.