//I can't see the little woman overcoming the big 16 stone hyped up male with any close physical contact.//

Maybe not the kick in the nuts - although they can be remarkably effective at reducing big, burly blokes to writhing, gasping agony. And definitely not the Dim Mak (that was a joke). You might be surprised, however, in how effective blunt force trauma can be in stopping even large, muscular men. It's not so much a case of the woman overcoming the man as it is the considerable force that even a small women can deliver with a mace.

Consider this excerpt for wikipedia's entry on hammers, and how it might apply to bludgeoning weapons:

"A hammer is basically a force amplifier that works by converting mechanical work into kinetic energy and back... The amount of energy delivered to the target by the hammer-blow is equivalent to one half the mass of the head times the square of the head's speed at the time of impact. While the energy delivered to the target increases linearly with mass, it increases quadratically with the speed (see the effect of the handle, below)... In this way, great strength is not needed to produce a force strong enough to bend steel, or crack the hardest stone."

Human skeletons are considerably less hard than the hardest stone - about 4.5-5.0 on Moh's scale - and soft tissue, unsurprisingly, considerably softer still. If man can shrug off a blow that can bend steel and crack rocks then that man is presumably Superman. In which case the only effective weapon against him will be green kryptonite.

//don't you know of any other effective means that a woman could employ?//

I have mentioned tasers. You didn't like that idea. I have mentioned blunt-force trauma. You disagreed that it would be effective, but you are wrong on that score. Frankly, I suspect you're going to keep dismissing any and all suggestions until everybody achieves the enlightenment you hope they will achieve and says 'Of course! Why didn't I think of it before! We just need to give women guns, and the problem will magically solve itself.' It appears to be your deeply held belief that the only effective way for a woman to defend herself is by shooting people, whereas I feel that anything which causes sufficiently debilitating pain and/or disrupts the right vital systems will prove effective. This includes methods such as stabbing, blunt force trauma, burning/scalding, shocking/electrocuting etc.

//You, and others, seem to be obsessed with guns.//

Given your tendency to dismiss, out of hand, any answer which isn't 'guns', I'd suggest that it is in fact you who has the child-like fascination with shiny things that go bang.

Toni,

"Given your tendency to dismiss, out of hand, any answer which isn't 'guns', I'd suggest that it is in fact you who has the child-like fascination with shiny things that go bang"

They are not all shiny, there are plenty of matt finished ones!

What I am obsessed with is the right of people to defend themselves against unlawful attack and Governments refusal to allow anyone to possess anything for that purpose.

Tassers are fine but illegal, capsicum spray is fine also but illegal as are all other irritant sprays if designed for defence, or if a legal substance are possessed for the purpose of self defence.
You mention a mace, illegal as are all other blunt or sharp instruments that are kept for self defence.

John Howard boasts about the changes to the law which he initiated, perhaps he considered ordinary folk to be expendable whilst he and other politicians were protected by armed men and women.

Cowardly.

This thread has wandered even further into irrelevance to the basic question of domestic violence - stopping the violent criminals. Now it's stuck in the realm of unravelling the Howard gun reforms and arming the violent criminals, along with every kill-crazy enemy in the land, with guns. Sheesh, we're not Yanks, they have a much bigger population in reserve to go through by shooting one another dead. And we still have an epidemic of violent domestic criminality to put a stop to.

//You mention a mace, illegal as are all other blunt or sharp instruments that are kept for self defence.//

I know about the legality of maces in NSW. I used to be involved in dark ages re-enactment - you're allowed to have a blunt sword, axe, spear etc. but maces are illegal. You can only have maces for ceremonial purposes, such as the one carried by the Serjeant-at-Arms in the House of Representatives or those carried by Drum Majors in marching bands. Which is good, because weekend warriors would get seriously hurt if they started using maces. And a whack from a blunt sword still hurts even when you're wearing chainmail and your fellow combatants are pulling their blows. If they weren't pulling their blows, there would be smashed limbs aplenty.

So there's one thing you can legally keep and which will make an effective improvised weapon if needs be. Other people who engage in more mainstream sporting pursuits might have a cricket bat or hockey stick or some such. Again, these will make effective improvised weapons.

My friend works in construction. He recently got a contract which involved some demolition, and bought himself a new tool known as a known as 'Fubar':

http://toolmonger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/post-fubarsite.jpg

A more fearsome weapon than a lot of the actual weapons I've seen. It's not illegal. And if you ever got hit with one, you would indeed be fcuked up beyond all recognition.

I work in hospitality. My knives aren't illegal, my meat tenderiser isn't illegal, and if I had a good heavy cast-iron frying pan with a nice long handle that wouldn't be illegal anyway.

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There are, in fact, a wide variety of implements readily available for sale and fully legal to possess that make effective weapons. The Fubar being a case in point. It's all the mace a man could ever need. It may be illegal to possess them expressly for the purpose of self-defence, but nobody ever asks you what you intend to do with them when you buy them so how could the police possibly know? And it isn't necessarily illegal to defend yourself with them.

In summation: you can legally possess a lethal implement like a Fubar and you can legally defend yourself with it, you just can't legally admit to having purchased it for that particular purpose. Sorry, what's the problem here?