You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. — The Untouchables

You can learn every martial art known to man.  You can work out until you resemble a side of beef.  You can carry every doo-dad and blade you want.  But at more than bad-breath distances, nothing beats a gun for self defense.  If a 97 year old grandmother, who weighs, maybe, a buck-oh-five soaking wet and holding a brick, can drive off an attacker with a couple of pounds of metal and a few grams of gunpowder, then the utility of a firearm wielded by the weaker against the stronger cannot be doubted.