Yesterday I was out with my kids and had just parked my bike when I noticed a stranger running in my direction. None of it seemed right. He wasn’t wearing exercise clothes, he was running in the bike lane, and he was running against the flow of traffic. Most concerning was that I was next to a fence, in a place where he couldn’t keep running, and yet he was running directly towards me. I didn’t know what was going on, but I put my hand on my tactical pen just in case he meant to harm my boys. He ran by and I continued on with my day, thankful yet again that I had a tactical pen with me.
What’s a tactical pen, you ask? Read on to learn what tactical pens are, why expats need them, and some tips on getting a good one. Let’s dive into the role a tactical pen can play in preventing violence done to you as an expat.
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What a tactical pen is
A tactical pen is a pen that you can use to write with—just a normal pen—but which is designed to be a useful tool for a self-defense or survival situation. Typically, this means the pen is made of high-strength aluminum, steel, or titanium so that it’s strong enough to withstand impact, and one tip is usually sharpened so that it could break glass (e.g. if you’re stuck in a car) or be an effective tool against an attacker.
Yet a tactical pen still is an unobtrusive pen that is easy to carry, appears innocuous, is legal worldwide, and is discreet so you’re not going to get in trouble. As an expat, you may not be allowed (or want) to carry a gun or a knife, but you can still defend yourself and your family against an attacker with a tactical pen.
Remember how Jason Bourne grabs a pen to defend himself against an assassin?
That was just a regular pen, but he used it effectively. During the January 6 riot at the Capitol, US Representative Ruben Gallego, an Iraq War veteran, grabbed a pen to defend himself. I expect both Bourne and Gallego would have preferred a tactical pen, designed for self-defense. Those were truly self-defense situations where lives were on the line.
Hopefully, though, you won’t be in such a dire situation and can instead defuse or de-escalate a situation. Remember that, as an expat, you need to do even more to avoid violence than you would in your passport country. Police, judges, or juries in your host country may be biased against foreigners or downright corrupt. You don’t want to be in a situation where you harmed a local and have to defend your actions, unless your actions truly were necessary. It’s far better to defuse a confrontation, apologize even if you did nothing wrong, make a commotion, record a video, call local authorities, or whatever it takes to avoid actually harming someone.1
A tactical pen shouldn’t be your first line of defense—avoiding the conflict is always better—but, if that first line of defense doesn’t work, it’s good to have a safe and legal backup plan.
Why you need a tactical pen
No country in the world is completely free from the risk of petty theft or violent crime. A tactical pen provides you with a tool that you can use anywhere in the world to prevent crime committed against you (more on that later) or to defend yourself or your family should you be threatened. My host country is incredibly safe, in some ways even safer than my home country, and I’ve lived here for over ten years, so I know how the system works, what signs of danger there are, etc. Even so, I carry a tactical pen with me wherever I go because there’s a non-zero risk of crime or violence committed against me. It happens to locals—and the risk of it happening to me is greater.
With rare exceptions, expats face greater risks than locals.2 There’s many reasons for this, but here’s just a couple to demonstrate this greater risk:
You know less about the culture than locals do
Locals will know not to go down a certain street after a certain time of day, but foreigners won’t when they’re brand new. Locals will know that a specific color of hat worn at a specific angle on the head signifies membership of a dangerous gang, but foreigners won’t know that. Locals will pick up on a whole host of clues that indicate danger or risk and, until you’ve lived in your host country for quite some time, you just won’t pick up on those clues, let alone interpret them rightly.
Which areas of town are safe? What times of day are dangerous? What does someone on this specific street usually look like at this time of day? You’ve honed your alertness for danger based on where you grew up, so unless you’ve been in your host country to have a good baseline of “normal” behavior, your “danger radar” will misfire. You’ll think you’re unsafe when you’re fine or you’ll think you’re fine, when you’re not.
The result is that you’re more likely to be in a vulnerable situation and simultaneously less likely to notice it than locals. Even if you’ve been in your host country long enough to avoid this risk, if you go to another country for a visa run, vacation, or transit, you face a higher risk again.
Criminals often target expats
Part of the reason criminals target expats is the assumption, right or wrong, that foreigners have more money than locals and thus make more appealing targets of crime.
An additional assumption made, usually accurately, is that expats know less about what is going on than locals do. Even worse, if an expat is the victim of a crime, they’re usually less likely than locals to seek legal redress for the crime.
Often, expats don’t know whom they should report the crime to and, even when they do, tourists will often leave before the crime can be solved or charges pressed. This makes expats an easier target for criminal activity.
Expats face risks that locals don’t
I’ve been yelled at for being a foreigner. I’ve been excluded from buildings because I’m a foreigner. My wife has been accosted on the street for marrying a foreigner. When a British man raped a local years ago, white people became targets for attacks, regardless of nationality or connection to the rapist. People from certain countries, often the US, are sometimes targeted for terrorist attacks just because of their skin color or nationality. Sadly, racism and ethnocentrism still exist today, and these raise your risk profile just because you’re an expat.
Why a tactical pen is a great solution
A tactical pen helps you in potentially dangerous situations, including ways you may not expect. Most importantly, pulling out a tactical pen lets a criminal know that you won’t be an easy target. Particularly if it’s an aggressive-looking pen (see below), a criminal may decide not to attack you and move on to an easier target. Even if you never actually use the pen, its deterrent effect is reason enough to get one. I’m not suggesting you brandish a pen at someone—that may escalate the conflict—but subtly and calmly drawing attention to the pen could be enough to avoid a conflict.
Who knows? Maybe that person this morning really was trying to harm me, and he redirected because he saw the pen in my hand.
If all you do with a tactical pen is avoid a fight, that’s a fantastic reason to get one. That, after all, is the Paradox of Safety: sometimes the best tool to keep you safe is one you never have to use. Of course, if you can’t defuse a situation or avoid conflict, then a tactical pen is designed to help you in the fight as well. Most criminals expect easy targets; just a bit of a fight can be enough to cause them to stop and flee.
One of the things I like most about a tactical pen is that you can always count on having it with you. If your go-to self-defense tool is a gun or knife, then there are many situations—and entire countries—where that isn’t an option available to you. But, basically anywhere in the world, you’ll be able to take a tactical pen.3 I’ve taken mine on planes, trains, and subways all throughout the world, even in countries with quite rigorous safety checks. Only once has a security guard questioned it, and I just explained it was a pen and they let me go. After all, it is a pen.
I also love that I always have a pen with me. It’s a perfect complement to the language notebook I carry around.
Tips about which pen to get
There’s a thousand different kinds of tactical pens, so you can get one that has the style, color, writing ink, etc., that you like. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind when getting one as an expat.
- Get one where the cap can cover up the point. This is important because, if the sharp point can’t be covered up by the cap, then it could get flagged going through a security check. If the cap covers the sharp point, though, it appears to be just a metal pen on the security scanner.
- You want one with a strong clip. You’ll want to keep the pen accessible at all times, since it doesn’t do you much good at the bottom of your backpack. So, you’ll most likely have it clipped to your pocket. A good, strong clip will ensure it doesn’t accidentally fall out.
- Choose where you want your pen to fall on the subtle-to-aggressive spectrum. An aggressive-looking pen can prevent an attack or help you defend yourself in a fight. Here’s what I mean by an aggressive-looking pen:
On the other hand, you may want to buy a more subtle-looking pen so that it’s less likely to cause you a problem at a security check or look like a weapon to a judge if you actually had to use one in a worst-case scenario. You don’t want a judge or jury to look at your pen and conclude that you were the aggressor. A subtle pen like this one is still strong and useful without looking like a weapon at all:
So, choose wisely what pen you want. Personally, I own both subtle and aggressive looking pens that I use in different situations.4 I tend to carry an aggressive-looking pen, though, because of its deterrent power. I’d rather prevent a problem than encounter one, and I’d rather have to fight to justify my actions in court than to fight a thug on the street with a pen inadequate for the job.
- Get a pen that writes well. You might as well use it as an actual pen! This is hard to test if you’re buying online, but check the reviews specifically to see if it writes well. Some pens are uncomfortable to hold when writing; others use poor ink.
- Make sure you can get ink refills in your host country. I almost made that mistake with my first pen that I brought over from my passport country.
- Consider buying not just one for yourself, but also one for your spouse and children (if they’re old enough to be out alone). They face a risk just as much as you do, probably more so in the case of children.
- Get multiple pens. You want to have redundancy for critical items, like self-defense tools or banks. Unfortunately, it’s quite easy to lose a pen, so get a few while you’re at it.
- Check your country’s laws to see whether a pen is considered a weapon. I’d be surprised if it is, but it’s wise for you to know that in advance. If you don’t know if they’re legal, if they are considered weapons, or if you want to be on the super-safe side, then consider getting a metal fountain pen instead. Fountain pens are used worldwide and should attract even less attention than a tactical pen, even though they would help you greatly if attacked. Just look at this non-tactical fountain pen:
P.S. If you’re looking for a gift for your man, consider a tactical pen! They’re cool, manly, will appeal to his sense of protectiveness for the family, and are likely something he hasn’t considered before. They make great gifts.
Conclusion
I hope I never have to use my tactical pen. However, there have been multiple situations where I put it in my hand, just in case. If all it ever does is deter a would-be attacker one time, then it’s money well spent. I encourage you to add a tactical pen to your self-defense repertoire so that you can always be prepared, all around the world. It’s subtle, but it may just help you survive and thrive as an expat.
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Footnotes
- If having a tactical pen with you means you’re less likely to deescalate a conflict, or if having a tactical pen means you’re more likely to confront a criminal, then it may be wise to not get one. It’s also wise for you to think through, in advance, your own beliefs on whether or in what situations self-defense would be morally right. ↩︎
- The exceptions are cultures that highly value hospitality and thus are likely to treat a guest better than a local. This can give increase your safety as an expat. Unfortunately, though, criminals already are breaking the values of a culture and so being in a high-hospitality culture is no guarantee that criminals won’t target a foreigner. ↩︎
- If you show the tactical pen to a security check agent, they may seize it because it looks dangerous. But if you just put the cap over the sharp point, put it in your bag next to your other pens, and send it through the X-ray machine, you’ll be ok. At least I’ve never run into an issue doing it this way in multiple countries. ↩︎
- I was about to buy this pen by Smith & Wesson when I realized that owning a pen that had a gun manufacturer logo on it was probably not wise. ↩︎