Re: [MA/HT] Innocuous Improvised Weapons
 

I think the umbrella--particularly the "unbreakable umbrella" referenced above--causes the least amount of suspicion. You walk into a rest stop or office building with a flashlight in your hand, people will wonder why you have it. Nobody wonders why someone has an umbrella on their person, unless it's Arizona in the middle of a drought--but even then, it would just be peculiar, not "he's going to use that as a weapon."

Re: [MA/HT] Innocuous Improvised Weapons
 

An umbrella can provide shade from the sun.

Re: [MA/HT] Innocuous Improvised Weapons
 

Umbrellas are longer than most other bludgeons in the modern world and are therefore used with skills much fewer people who know how to fight in the real world have, Broadsword or Rapier. Far more people familiar with military combatives, police arrest techniques or realistic self-defence will have Axe/Mace, Knife, Shortsword and even Spear or Staff than will have Broadsword.

Also, most umbrellas, even if they are longer, which allows better leverage, are also fairly light for their length and their striking surfaces are fairly soft if you swing with them. So they are not any better as weapons than much shorter objects that are heftier and more solid.

It's true that flashlights that make genuinely good batons and maces are large and heavy enough to raise some eyebrows from casual witnesses and especially security personnel. Which is why the character won't simply use the most effective bludgeon Maglite he can find and I'm trying to keep the size and weight of his flashlight down to a more reasonable figure, something that the sort of people who are handy and perpetually prepared might actually carry on them.

Personally, when I see a motorist with a 200-300 gram (0.5-0.75-lb) flashlight in a jacket pocket or on their belts, I think: "I guess he likes to be prepared if he has an engine malfunction driving in the dark" (and also, I admit "that old guy reminds me of my grandfather").

Flashlights that are larger and heavier than they need to be to serve as an effective light might trigger caution and distrust, as they are obviously designed in part as bludgeoning weapons. But a lot of people still own old flashlights, which were a lot bigger than flashlights need to be today for good brightness and acceptable battery endurance, so as long as the size isn't too big, I'd accept them as simply the kind of annoying, but useful motorists who love it when other people have malfunctions, so they can demonstrate how very prepared they were for anything.

Re: [MA/HT] Innocuous Improvised Weapons
 

I have a collapsible umbrella that's under 2 feet collapsed, so it would qualify as a shortsword.

Re: [MA/HT] Innocuous Improvised Weapons
 

FWIW, some 19th-century self-defense manuals address the use of the umbrella defensively. The most convincing of them use it primarily as a thrusting weapon.

Gripping with both hands and thrusting into someone like a bayonet would be much more harmful than swinging it like a club.
And if you have the hooked handle umbrella, that can affect a pretty wicked "butt-stroke".

The hooked handle can also be used to, well, Hook.

TL/DR: While many taught umbrella defense as an alternative to a cane, it's more effective to think of it as a bayonet.

Re: [MA/HT] Innocuous Improvised Weapons
 

Middle-aged people are also used to cars which broke down more often and needed more home maintenance than cars today, so more likely to carry tools, a flashlight, etc. Its like how we will be amusing our grandchildren by carefully limiting the volume of liquids we pack for flights, and putting them all in one clear plastic bag. "Grandpa, they don't care about that any more!"

I was just thinking that someone who looks like Rory Miller will have a harder time pulling off 'you wouldn't deprive an old man of his walking stick' than someone who looks lean and fit or middle-aged and paunchy.