Truncheon redirects here. When used to describe a spear shaft (usage resurrected by Tolkien), see spear.

A club, cudgel, truncheon, night stick, or bludgeon is perhaps the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a staff, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon.

Typically, a club is small enough to be wielded in one hand. Clubs that need both hands to wield are called quarterstaffs in English.

The club is perhaps the simplest of all true weapons; a club is typically carved from a single piece of wood; any piece of wood that is narrow enough on one end to be grasped by the hand of its wielder can be used as or made into an improvised club. Baseball bats and axe handles or pickaxe handles are common instances of clubs. Police sometimes refer to clubs as impact weapons, or impact tools.

The wounds inflicted by a club are generally known as bludgeoning or blunt-force trauma injuries.

Various kinds of clubs are used in martial arts, police work, and other specialised fields.

A baton (from batôn, the French for stick) or truncheon (nightstick or billy-club in American English) is essentially a stick of less than arms-length, usually made of wood, plastic, or metal, and carried by law enforcement, correctional, riot control, and security personnel for non-lethal self-defense or combat situations. A baton is used to strike, jab, block, and aid in the application of armlocks.

In the Victorian era, police in London carried clubs about one foot long called billy-clubs or truncheons. The impact weapon has developed into several varieties available today. The basic impact weapon is a straight baton made from wood or a synthetic material, approximately one and a quarter inches in diameter, and from 18 to 36 inches long; this is also called a nightstick. The 36" and longer batons are called "riot batons"; the handle end is sometimes fluted to aid gripping.

Sometimes wooden truncheons or batons are ornamented with organization's coats of arms and suchlike and used for symbolic presentation rather than as weapons.

Traffic baton is red to make it more visible when used as a signalling aid when directing traffic.

Until the mid-1990s British police officers carried traditional wooden truncheons of a sort which had changed little from the Victorian era, but since the early 1990s all forces have chosen to replace truncheons with more modern side-handle (tonfa shaped) and telescopic batons for all but ceremonial duties.

Compare mace and staff of office for the marrying of defense and symbolism.

Making straight batons of rubber results in a softer initial impact due to some of the kinetic energy being used to bend and compress the rubber, causing it to bounce off the object that was struck. The Russian police standard issue baton is rubber, except in cold areas like Siberia where extreme winter cold makes the rubber go brittle and break if swung on a perpetrator.

Both types of batons have their advantages and disadvantages. Side-handle batons are more flexible, enabling many more kinds of strike and block, but they require more training to use than straight batons, and they are very bulky. For the advantages of expandable straight batons see below.

Several design innovations are being tested in response to some of the perceived limitations of the currently popular expandable baton and side-handle baton. These drawbacks include inherent compromises due to the dual (and competing) goals of 1) control effectiveness and 2) safety for both officer and subject. Generally speaking, the more control a piece of equipment offers an officer, the less safe it is for the subject (eg; Gun). This has spurred a review of "arrest & control" tactics as well as a flurry of design innovations. Three of the more notable designs to come to light are 1) The Rapid Rotation Baton, 2) the Cuffing Baton, and 3) the TSB-45. Each of these offers a unique redesign of the basic baton with a value proposition based on a better combination of control and safety characteristics.

Rapid rotation batons focus on handle characteristics that permit rapid and fluid grip changes as well as incorporating an additional hand protector and "rotator" to a normal tonfa in the form of a "cross-guard". It is purportedly effective as an extreme close quarter baton against grips, grabs, body holds and ground defense. It has recently been picked up by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for maximum custody use.

Roy Bedard, a Tallahassee Police officer designed the RRB in 1995 due to his belief in that the current baton being offered was ineffective. The telescopic baton, usually known as the ASP baton, had the penchant for collapsing upon impact, and did not provide the user with a defensive position. The RRB is used by many different agencies, primarily for agencies who use community policing, due to the RRB's non-threatening carry position.

A cuffing baton marries a baton design and an integrated handcuff. The baton itself is reminiscent of the steering wheel locking device commonly known as "the Club" - it has a long straight section and a "y-shaped" yoke at the other end. The yoke includes a triggered handcuff that can be remotely unlocked.

An expandable baton (also referred to variously as a tactical baton, collapsible baton, telescopic (or telescoping) baton or spring cosh) is an intermediate-force weapon commonly carried by law enforcement and security officers. It is used to defend against physical attack, as well as control combative and non-compliant subjects. It may also be used by military personnel.

A baton may be used in a use-of-force situation when a firearm would not be appropriate or justified, but greater force is needed than that which can be met by bare hands.

An expandable baton is typically composed of a cylindrical outer shaft containing telescoping inner shafts (typically 2 or 3, depending on the design) that lock into each other when expanded, and may have a solid metal tip at the outer end of the inner-most shaft. The purpose of the solid metal tip is to maximize the power of a strike when the baton is used as an impact weapon. The shafts are usually made of steel, but lightweight baton models may have their shafts made from alloys. Expandable batons are made in both straight and side-handle configurations, manufactured by companies such as ASP and Monadnock, respectively. Expandable batons come in various lengths, including 16, 21, 26, and 31 inches fully extended.

Depending on the holster/scabbard design, it may be possible to carry an expandable baton in either collapsed or expanded position (although it is almost always carried in collapsed position).

An expandable baton is opened by being swung in a forceful manner while collapsed. Depending on the design (i.e. friction-lock vs. AutoLock®), expandable batons may be collapsed either by being brought down (inverted) on a hard surface, or by depressing a button lock and manually collapsing the shafts. Unlike friction-lock batons, Monadnock AutoLock® batons utilize a cam and ball bearing action.

Unless otherwise justified, such as in a deadly force scenario, strikes should be aimed at large muscle areas of the subject to avoid causing serious injury, permanent injury, or death.

The advantages of a collapsible baton over a fixed baton are numerous:

• The collapsible shaft makes it easier for the officer to carry it and to sit in a car seat wearing it, since when collapsed it is between six and ten inches long. Officers may, as a measure of convenience, often resort to removing the baton from their belt when entering a vehicle.
• The mere display of extending the baton may in some instances (in theory) be psychologically intimidating to an aggressive suspect (due to both the sight and sound of the action).
• Many police administrators believe that it presents a more community-friendly image to the general public than non-collapsible batons, due to the former's lower profile while collapsed; many citizens may not even know what the collapsible baton is for when collapsed and residing in the officer's duty belt; a wooden straightstick's designed purpose, on the other hand, is clearly more self-evident.

However, expandable batons are not without disadvantage:

• Some officers may prefer to carry a fixed baton due to the greater visual deterrence it may provide (which may be a benefit in the form of increasing the officer's command presence). Similarly, a fixed baton serves better as a conspicuous symbol of authority than a collapsed expandable baton.
• Fixed batons may often be less expensive than their collapsible counterparts of identical or similar quality. For example, Monadnock's fixed polycarbonate PR-24 costs nearly half the price of the expandable model.
• Fixed batons may be inherently faster to bring into action, due to their not needing to first be extended before use as an impact weapon (unless one wishes to use a collapsible baton in collapsed form).

Additionally, the baton, in collapsed configuration, may be used as a control device against non-compliant subjects in conjunction with pain compliance control techniques (as demonstrated in an official ASP training video to remove a driver refusing to exit his or her vehicle).

Regardless of manufacturer, a straight expandable baton is commonly referred to as a "ASP", originating from the company Armament Systems and Procedures, which is a major producer of collapsible batons, and was possibly the first such company to manufacture them.

Expandable batons are considered deadly/prohibited weapons in the State of California under Penal Code Section 12002/12020, and as such, may be lawfully possessed only by authorized law enforcement and security personnel.

See stun baton for batons designed to administer an electric shock.

Side-handle batons (sometimes nicknamed T-batons) are batons with a short side handle at a right angle to the shaft, about six inches from one end. They are derived from the tonfa, a Japanese martial arts weapon, and are used with a similar technique. The most well-known example is the Monadnock PR-24.[1]

It can be held by:

• One end, and the corner between the shaft and the handle used to catch a long swung blunt or sharp weapon.
• The side handle, and the long shaft held against the hand and forearm to splint and shield the arm against an expected blow from an attacker.

Side-handle batons are made in both fixed and collapsible models, and can be constructed of materials ranging from wood, polycarbonate, epoxy (as in the case of the shaft of one of the expandable PR-24 models offered by Monadnock), and aluminum.

As with the ASP baton and its clones and competitors, police and security officers commonly refer to all side handle batons (regardless of manufacturer) as "PR-24s", despite the fact that the term "PR-24" is a registered trademark, and should only be used to refer to Monadnock's side-handle batons.

They have often been the subject of controversy, as in New Zealand's 1981 Springbok Tour[2][3], and the Rodney King beating.

Although the Kel-lite in the 1970s appears to have been the first flashlight designed specifically to be useful as emergency defensive weapon[4], the most well-known example is the 5 D-cell Maglite, popular with law enforcement and security staff.

Use of such flashlights as a club or baton is generally officially discouraged by the manufacturers and law enforcement officials, but its use is obviously an option. As with all police weapons there have been many allegations of misuse, such as in the Malice Green beating in Detroit.

An advantage of such flashlights is that they are designed primarily as “illumination devices”; thus, if a peace officer carries one in his hands during nighttime encounters with potentially violent subjects, it will be more difficult to file valid complaints against him than if he were to have a baton or OC canister in hands instead. This permits the officer to have an impact weapon already in his hands and ready for instantaneous action, as opposed to having to draw a baton or OC canister.

Characteristic of a flashlight used as a baton or club is the grip employed. Flashlights are commonly held with the bulb end pointing from the thumb side of the hand, i.e. pointing outward from the body when held palm upward. When wielded as a club, the bulb end points inward when the hand is palm upward, and the grip is closely choked to the bulb end. This grip has several advantages, in that the bulb end of a flashlight is usually flared and thus serves as a pommel preventing the flashlight from slipping out of the hand when swung, the bulb end is also relatively more fragile and more likely to break on forceful contact, and the bulb end has less mass than the opposite end which is usually filled with heavy batteries. Gripping a flashlight in this way is somewhat less convenient for use as a light, since the natural position of the resting hand points the flashlight to the rear when standing. Thus when a flashlight is held in this manner it is often perceived as an “offensive” posture.

Another advantage to using a flashlight as a club is that in poorly lit situations it can be used to initially blind the eyes of an opponent. Law enforcement officers often purposely point flashlight beams into the eyes of suspects at night to cause temporary night-blindness as a defensive measure, whether or not the indivudal is likely to behave violently.

In the past pickaxes were much more common than they are currently, and replacement handles even more so. Strong and heavy, they make a formidable club and have often been used this way. For instance they were handed out by segregationist Lester Maddox to the white patrons of his Pickrick Restaurant to keep that establishment from being "integrated".

In the British Army they are the standard guard baton when firearms are not carried: examples [5] [6] [7].

The baseball bat is often used as an improvised weapon, similarly to with pickaxe handles. In countries where baseball is not played much, baseball bats are often first thought of as weapons.

• Tee ball bats are also used in this manner. Their smaller size and lighter weight make the bat easier to handle in one hand than a baseball bat.

ncealed weapon consisting of a leather-wrapped lead weight attached to the end of a leather-wrapped coil-spring or rigid shaft, with a lanyard or strap on the end opposite the weight. Materials other than lead and leather are sometimes used to construct these weapons. It ranges from six to fourteen inches long. The blackjack can be made of braided leather with a strap or sewn into flat pieces of leather.

Blackjacks are popular due to their low profile and small size, and their potential to inflict enormous damage on human beings.

A blackjack is sometimes referred to as a sap, which is the name for a weapon of similar design (also called a slapper) which has a flat profile as opposed to a cylindrical one.

Another variation on the sap is a sandsock or sandclub, which as the name implies, is a weapon of flexible sheath construction filled with a heavy fragmented weight. The sandsock may be filled with sand, but more likely with lead shot. The covering may be a pouch of leather or heavy cloth, such as denim or canvas. The sandsock is almost universally used as an improvised weapon.

Blackjacks can be used to inflict devastating damage on bones and tissues, and are considered in many jurisdictions to be deadly weapons. Blackjacks are also illegal in many jurisdictions. Traditionally used by police officers, they have been replaced to a large extent by telescopic and side-handle batons.

This is a variation of the blackjack. It consists of a longer strap which lets it be used flail-type, and can be used as a club, and for trapping techniques as seen in the use of nunchaku and other flexible weapons. Other concealable batons include the kubotan and yawara.

This is a variation of the sap. It is a lead weight sewn into a leather or nylon cover, carried in the palm and held in place with a cord or elastic band. A glove is usually worn over the palm-sap. The palm-sap is used by slapping a suspect. A police officer related a story of using a palm-sap on a combative suspect and indicated the suspect "dropped like a sack of potatoes" when slapped on the side of the head.^{[citation needed]}

These are a variation of the sap. They are gloves with lead shot or powder contained between layers of leather located across the knuckles. Police officers tend to refer to such items in euphemistic terms. Sap gloves have been referred to as "balanced driving gloves." ^{[citation needed]}

See also Irish stickfighting

A Shillelagh (pronounced "shi-LAY-lee") is a wooden club or cudgel, typically made from a stout knotty stick with a large knob on the end, that is associated with Ireland in folklore. They are traditionally made from blackthorn (sloe) wood (Prunus spinosa) or oak. It was named after the Shillelagh forest in County Wicklow, a forest of oak which produced some fine examples. The wood would be smeared with butter and placed up a chimney to cure, giving the Shillelagh its typical black shiny appearance. Shillelaghs may be hollowed at the heavy "hitting" end and filled with molten lead to increase the weight; this sort of Shillelagh is known as a 'loaded stick'. They are commonly the length of a walking stick (distance from the floor to one's wrist with elbow slightly bent). Most also have a heavy knob for a handle which can be used for striking as well as parrying and disarming an opponent.

In the folk song "Finnegan's Wake", shillelagh law refers to a brawl. There was a popular song, "The Same Old Shillelagh", recorded by several Irish-American singers in the 1940s, including Bing Crosby and Billy Murray, about such a weapon being passed along from father to son. X-Men villain Black Tom Cassidy was portrayed to wield a Shillelagh both as a club and, with his mutant power, he could generate destructive concussive force through the wooden stick. Professional wrestler and Northern Ireland native Finlay uses a shillelagh as his signature illegal weapon.

A Sally rod is a long, thin wooden stick, as the name suggests generally made from willow (Latin Salix), used mostly in Ireland as a disciplinary implement, but also sometimes used like a club (without the fencing-like technique of stick fighting) in fights and brawls.

A Knobkierie, occasionally spelled knopkierie or knobkerry, is a strong, short wooden club with a heavy rounded knob or head on one end, traditionally used by Southern African tribes (e.g. Zulu) as a weapon in warfare and the chase. The word Knobkerrie derives from the Dutch knop (knob or button), and the Bushman and Hottentot kerrie=kirri (stick).

It is employed at close quarters, or as a missile, and in time of peace serves as a walking-stick. The head, or knob, is often ornately carved with faces or shapes that have symbolic meaning. The knobkierie itself serves this function in the crest of the 2000 new federal coat of Arms of South Africa.

The name has been extended to similar weapons used by the natives of Australia, the Pacific islands and other places.

The Aklys is an imaginary weapon - a "thonged club" - which appears in games such as Nethack.

One of the more unique weapons of the samurai police (Keisatsu-Kan) was the Jitte (or Jutte). Basically an iron truncheon, the Jitte was popular because it could parry the slash of a razor-sharp sword and disarm an assailant without serious injury. Essentially a defensive or restraining weapon, the length of the Jitte requires the user to get extremely close to those being apprehended.

A single hook or fork, called a Kagi, on the side near the handle allowed the Jitte to be used for trapping or even breaking the blades of edged weapons, as well as for jabbing and striking. The Kagi could also be used to entangle the clothes or fingers of an opponent. Thus, feudal Japanese police used the Jitte to disarm and arrest subjects without serious bloodshed. Eventually, the Jitte also came to be considered a symbol of official status.[8]

Clubs or club-like implements figure in a number of sports. The tools used in golf to hit the ball with are called golf clubs, although golf clubs are perhaps less traditionally club-like than baseball or cricket bats, both of which are still made of wood; a baseball bat is a round club traditionally made from ash tree wood; a cricket bat resembles a paddle and is traditionally made from willow wood. Few golf clubs are made of wood in current play.

A much smaller wooden truncheon-like bat is used to strike the ball in pelota, a game similar to jai-alai.

A shillelagh appears in the logo of the Boston Celtics.

The Shillelagh Trophy is an annual football game between members of the University of Notre Dame and Purdue University and takes place in Indiana, United States.

The Jeweled Shillelagh is awarded to the winner of the annual football game between the University of Notre Dame and the University of Southern California. The club has small medallions representing the winner. A shamrock for the Irish, and a Trojan head for USC. Notre Dame leads the series 42-30-5. In case of a tie, the medallion is a shamrock with trojan head overlay. The first club ran out of room and is stored at Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana, United States.

Before the 1970s, the common practice was to "skull" a suspect — that is, to hit him on the head with the weapon. As a result of civil lawsuits and claims of police brutality, more training was given to officers, and now the primary targets are nerves such as the common peroneal nerve, or large muscles such as the quadriceps or biceps.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ((cite encyclopedia)): Missing or empty |title= (help)

• Assessing the Expandable Side Handle Baton – a UK government document comparing various types of baton (PDF)
• State of California Penal Code sections 12020 - 12040
• TSB45: The Baton of the Future An article on the TSB45 Baton
• Article on the virtues of the telescopic steel baton
• Where have all the batons gone? Article on the RRB

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Club (weapon).