I travel a lot! Last year alone, I accumulated well over 75,000 air miles and toss in road trips, I was away from home for an average of 2.5-3 weeks per month. Most of the time, I don’t check a bag as I can get 5 days’ worth of business existence out of my carry-on and my backpack. Now if I took the 5.11 RUSH 72 backpack and packed clothing instead of survival supplies, I could do business for 2 weeks or more without doing laundry.

Most of the places I travel my AZ CCW permit is honored, but without checking a bag, the Glock 23C or my Benchmade 2750BKSN Adams AutoAxis it’s a no-go. So I have to scale my level of personal protection down a few notches.

Since even with TSA PreCheck I still get the bags X-rayed, I have to take “dual purpose” items to have something more than my feet for protection.

The 2 main “EDC”(every day carry) items for me when traveling are my UZI Tactical Pen and my Surefire E2D Defender flashlight.

First the UZI pen: I use to carry a BenchMade Tactical Pen but at a price point of $114 I freaked out every time I misplaced it or someone borrowed it.

EDIT 4/9/15 09:29 hrs: I am writing this I am at 34,000 feet on my way to Seattle and to show you these really are my EDC items, here is proof.  They will take away my 1 inch Swiss Army knife at the security check point, but hand me a 6 inch steel knife with my breakfast in seat 3D.  Go Figure!

Then I found the UZI pen. Both the BenchMade and the UZI pens are real writing instruments but are built from Aluminum, Stainless Steel or even Titanium. While they do write, they are a bad ass striking weapon. Remember how you tell your wife to hold her car keys in her hand with the keys sticking out between her fingers? These tactical pens would be much more effective when used correctly.

The UZI pen is available in several models and runs only $15-$20!!! It goes in the back pack next to my other pens to help blend in. I have flown several hundred thousand miles all over the world and never had the airport check points even blink an eye at this.

The second EDC is the SureFire E2D Defender flashlight. It is very pricey but very effective in two ways. First off its one bright ass light! At 500 lumens it can temporarily blind an assailant long enough for you to disable or run. It comes with 2 brightness settings(500 & 5 lumens) actuated by a rear button.

The E2D has both a front and rear “scalloped” bezel/tail cap as you can see in the photos. The front bezel has chiseled scalloped edge making it a super effective striking weapon. The rear tail cap is scalloped as well but is smaller in diameter. When held in your hand you can strike with both ends every effectively.

It is expensive at $155 but I got mine for free at one of my jobs as I ordered 100 of these with the company logo to give away to guests at the factory. They do require the special SureFire Lithium 123A batteries, but if you buy them from Amazon for $20.50 for a box of 12 ea. like I do its not that bad.

There are other options like the UltraFire® New Wf-501b Cree Xm-l T6 at $14.88 or the SOG Specialty Knives & Tools DE-03 Dark Energy Aluminum for $32.21 but I have no experience with either of these so as always YMMV.  I will say the SOG DE looks “way speedy”.

So you can see there are options for self protection when traveling that are allowed on commerical aircraft, at least until this article is published.  The fact that any pen can be used for self defense is always something you should consider no matter where you are.

Sure Fire E2D Defender Specs:
Output / Runtime — White Light
High 500 .0 lumens / 2.25 hours*
Low 5 .0 lumens / 67.75
Tactical Runtime** 2 .25 hours
Length 5 .60
Bezel Diameter 1 .125 inches
Weight w/Batteries 4 .2 ounces
Batteries 2 123A (included)
** Runtime (at highest setting for multiple-output
lights) until output drops below 50 lumens.