I Lost a Knife to Cops in Portugal — My Tactical Pen Stayed

So I was just on vacation in Europe and the police confiscated my knife. Simple, small little folder, similar to this one. But they didn't take my tactical pen. Now the irony in all of this is for the past two decades, nearly, I've been making videos, writing articles, and even teaching courses revolved around the tactical pen. This scenario really stuck with me, and I want to go ahead So as you can imagine, and just share a bit of that experience with you. So to give you a bit of context, my parents are both from a small village in northern Portugal, and I mean way northern. And this village belongs to a villa, so let's say that's where the town square is, municipal building, banks, grocery stores, things of that nature. Well, a couple of days before, I was there and I had to sign some paperwork for a couple plots of land that my parents wanted to pass over to me, but I wasn't able to get it all done that day, so I had to come back this day where this incident occurred. Now, another crazy thing about this, it seemed like everything was just aligning. is that when i was there previously at the municipal building they were having trouble with their pens they weren't writing they only had one or two pens all that stuff i can't even explain like i said it's a very rural area so me knowing this from the previous experience i always carry a pen or a couple pens with me and especially a tactical pen in my rucksack so i was at my parents home went into the rucksack grabbed the tactical pen because it happens to write much better than any other the pens that i had put it in my pocket and headed out to the villa to go to my meeting at the municipal building. well if you're not familiar the way things operate in europe most of europe anyway especially in the rural areas is that between let's say 12 and 2 o'clock everything shuts down for lunch including the municipal building so i got there a bit earlier and as usual went ahead to one of the cafes there and wanted to have a beer before my meeting which was pretty much right across the street from the municipal building Well, as I get to the cafe, I see an older gentleman there. I recognized him, a family friend. So I went to shake his hand, give him a hug. And when I gave him that hug, I guess my shirt lifted up a bit. It exposed the clip of my folder that was in my pocket. And there just happened to be two police officers there having a coffee. One of them ends up getting up. coming over to me and asked me politely to empty my pockets. I found it kind of strange, I'm like all right well I don't really have anything on me, not a big deal. So what did I have in my pockets? I had my wallet, I had the folder, and I had the tactical pen that I brought along for my meeting. Well the police officer goes right to the folder, inspects it, looks at it, couldn't figure out how to open it. But he starts telling me how this is illegal in Portugal and he could find me and take me to jail and all of these other, let's say, threats. He was polite about it, but still giving you the threats, trying to make you worried and trying to show me that he's actually doing me a favor by confiscating my folder so that I won't have any previous or further issues during my stay. And at the same time, he wouldn't find me. and basically what this guy wanted was my nice folder right so now I'm a little pissed you know it's a hundred dollar blade it's the only one that I had with me on this trip and that's kind of what I'm thinking and I don't know about you but for me it's like that that feeling that a lot of people get when they can't find their phone or misplace their phone or they put it in a different pocket well that's what I feel like when I don't have my folder on me so I know it was going to be a relatively uh uncomfortable rest of my trip but it is what it is But while this was all happening or let's say after this all happening of course I sat down ordered my beer and ordered one for the gentleman that actually caused this whole incident by me giving him a hug and I just sat there contemplating thinking and I'm just like all right well at least I have my tactical pen for the next two weeks that I'm going to be here on this trip. You know, when I start thinking about all this stuff, I'm like, you know what, I'm in a rural village, a bunch of farmers, there's cows, donkeys, horses, chickens, goats, everything all over the place. People are walking around with machetes and sickles, and this son of a bitch comes up to me to take a folding knife. But, I digress. I'm sure he just wanted it for his own personal collection, and it is what it is. Let's just say I ended up donating it. The other thing that came to mind while I was sitting there sipping my beer is that if I probably had one of my other tactical pens that look a lot more tactical and military-oriented and scary... The problem that I would have faced is they probably would have confiscated that too. But I ended up having this stealth pen from the Atomic Bear, which I like a lot and pretty much has become my everyday carry when it comes to a tactical pen. It flies under the radar, but at the same time, it's really built for a self-defense application. It has this little business end here in the front. It could be a DNA catcher. If you get struck with this, you're going to be in some pain. And underneath the top cap actually has the glass breaker. And just think, the reason why I grabbed this pen and had it on me to begin with was because it writes very well and I needed it for the meeting that I was going to. Crazy ----. But I really wanted to share this story with you because it was more of a confirmation for me. Because I'm always talking about this stuff, and this could happen, and this happened to this other guy. But then when you get smacked in the face with this type of stuff, and know that, okay, well, this is all I have. And luckily, I've trained a great deal with it, and how to apply it, let's say, as a self-defense tool. And basically confirming how easily it is for it to fly under the radar. Because the way that he confiscated my folder, he would have easily confiscated this pen if he knew it was a tactical pen. Because I'm sure he would have wanted it. I don't want to go into detail and make this some kind of sales video, but if you are interested in this stealth pen, I reviewed it in detail. I'll make sure to add the link below. And if you do end up wanting to purchase one of these, I do have a coupon, Coach Helder, that'll get you 20% off. So I just want to stress with you the importance of having multi self-defense options and especially something that'll fly under the radar like this. tactical pen and if you are focused on self-defense especially when you're traveling and aren't really familiar with the local laws and if you are familiar with them guess what your opinions not gonna matter when that local village cop says you're gonna do this and you're gonna do this now or else you know it's not the USA so you got to play by their rules so as I stated hopefully this gives you a little bit more of a confirmation on why you should not only have a tactical pen Carry a tactical pen, especially if you are focused on a self-defense application for yourself, for your family, especially this day and age, things are going freaking whacked out all over the world. So having something as opposed to nothing will give you a chance. And at the very least, a chance to get away from that situation, which is all we're looking for, right? Just to get home safely to your family. So I hope this little tidbit of information and experience that I just had solidifies in you the reason why you should probably have your own tactical pen, especially when traveling and traveling abroad. But as always, remember to train with it, know how to utilize it, don't just carry it with you because then at that point it's just going to be a really good writing utensil.