It seems like this topic has wandered around a bit. So I'll address a few of the things bouncing around here.
No way in hell I'm getting in a hand-to-hand fight with some scumbag if I can avoid it. No f'ing way. If I can just leave the scene, I will. Definitely. If not, the weapon comes out, and if the sight of the weapon doesn't stop the attack promptly, it gets used until the threat is gone.
I don't say that to sound macho... actually, the opposite. I say that because I know that hand-to-hand encounters can easily get you crippled or killed. Blindness is only an eye gouge away, and assuming some scumbag will fight fair is literally suicidal... thugs don't keep up on their Marquis of Queensbury rules, they try to twist your nuts off and rupture your eardrums. This assumption that an unarmed attack is not a deadly one is foolish in the extreme, and of course it assumes that just becuase you don't see a weapon, they don't have one. Again, foolish in the extreme.
Let me repeat that for emphasis: an unarmed attack IS a deadly attack. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't seen a real fight.
As for the original question... I'm going to do everything I can to avoid violent conflict. But if somebody
won't let me avoid violent conflict, I'm sure as hell not fighting on their scumbag terms, I'm fighting on mine.