Just in case someone left out of his will kicked up a fuss, presumably… 
The sentence bothered me cos I couldn’t figure a succinct spur of the moment way of phrasing that unambiguously - ‘Shaka Zulu’s executioners’ would be read as the people who killed him rather than those he employed to kill.
Nevertheless the design and material of my ebony knobkerrie makes it a very effective weapon, before we got our cat, I killed many rats with it. Much better than traps, or heaven forbid, poison.
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I was advised by an English policeman always to have a golf club handy, it doesn’t count as going equipped he said, and you can do a good bit of damage to anyone threatening you.
As an undergraduate I was told by the head porter that if as a short woman you hit anyone, you need to hit hard enough to incapacitate rather than enrage, so a golf club is a good bet. Take someone’s knee out no problem which means you can skedaddle.
The problem with clubs is that you need to swing them and you might find yourself needing to swing in a doorway or narrow hallway.
As pepper spray is legal to own (especially in one’s home), I’d advise having a tin of that at the bedside.
Spray first and then go to the club hammer if your uninvited guest doesn’t try to stumble their way off your property.
I think he got a bit confused, because one goes equipped for theft or burglary!
Going out with a golf club would certainly require some explanation and raise suspicion that you had it with you as an offensive weapon. In your house, of course, it’s fine, because the offence requires you to be in a public place.
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Never having fired a gun of any description in my entire life I nearly skipped this thread. I find I am rather alarmed at the situations people must live under to warrant keeping weapons in their home such as “golf club, ebony knobkerrie, shillelagh, american baseball bat, pepper spray, pick and shovel, wooden hockey stick, Japanese bayonette knife”.
A huge, but unexpected, benefit I discovered living in this part of rural France is the almost total lack of crime. If I take the dog for a walk it is a miracle if I actually remember to lock the door and not unusual to leave it wide open. If by some remote chance a burglar broke in, I would give him the keys and tell him to leave them in the post box when he had finished helping himself to any of my stuff. I have nothing worth risking life and limb for. If I attempted violence with one of the afore mention weapons I would probably finish with it used against me and end up much worse.
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I agree. I think I’ve posted this elsewhere, but worth repeating. OH and I lived in a 3-storey house in Stockwell. Our bedroom was on the top floor and OH slept with earplugs (noisy neighbours). We had a spare bedroom for guests in the basement and I had a bad cold, so took to the spare bed so as not to disturb him. The lounge was immediately above the spare bedroom and I woke at about 5:30 to the sound of stealthy footsteps above my head and I quickly realised we had an intruder who would have assumed anyone sleeping would be on the third floor and that he could wander around the ground floor and basement - and would find me! The only “weapon” in the room was an iron and for a few minutes I stood behind the shut bedroom door with the iron in my hand waiting for him to open it. I then realised how ludicrous that scenario was - he might have been huge (I am not) armed with knife or gun (not unusual for where we were living) and I was going to defend myself with an iron!! (And no point in shouting for OH blissfully asleep with his earplugs in.)
I decided the only thing I could do was let him know I was there and give him an excuse to get out. Fortunately there was a clock radio by the bed, so I switched that on, banged open the bedroom and adjoining loo doors, marched loudly into the kitchen (also in the basement) turned on the kettle, made myself tea and continued to make as much noise as possible. It took him 20 minutes to pluck up courage to flee taking the video player from the lounge with him.
I think in situations like that discretion is the better part of valour and no way would I want a weapon of any description around me since I have no doubt I would come off the worse.
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I play (badly and sporadically). The whole point is that a golf club really isn’t a weapon in the sense that a baseball bat is, so my helpful policeman friend was pointing out a way to avoid being stigmatised should I inflict gbh on someone.
Mind you he also said his favourite bit of the job was ‘getting sent to the south coast to police football matches, plenty of opportunity for a good work-out’.
Golf clubs like putters and drivers can also be very beautiful, less sure about golf courses.
For me, one of the English Lake District’s often overlooked plusses is the general absence of golf clubs - the wealthy formed yacht clubs instead that served a similar social function, but without the environmental impact.
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The relative lack of flat bits on which to put them that aren’t filled with lake may also have been a factor. 
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Hadn’t thought of that (not!)
The C19th social history of sport in the Lakes is quite interesting - the locals went fell running and/ or fox hunting on foot, whereas workers from the Lancashire cotton towns visited on day return train tickets and the fitter ones went rock climbing. Meanwhile Lancashire mill owners commissioned lakeside villas (preferably beyond the range of the day trippers) and spent the season socialising at the Royal Windermere Yacht Club.
I am probably in a slightly unusual position of knowing a person who killed a burglar and also knowing someone who was killed by a burglar. I was a teenager at the time and didn’t know either person really well, but my parents knew them well.
In the first case the householder, having heard noise downstairs, descended from his bedroom shotgun in hand, to find a burglar in his living room. The burglar rushed him and he fired. The burglar escaped through an open window and was found dead in the street. The police took the view that the burglar, rather than rushing the householder, had been trying to get past him to escape through the open window (he had entered by the same window which he had jemmied open). The householder was charged with manslaughter but about two years later, the charges were dropped. For the householder, those two years were hell. He took to alcohol in a big way, suffered massive depression, he lost his job, his marriage fell apart, ending in divorce.
The second case pertains to a dear friend of my late father. This man was a keen amateur antiques collector/dealer specialising in time-pieces. He woke to the alarm going off in his workshop/store which was attached to the house. Golf club in hand, he charged in to confront the burglar, who promptly fled. He chased him down the road and, being fitter, quickly caught up with him. At this point the burglar turned to face him. He struck the burglar with the golf club, but it was the shaft of the golf club, rather than the head, that stuck the burglar and the golf club basically folded in two. The burglar stabbed him once in the chest and he was dead before the ambulance arrived. If memory serves, the burglar was somewhat successful in pleading an element of self-defence.
Both cases made me realise that there are consequences, often unforeseen, to confronting an intruder (or indeed in other situation when we react in a ‘knee-jerk’ way). I like the idea in SuePJ comment about making lots of noise to encourage the intruder to flee - ‘discretion is the better part of valour’.
Despite my earlier joke about a shillelagh, I don’t keep a weapon beside my bed when I sleep - I just lock my doors and hope for the best and the thought of intruders never enters my head - I couldn’t live with a ‘siege mentality’ - it’s just not me . . . . . .
Edit: Just to add - I’m not suggesting anyone on here has a siege mentality !
Interesting post.
Obviously it depends on where you live - place and society. Despite my knobkerrie (bought a long time ago in Jo’burg as a curio rather than a weapon) I don’t feel vulnerable here.
Whereas, when I lived in S Africa domestic security could be the difference between life and death. There robbers will kill to eliminate witnesses. Every room in my house had a panic button that would bring an armed response team to the premises within about five minutes (they claimed four). But ones actual security lay in the signs prominently displayed around the property advertising your choice of armed response company.
I also saw many homes that had a refuge room (mainly created in the run-up to the end of Apartheid) and considered having a lockable gate like you see on many SA shops, on the corridor leading to the bedroom. Outside there were security lights that would come on every time anything bigger than a chameleon went through the garden and all the windows that opened had steel burglar bars.
Not a good way to live, but you can understand why many people there have guns.
I do indeed. My partner is South African and that is exactly the scenario she describes when she lived there. Her family left SA when her Dad decided he could not live with a pistol under his pillow.
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Not golf clubs, for golf or defence, but you reminded me of the time I crossed back into France from Andorra. After the customs there was a large, almost empty, but rocky and steep, car park. We pulled in and spotted a group playing petanque. After watching for a while I joined in with the hilarious laughter. To play normally simply didn’t work, the boules just trickled down the mountainside. The trick was to send a strong shot as near vertical as possible in the hope that it would land on a softish bit to take all the sting out of it. Never had such fun in the game and I have no idea who won. 
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I bet there were a lot of really annoyed mountain goats further down the hill.
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If you’re still talking about the UK (I think Scotland is similar to England and Wales), then a golf club is exactly as much an offensive weapon as is a baseball bat, because what makes anything an offensive weapon is the intent you have.
Not acc to my friendly local Gloucestershire policeman 
I’d have thought mens rea too but apparently not. Never had to test it.
“Made, adapted or intended”
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He’s wrong.
Look on the excellent CPS website, which has layman’s accounts of all offences in clear language 
because I don’t think you can get access to the similar police resource.
What would help you is your sex and age. But you’d still need to explain why you were carrying a single golf club in a public place. Start thinking!
Final point, on mens rea. It’s not relevant when the item is offensive per se (like a truncheon) - plod’s “made” category - but becomes relevant when the item is adapted (pool ball in a sock, for example) or intended (your golf club) for use as an offensive weapon.
PS I couldn’t remember your moniker, @plod , otherwise I’d have tagged you