A baton is a roughly cylindrical club made of wood, rubber, plastic, or metal. It is carried as a compliance tool and defensive weapon by law-enforcement officers, correctional staff, security guards and military personnel. The name baton comes from the French bâton (stick), derived from Old French Baston, from Latin bastum.
A 1968-era Chicago Police helmet and billy club
Early-20th-century police truncheons in the Edinburgh Police Centre Museum
A modern wooden baton
Sussex Police riot officers with straightsticks during the EDO protests in Brighton in October 2008
A club is a short staff or stick, usually made of wood, wielded as a weapon since prehistory. There are several examples of blunt-force trauma caused by clubs in the past, including at the site of Nataruk in Turkana, Kenya, described as the scene of a prehistoric conflict between bands of hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago.
An assortment of club weapons from the Wujing Zongyao from left to right: flail, metal bat, double flail, truncheon, mace, barbed mace
A Yuma war club
Small Japanese Tetsubo, an iron club with a leather grip.
Various assorted shillelagh (club).