Bujinkan Ninjitsu/Taijitsu is aimed at quick crippling takedowns of assailants and disabling grappling maneuvers. Not very graceful at times, and boring to spar due to quick take downs and re-squaring, its focus is on rapid lethality and depriving your opponent of a second chance to attack, if not first. A very no BS practical style.
Taekwondo is good for physical conditioning and endurance. It focuses on standing your ground on your two feet and otherwise just flat out relentlessly beating the unholy sh1t out of your opponent, thus it is a very fun style to spar for hours on end.
Either way you have to know what you are doing. I used to perform Ninjitsu and I have a black belt and instructor-in-training qualifications in Taekwondo.
However I still carry a lock knife (legally concealable at 3.5? and under in just about all states) and a USP .40 S&W.
IMO martial arts are useful for sport and health and little else these days. It's not worth taking the chance that the majority of the time assailants WILL be armed even if they don't present the weapon until you resist. I always assume any threat I may come across will be armed and better armed than I am, and I carry myself in risky situations accordingly. I also assume that they will continue the assalt even after they get what they want, as most violent assaults have shown. Therefore if someone aproaches me with violent intent, it is already assumed there will not be a peaceful conclusion.
Best defense is staying out of trouble to begin with and using your brain. If you hang out with the wrong crowds at the wrong places or participate in illegal activities you are practically begging for it and most likely deserve what comes your way. The only time standing your ground is the first and only option is when your life or property* is in danger. Walking away with my life AND property are non-negotiable; these are the terms that you will abide by should you decide to assualt me without my having caused the first willful violation. Everything else, including YOUR life, are on the table and open to comprimise. If you want to debate legality, as I've said, statistics will back you up in court.
Statistics show if you throw a crook your wallet he will most likely shoot you anyway. In that case you have a better chance fighting than being shot in the back and left to die just so you can't identify the guy or cancel your credit cards. Thus I don't care if the gun was empty or even a plastic prop. or even a squirt gun pressed against a jacket pocket. I don't care if I only have $3 in my wallet. If I feel I am being threatened with deadly force I will act accordingly. Arizona law agrees.
* I consider property an extension of your life, as you expended time and labor in the form of blood, sweat, and tears to obtain the property at the cost of giving up some countless hours of your limited lifespan; hours which you can never recover even if the material object can be replaced. If you give up property willingly to secure your momentary safety, it will just keep happening and you are a slave. You might as well not seek anything in life at all unless you are willing to defend it once you acquire it or your are just wasting that life in the first place. I?m a firm believer of the classical conservative viewpoint that violation of a person?s free will and private property is the one and only real act of crime from which all other crimes and acts of ill will can be derived. Private property rights, starting first and foremost with your own living body, and followed by all other property obtained via labor of your own hands from that body, is the most sacred concept of freedom that must not be transgressed.