How can we promote a positive image of knives?

Not much we can do.

The sad fact is, we no longer live in an age where knives, specifically anything other than kitchen or food prep knives are necessary. Some will wonder why I need a $400 folding knife to cut some cardboard when a $5 box cutter does the job just as well if not better. And that's another thing too. You can ponder up several thousand uses of a knife and yet, there will always be a specialized tool capable of doing the same task, and is designed specifically for that task.

I suspect in the future my folders will be retired to the safe and I'll be putting on my chef's hat if I want to use knives at all.
 
Want to change the knife image? Start thinking for yourselves, and stop bying into the hype of the knife magazines and the knife manufacturers they represent. Start taking a good look at your life, and figure how much and what kind of knife do you really need? For most of us, that's a far cry from what they would have us carry. This ain't the wild west, and no wild injuns are coming over the hill, we're not buffalo hunters or mountain men, and we're not members of a seal team.
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A knife is not cool. It does not give you some kind of cool aura just because you carry a knife of the month. Start behaving like a grown up, treat the knife like a simple tool, and use it like such, and people will see it and you in a different light. Change the image by changing yourselves. People respect the man, not the tool.

Carl.
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Exactly - I think that many of us knife knuts carry waaaaay more knife than we need for our day-to-day lives. Try just carrying a simple SAK or a Stockman for a week or two. Our fathers and grandfathers got by without one-hand-opening-super-steel-black-coated-tacticol-looking-folders. They were fine. You'll be fine too.

As far as a positive public image for knives - IMHO, nothing shows how useful a tool a knife can be like the show 'MacGyver'!
 
My compliments to the authors of the above posts, who have shown a very reasoned approach to the issue. Having carried a knife myself for some 50 years, like Carl, I have seen a paradigm shift from an era where young people were expected to carry a knife, to an era where young people are feared because they might carry a knife. What has caused such a change? The answers are legion, but a macro view would suggest that we now live in a time where people are afraid of their own shadows. A couple of people brandishing box cutters can bring down an entire aircraft! Now we should fear box cutters? I am sorry, but all I see is a culture that should cowboy up.
 
Many people today long for traditional moral values and stability. And considering the power of advertising because so much of the population are visual learners..... I say use traditional posters of responsible knife use, such as the Boy Scouts etc.
 
A.P.F. said:
My compliments to the authors of the above posts, who have shown a very reasoned approach to the issue. Having carried a knife myself for some 50 years, like Carl, I have seen a paradigm shift from an era where young people were expected to carry a knife, to an era where young people are feared because they might carry a knife. What has caused such a change? The answers are legion, but a macro view would suggest that we now live in a time where people are afraid of their own shadows. A couple of people brandishing box cutters can bring down an entire aircraft! Now we should fear box cutters? I am sorry, but all I see is a culture that should cowboy up.
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I doubt the Culture will cowboy up as you said, it's going in the opposite direction more and more each year and I really don't see that changing either.

It's something we have to deal with if we want to keep what rights that we do have as long as possible.

Sad I know, but sometimes reality just plain sucks....
 
Noctis3880 said:
Not much we can do.

The sad fact is, we no longer live in an age where knives, specifically anything other than kitchen or food prep knives are necessary. Some will wonder why I need a $400 folding knife to cut some cardboard when a $5 box cutter does the job just as well if not better. And that's another thing too. You can ponder up several thousand uses of a knife and yet, there will always be a specialized tool capable of doing the same task, and is designed specifically for that task.

I suspect in the future my folders will be retired to the safe and I'll be putting on my chef's hat if I want to use knives at all.
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No, please don't become a defeatist. Never throw in the towel. Besides, when a knife is needed, nothing else will do. We had a scout master when I was a kid, and he was an old hard core retired marine. He always preached to us, that when you walk out your front door in the morning, you never know just what hand life is going to deal you. Be prepared, and carrying a sharp knife is part of that. I am, and always will believe that every swinging Richard over the age of 14 or so, should have a sharp knife on them. It does not have to be a large knife, just sharp. There are soooo many examples of a knife saving a life, that it can't be ignored. Somewhere on these forums is the video of the off duty firemen trying to get a victim out of a burning car wreck. They where yelling for someone with a knife to cut the seat belt. Then there was the old lady up in Massachusetts I think, that tripped and fell on an esculator in a mall. They were trying to pull her scarf free from the folding steps, and she ended up chocking to death, because nobody had even a keychain sak classic to saw away on the scarf that was caught. She died because nobody had even a small pen knife that would have worked.

You may carry that pocket knife for 20 years, and never use it for more than opening your mail, or a UPS box. But then life can deal you a sudden hand, and that knife can save your or somebodys elses life. I've been carrying a knife now for 60 years, and only one time in all those years I needed it very badly, and nothing else would do. The one and three quarter inch sheepsfoot blade of my Buck stockman cut a seat belt to free an accident victim so she could get out of the over turned car. I tried to press the release with both thumbs, but I just couldn't get it to release. I had to make a couple of swipes with the knife, but it worked. So in a 70 year long life, I've only had desperate need of a knife one single time. Was it worth it? Hell yes!

To deal with the society we live in, we just have to make some compromises to conform a little. That may be to carry a little less theatrical a knife, and leave the dramatic flippers at home. Be a little low key, play it cool. Just keep in mind we're the tiny minority, not them. But they all vote.

Carl.
 
Nothing is bad in its nature, its just the use it is intented to use for. you can go around stabbing people with pens or beating up people with sunday newyork times. those can be weapons too. but if someone is just using the tools for its intented purpose then wats wrong with it?
 
We know that knives are a scape goat for the real issues. We have kids that are running feral because it is hard for a single parent to raise a kid, or even for two parents to remember whether they fed junior when they are so wrapped up in the growing demands of their jobs and careers. Instead of blaming the parents we target guns, knives, cameras, school security, law enforcement, teachers, video games, role-playing games and just about everything but the real problem; it's either that or we have to admit that we have a seriously defective economic model that omits a very important external cost, the cost of properly raising and indoctrinating the next generation.

But, having said that, it would help to promote a positive image of knives. To show them as a life saving device, as a utility item, as a tool of hobbyists and the arts, as a key component for meeting our most basic needs at home, in the office and outdoors. It is hard to demonize something when it is familiar and useful to us and the truth is that just about everyone uses knives every day of their lives, if only to butter their own bread; and that this has been going on since we learned to walk upright or since Adam met Eve, depending on your point of view.

To drive that point home we are going to have to step away from all of the Tactical nonsense, and we are also going to have to move away from the emphasis on wood chopping; fighting is not the primary purpose of knives, and if chopping wood were the main objective we wouldn't dare to leave home without an axe. There is nothing wrong with either of these activities and I really enjoy large fixed blades, but non-knife people are never going to see where we are coming from until we can provide them with a use that is familiar and relevant to their real world experience. Only then will they be open to benefiting and enjoying from what we on thise forums have taken for granted, from the immese utility of good well made knives.

n2s
 
How do you show knives in a positive light? You show knives being used by the "good guys" as effective tools on TV ande in movies. NCIS and MacGyver tv shows come to mind as generally presenting a positive image of knives and their uses.

You also show knives that are being used by bad guys as being ineffective.

The truth is that knives can be used for "good or evil" purposes. That's a fact.
 
Well first thing is to turn on non knife people to knives, some people just get the bug after putting a nice knife in their hand, same goes for guns too! I have met some people that never thought of guns or knives then they lay their hands on one and a light goes off!

I bet if you got some of your nice knives and some of the cool ones and showed them to 10 non knife guys, 2 or 3 may end up being knife guys like us later.

I wonder how many non knife dudes would get awe struck if I put a killer cool Busse NMFBM in their hand!!!!!!
 
All the "badassery" around here lately doesn't leave one with much hope.

But...you keep on trying.
 
Hollywood.

I've seen maybe a handful of movies where knives were NOT portrayed as offensive weapons used by the bad guy. There are very few films and tv shows out there that show the characters using knives to open their letters, boxes, etc like an actually edc tool. Look up all the compilations on youtube of knives in movies and they're almost all done with some dramatic flair with the villain brandishing his "weapon" meanacingly. One thing I've learned is that a great deal of people gain their knowledge (as scary as this is to believe) from what they see on tv or in movies, not from pratical real life experiences.

The glamourization of knives as weapons on screen translates into those mall ninja types buying, and misusing knives while chasing that fantasy and adding to a misrepresented reality.

That being said we are not powerless in changing perception. In my personal life, every single woman I've dated has at first been what we'd call knife averse. In the end most if not all ended up edcing a blade themselves, because they couldn't deny the practicality of having a tool on hand.
 
In order to promote a positive image of knives and knife users, I've cut back on the number of hookers I stab by a good 35% this year alone.

It's a pretty big sacrifice, but everyone's got to do their part, right?
 
Slowstarter said:
But it´s quite funky that a big kitchen knife becomes a deadly and scary psycho-weapon if you just take it from the kitchen to another room in your house. In the kitchen: a useful tool that your grandma will use... in the living room: just freaking scary! call the police!!
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Great point, I never really thought of it like that until you just pointed that out, and you are exactly right.
 
I have seen where a lot of posters have said that it's not the knife, but the person using the knife that makes a knife "scary". If that is indeed the case, then having tactical looking knives shouldn't matter, but it does. Would a tactical looking SAK be as scary looking as a non tactical looking Buck? Would a would be tough guy be as menacing if he were flipping out his peanut, as opposed to a ZT0200?

We as knife lovers should have a choice as to what kind of knives we buy, whether they're scary looking or not. It's how we use them that should be recognized. Use them with responsibility as RD said, and that will go a long way in promoting a positive image.

Just my .02
 
Kitchen knives and Swiss army knives are rarely viewed as knives because their usually seen in utilitarian rolls. If we can do the same with most knives (excluding combat knives) then we can make all knives tools rather than weapons. So, use you knives properly.
 
Dorito Monk said:
In order to promote a positive image of knives and knife users, I've cut back on the number of hookers I stab by a good 35% this year alone.

It's a pretty big sacrifice, but everyone's got to do their part, right?
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Now THAT'S takin' one for the team! Kudos, sir....kudos.
 
knives, swords, sharp things have been used a long long time as weapons in ancient warfare and thats what they are perceived as for most people(weapons)..... and that is how a lot of them are designed to be a weapon.... and when we carry those particular knives we should expect someone to react to it likes its a weapon cause it was designed to be .. the only way to get people to realize that a knife is a very useful tool is teach it to your family members ur friends demonstrate how look how much easier it was to perform that task with the right tool. this is how i got into knives my grandfather threw me a old schrade duck stamp and said here u can have it when i was 8.. our family had a junk yard and u can imagine how useful a tool a knife could be at a junkyard... plus they are just freaking cool....

on a side note politics will never solve anything as it never has :barf:
 
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