It was a light hearted emotionally triggered response which I probably would have responded to with a smile and said, "don't purposely toss any scalding coffee on anyone" or, "as long as you don't skewer me with that pen in your pocket" or, "don't pick up your cash register and throw it any anyone." She saw your magazine choice and was unintentionally intimidated by it or you, because of it. For some reason it seems to be a typical type of irrational response to a thing or a person, for people who have an inner hidden fear or misunderstanding of something. Sometimes a person's natural behavior is to just cringe and internalize their fear but other times, especially when they're somewhat "out going" they'll give the old..."don't hurt anyone comment.
I'm in my late 30's now but when I was about 19 years old I was hiking some local mountains with my brother that were about 15 miles north of the edge of town. We had been exploring these desert mountains since before we were old enough to drive ourselves out there and it was secluded enough that a wise person wouldn't go up there without a some means of basic self defense. That range also has a large, healthy population of mountain lions so a handgun seemed in order. I had a Browning High Power in a muzzle down shoulder holster and my younger bro was packing a Colt Gold Cup on his hip. We ran into some rock climbers up top that day which wasn't unusual from time to time. We introduced ourselves and enjoyed some intelligent dialog and complimented them for their skill and knowledge about their sport. Everything was cool but as we parted ways the older of the group...mid 20's I suppose, says, "don't shoot anyone." I instantly responded, "don't push anyone off the top when you get up there." Although he may not of understood that the relevance to what I said perhaps it made him think a little bit and reconsider his illogical train of thought. The nice thing about this response is that it's non-confrontational because it's stated with the same lighthearted silliness that their comment was said. It's also great because it works with any inanimate object or scenario pertaining to the task that they're performing at the time. In the example above I could have just as easily said, "don't bludgeon anyone to death with you loop of carabiner's" or "don't push any boulders off in an attempt to kill or injure other climbers coming up!"
Obviously the knife or gun was built with the idea or option to be used as a tool for the purpose of self defense, unlike the carabiner or cash register but since any object or tool can be misused it really comes down to responsible human behavior regardless of the device at hand. The problem with most people of this limited type of thinking is that they don't recognize your knife as a tool or why you would ever need one if it wasn't sitting next to your dinner plate? If you wanted to spark things into a more serious analytical discussion with them you might say something like, "Well, I don't personally have any day to day need for a cash register but I recognize it as a tool that many others do have great need for...btw, how do you open up those big delivery boxes with the nylon strapping around them?" As long as you're prepared to dig into why you may personally have a want or need to carry a knife or purchase knife magazines, while not getting offended by their naivety, it should be a fun conversation and you might even help to open somebody's eyes a bit. Hey, if you're lucky, nothing wrong with getting to talk with a cute gal either.
