Incidence of hoplophobia?

Status
Not open for further replies.
G

gomipile

Joined
Apr 17, 2010
Messages
1,343
What percentage of the population is hoplophobic, do you think? I was just having a conversation with a good friend of mine, and she got unreasonably upset that I thought a machete is a good landscaping tool. She kept arguing that landscapers should never, ever use machetes because they are "a big knife."

So, what is your experience in this realm?
 
They're morons. Theres really isn't a reason to discuss this, they're the same people who are afraid of guns for no reason.
 
No experience to be honest. I've used a machete quite a bit as a gardener and never even had a look. I think the response varies quite a bit on region and the user of the tool. In my experience, Canada is quite accepting of knives being used as tools
 
I cannot sit in the same room with people that are afraid of inanimate objects.

I refuse to.

That's all.

Tostig
 
You mentioned Canada, and your experience is typical of the Bladeforums posters and other tool enthusiasts I've talked to who are Canadian. The funny thing is, the discussion I had was over the fact that she said no landscaper would ever be seen using a machete inside the city limits of Toronto.
 
gomipile said:
The funny thing is, the discussion I had was over the fact that she said no landscaper in his right mind would ever be seen using a machete inside the city limits of Toronto.
Click to expand...

Well, Toronto isn't really Canadian.:D
But seriously, no one should have issues with a tool being used AS a tool.
If they do, it's their own problem.
Even the Toronto cops would agree on that one.:)
 
I'd probably say about 30-40 percent are afraid. Though it certainly depends on the area you live in. I live in a lower income city currently and most see a knife as a weapon. I can never understand people who fear knives. Though they are a tool and a weapon I personally believe that they are tools first. I've had a knife with me everyday since I was roughly 9 years old and I will still have one on me the day I die.
 
Tony Nguyen said:
I'd probably say about 30-40 percent are afraid. Though it certainly depends on the area you live in. I live in a lower income city currently and most see a knife as a weapon. I can never understand people who fear knives. Though they are a tool and a weapon I personally believe that they are tools first. I've had a knife with me everyday since I was roughly 9 years old and I will still have one on me the day I die.
Click to expand...

Well, yup. We here at Bladeforums use our knives for all kinds of things, but I think very few of us would ever want to witness a knife being used as a weapon. We may want to be prepared to deal with that possibility, but most of us don't want it to happen.
 
funny enough, i think a machete is the first garden tool you can find in any shed in barbados.. definately one of the most useful
 
I would be lost without one. I don't see how a person could make it through a day without. It becomes an extension of you. We were allowed to carry at 7-8 yrs. Played knife games at recess - nobody got hurt(bad). Sure learned to respect a sharp knife early on.
 
I remember while traveling in the Caribbean and throughout South America that machetes were the ubiquitous tool of everyone, from friendly-eyed women splitting open coconuts on the street to wearied, muddy sugar-cane harvesters. I imagine while machetes could be used as weapons (and are, I guess, in desperate times), this is probably much the same as an irrational fear of axes due to their periodic appearance in cheesy horror flicks :rolleyes:.

Culture pervades everything we see and do and think, it's not surprising that among developed, service-based economies that the pervading cultural response to large, unfamiliar, and potentially dangerous hand tools is one of fear. I wouldn't worry about it, unless you're getting visits from the police.
 
It's funny, I looked out my window the other day and my neighbour was using a machete to chop some bushes, and I thought "hell, that's a great idea....now I need a CS or Tramotina (sp?)" lol....
 
As Seth mentioned about Barbados, it's the same thing in Trinidad, the rest of the Caribbean, and I assume a lot of South Asia and a most third world countries. A machete is as common as a kitchen knife. I think one reason is that in the first world countries we have the money and means to afford the sexy lawn mowers, weed wackers, and the seemingly infinite number of gardening tools for just about every job. In the third world countries where there's a lot more poverty, the machete is THE tool of choice because they don't have access to a lot of those more specialized (and expensive) tools. Need to trim a hedge, use a machete, need to cut down some coconuts, use a machete, need to split open said coconuts, use a machete, need to chase down a thief, use a machete! You get the point!
People here have mostly grown unaccustomed to "primitive" tools like knives and associate their uses now mainly to preparing food, eating or perpetrating a crime.
If the SHTF and we here had to resort to more primitive living, I think the vast majority of the people living in big first world cities would be up the creek without a paddle.
That's my take on it anyway.
 
I was standing near a door to the Exhibition Hall at the Blade Show. A large female security person was standing nearby. "Do you carry a knife?" she asked. When I said I did, she said, "why?"

I replied that, when she left work that day, if she ran off the road and her car was upside down trapped by a jammed seat belt in rising water, if I came along and had a knife I coiuld get her out. If I did not have a knife, I could try to support her head and pray with her as long as I could until the rising water drowned her.

"Yeah," she said, "but why do you need a knife?" I gave up and walked off.
 
MikeH said:
I was standing near a door to the Exhibition Hall at the Blade Show. A large female security person was standing nearby. "Do you carry a knife?" she asked. When I said I did, she said, "why?"

I replied that, when she left work that day, if she ran off the road and her car was upside down trapped by a jammed seat belt in rising water, if I came along and had a knife I coiuld get her out. If I did not have a knife, I could try to support her head and pray with her as long as I could until the rising water drowned her.

"Yeah," she said, "but why do you need a knife?" I gave up and walked off.
Click to expand...

LOL, some people will never get it. I would have said "You're right, I should just let you drown."
 
knives= very useful tools. can they be weapons yes, so can cars, lawnmowers, those big hedge clippers, blenders, stick deodorant, a stick, a tv, etc. but most see people with those and dont think "weapon". anything CAN be a weapon but we as humans make that choice to make them so, cars=transport. are they deadly of course, people, animals die by them daily. some people can put 2 and 2 together. :thumbdn: :rolleyes:
 
I find an answer that most sheeple understand, is "when was the last time you tried to open a CD or anything in a plastic clam pack?" I carry between 4 and 6 knives on me every day, all different. Somedays I use them all, somedays I don't.

Knives and guns kill people just like pencils cause misspelled words.


-Xander
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top