Is a knife a tool with an edge or a weapon?

From my own perspective, I consider them both. Knives primary function is utility in my own life and the majority of others. However, knives do indeed make effective weapons. I've never used a knife as a weapon against man or animal, nor do I ever foresee myself getting in that situation. However, if the situation did arise, the knife would be a very effective weapon. Silent, lethal, quick.

However, just as I always use a hatchet for its utility purposes, I never pick out which knife I carry for the day with the possibility of stabbing someone with it in my mind. I use my knife for utility 100% of the time. Both the hatchet and knife would be some damn good close ranged weapons though.
 
I carry a lot of knives around. I have come home from work with as many as nine blades to sharpen, having dulled them during the course of my workday. In the forty years I have been carrying knives, I have never cut anyone else with one. For me, if it is a weapon, it must be intended for self mutilation/destruction. As for the origin, I'd bet the first flake knife was first used to cut up a small animal killed with a thrown rock. Go ahead, try to prove me wrong :D . Seriously, I don't think of my knives as weapons, although since they can be, they should be protected by the Second Amendment, along with anything else that can be used as a weapon (which should cover about anything except Nerf balls)
 
Tool.

I carry a couple of edged tools with me every day and have never used one as a "weapon" I know that I could use one or two of them as such as a last resort. On the other hand due to the fact that I have no edged weapons training I may fair better with the nearest blunt object if the need was to arise. Being the realist that I am I think pulling my Benchmade 350 out and trying to take down a "bad guy" may not be a good idea. I would probably get better results shoving him to the ground and sitting on him. I am not trying to make light of the injury that a sub 3" blade can inflict, I am acknowleding the fact that I would probably hurt myself or only anger an atacker with my untrained fumbling.
So if it's in my hands it has to be a tool because it is useless as a weapon.
 
It's a tool.. A knife is no more a weapon than your finger is.

I'm sure that most folks here have known of someone who is a martial arts pro or proficient in hand to hand combat and have to worry about conflict because they could be put away for murder because their hands are considered deadly weapons.

I mean there are plenty of "weapons". Is a car an automobile?? Or a Weapon??

Is a plastic bag a storage pouch or a weapon??

Is a fork an eating utensil or a weapon???

My point is.... Pretty much everything can be a weapon.

A knife is a tool.... and no I don't think it has to have a sharp edge... I know of plenty that don't have... and they are still very useful tools that fall into the subcategory of knives.

YMMV!!

DM
 
(which should cover about anything except Nerf balls)
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Don't suppose you've ever had a nerf ball with a match set to it flung/shot/propelled your way then have ya!

DM
 
A knife is a tool, but like all tools can be used as a weapon. It is actually a pretty lousy weapon compared to a club of some kind. History points that out nicely. Armor rendered edged weapons pretty ineffective, so maces where used. Improvised maces of all kinds where more common than knives in the trenches of WWI. A knife has to be sharp or pointy and you need to have some training to deploy it as a weapon without risking damage to yourself as much a someone else. You have to hit something like a major artery, or stab a major organ to be lethal quickly. Any one can pick up a bat or a crowbar and become instantly capable of crushing a skull. I don't carry a knife for "just in case, I can use it to defend myself", I carry it to use as a tool. I don't carry any weapons and if I did I would probably choose a club or mace like object.
 
Look, if you use a knife to open the Mail it's a Tool.
If you use a knife to open a Male then it's a weapon.
 
If we define a weapon as sonmething for attack or defence, I have had only one occasion to classify my knife as a weapon, defending myself from an escaped vicious dog who ran from his yard and attacked me across the street. It was luck only and not skill, which might explain why I always lose at the casino, as i used all my luck against that dog. Outside of that, my knives have been used to open letters, boxes, packages, cut fruit (apple worms scare me), cut meat, open soup cans, cut bandages, make wooden tools and ornaments, shave (once in a pinch, and it actually worked a little better than the razors i usually use, just a little unweildy). But to cut any one other than me (oops)????? Never.
 
Knives are tools.

Virtually all hand tools can be used effectively as wepons. Since knives are the most universally useful tools, they are often carried or kept accessible and therefore used as weapons in the rare cases when there is a need. But the vast majority of knives go through their useful life cycles without being employed as weapons. Kitchen knives are no exception.

The more you keep the enemy at a distance,, the less able he is to hurt you; No small hand tool is as good as a longer weapon like a sword, lance or spear and no long weapon is as good as a projectile weapon like a firearm.

A bayonet ceases to become a knife once attached to a rifle. It becomes, instead a short stabbing spear. And spears are more effective weapons than knives partly because they keep the opponent further away, less able to inflict damage. They can also be employed with much more force. Very few soldiers would choose to use their bayonet as a fighting knife if they could attach it to their rifle.

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I contend the flints were used as tools first and as weapons only if a longer implement were not available. As I understand it, the first flints were hand axes; kind of hybrid choppers and knives. The blunt end was palmed and the sharp edge, only a few inches away, used to chop or cut.

They were used to dress game, cut vegetables and fruits, prepare shelters and make clothing from skins. One would be at a big disadvantage if forced to use such a tool to fight a spear (sharpened stick) equipped proto human or a sizeable predator.
 
TrailingEdge said:
Is a tire iron a tool or a weapon?
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there are many knives designed to be weapons, no tire irons designed to be weapons.

your comparing apples and kangaroos here.

some knives are designed to be weapons, regardless of what we use them for. there are knives designed to be tools, regardless of what we use them for.

i consider mine weapons, that i have used, so far, only as tools.
 
Benjamin Liu said:
Yes. Daggers such as the Applegate-Fairbairn are designed as weapons. It is also true that many knives that appear to be designed as utility knives are often sold as "fighting," "combat," or "tactical" knives.

Both tools and weapons (and as already pointed out, weapons are a type of tool) are the private property of the owner.
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Well in truth daggers are tools. Back in the middle ages they were comparable to that old knife of your or my granpas. It was a general purpose knife used as often to cut food or cord as it was to fight with. Dirks on the other hand that had no edges to speak of were only weapons made for stabing. But how many times do you think one may have been used to put a hole in a leather jerkin for a button hole?

Point is no matter what a knifes planed use is it is more likly to be used as a every day tool than a weapon. How many combat knives used in vietnam for example do you think were only used for fighting? I know people from that war and their knives were more often used to open caned goods than to open a person.

Some one mentioned kantana guess what it started out as :)
It was used much like a machete and for harvesting later it evolved in to the weapon we know of today and a pure work of art.
Kamis are another "weapon" that started life as a harvesting tool.

Most weapons evolved from tools that ended up sometimes being used as weaponised tools.
 
Is a four pound hammer a tool or a weapon? Ask a railroad buff or a Viking re-enactor that question and you'll get very different answers. Some knives (and hammers), because of their design, make better tools than others, and some are designed primarily to be a weapon. But both can be used as either.
 
I think ya'll are surely fogetting something. Remember the past, prior to personal firearms, they fought and fought hard with their knife. Don't tell Attila a knife ain't no weapon.
 
If a knife is not a tool first and a weapon secondarily or even tertiarily, then I have been operating under a misapprehension all of my life. Anything can and probably has been used as a weapon over the long and bloody history of humanity and it is a peculiarity of some to hold out certain implements as inherently more "dangerous" or "weaponlike" than others. I suppose that it would be difficult to argue that a machine gun or a sword is a tool, but swords can certainly be a form of sporting equipment and machine guns are a Hell of a lot of fun, if expensive, to shoot. And I would suspect that more folks have been killed and/or injured with sporting equipment such as baseball bats or golf clubs than have been killed and/or injured by knife attacks in the past 100 years in the modern, industrialized nations.
 
Knives are tools, they are designed for cutting work. A weapon is a tool designed for the purpose of doing harm or killing. A sword is a weapon, as it could be described as 'knife like', but its purpose in cutting is to inflict wounds. A sword is long, designed to both protect the user, and inflict wounds on the enemy. A knife however, is only a tool, and would require the user to be in close proximity of their oponent putting them in serious risk of harm.
Any tool can be used as a weapon, but a weapons sole purpose is to inflict damage and harm to an opponent while offering some protection to the user.

Knives are really intended as cutting tools. It is in the person's brain how that tool will be used.
 
"If" a sword is only designed to hurt people, where would you classify the Machete'?

In one form or another, machetes are used throughout the world for completely benign purposes.
 
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