Knife Decorum

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dormOTRS

Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Messages
1
Hey All,
This is my first post on this forum though i've been skulking around for a couple of years now, so please be gentle. I would like your opinions on something. I was on my college campus today and saw an older gentlemen (late 50's early 60's) walking around in a suit which in and of itself is nothing unusual, except that strapped to his leg was a very large and very prominently displayed machette (sheathed mind you). I was very disturbed by this and asked him why on earth he thought it was apropriate to walk around with such an item. He explained that he was trying to draw attention to an exchange program with South America. Now I told him his cause was a worthy one but it was in poor taste to call attention to it in such a manner (effective as it was). Forget the public sentiment in the wake of the latest acts school violence, and put aside the legal issues for a moment; is it apropriate to brandish such an item in public? Outside of the schools policy (which would normally be against such things except here the man was a faculty member) i know we have a right to owne and carry such items but does that mean we ought to? It's true that a machette is just a tool that is most often used to clear brush but when taken out of its natural enviornment, it does illicit certain responses in people and violate certain social norms. My friend who was with me at the time looked at me like i was some knee jerk liberal which isnt the case. I just feel that with expressed written rights come implied responsibilities. Do you agree/disagree?
 
Politics, W and C would rip him a new one. I think he is correct in that a machete is not allowed on a school camput, why would anybody need one on a campus other than a landscaper etc? The teacher was abusing the knife as well, using it for an agenda, what was that particular agenda, elaborate on that please. As for whether it was a knee jerk reaction, outside of work, where it isn't allowed, I usually carry a Spyderco Jester and a SOG Blink, and I've seen friends and complete strangers EDCing huge folders and fixed blades on their person, and have no problem with that. All tools have their place, and it sounds to me like this well dressed man was being a tool!
 
FullerH said:
How long before this one is off to Politics or, perhaps, the Whine & Cheese?
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Until KV's next check-in. :D



The better place to send it to is probably the General Forum, actually. It is actually off-topic here in Community being knife-related.
 
dormOTRS said:
It's true that a machette is just a tool that is most often used to clear brush but when taken out of its natural enviornment, it does illicit certain responses in people and violate certain social norms.

I just feel that with expressed written rights come implied responsibilities. Do you agree/disagree?
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Welcome to Bladeforums. :)

As long as the machete is not illegal carry under the circumstances, I feel that any negative responses are unnecessary, emotional, counterproductive, and improper themselves. The social norms he might be violating are norms determined, not by law or custom based on utility, but only by hoplophobic attitudes that do no credit to the community espousing them.

In fact, his very purpose excuses calling attention to what too many people fear irrationally, to get them to see it as an organic part of another environment.

With express written rights come express responsibilities. Adding emotional reactions to those responsibilities only infringes on those rights.

((This will do better in the Political Arena.))
 
Checking in and moving to Blade Discussion Forum. :)
 
It is legal for him to carry his knife on school grounds, but only if he can hold that it is "for a lawful purpose within the scope of the person's employment".

-Duffin
 
What's so scary about a machete? Maybe if you were standing by an open grave in a lonely orchard and it was in the hand of Juan Corona, then I could understand your alarm.
 
Welcome,

IMHO this would be a much better world if we could walk around with a machete without anybody thinking wrong of it.

I would recommend this person to get a behind the back shoulder rig, much more comfortable and unobtrusive and closer to what they (we) use in Latin America.

Luis
 
Don't know about you guys, but I know that I would be freaked out by a guy in a suit carrying a machete. If it was a guy in grass stained overalls riding a Toro I wouldn't blink twice. But 9 times out of 10 a guy in a suit has no legitimate business carrying something like that.

If it was in a case or a bag or carried in such a way that looked like he was simply transporting it to home or a supply closet or something - that might be different. But if he's strapped up with the appearance that he's going to use it while dressed like that - well there's a really good chance that that guy is up to no good. And since most people know this, they are right to be a little freaked out - which means that their fear is rational.

So this guy is intentionally exploiting a rational fear of violence to pitch some exchange program. That's wrong. It's similar to advertising a new product by faking an accident or running up to someone with a baseball bat like you're gonna hit them with it.
 
It gets attention. It serves its purpose. I like to carry a machete around. It is no big deal at a college where you are up to your ears in healthy athletic males. It is no more dangerous than a baseball bat. The only nasty cases that I can think of involved machetes and preschools. I don't think that the public has a right to be alarmist. It seems perfectly reasonable to have javelins, bows and arrows, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and pool queues on campus. I have a zero tolerance attitude to people who make a big deal about symbolically dangerous objects.

The real danger would be if he was carrying a can of gasoline into a large lecture hall. It would be a bigger deal than if he had a hand gun.
 
I had a Mexican friend who was arrested for using a machete to clear brush in a WASP neighborhood. Some neighbor woman felt threatened. The cops sorted it out and let him go. This sort of thing just pisses me off. A wreckless driver is a much bigger menace and you can't go 5 minutes in a college parking lot without seeing one.
 
Back when I was in college a lot of us kept guns in our student apartments. This was not for any really agressive reason. We were just adult males and it was part of our stuff. I had a friend who kept his fraternity stocked with venison by hunting nuisance deer on neighboring farms. He kept the rifle in his trunk at all times. The fraternity brothers would get out the big knives and butcher the deer in their garage.
 
Boy, I don't know where to start with this one, but I will give it a shot.

Forget the public sentiment in the wake of the latest acts school violence, and put aside the legal issues for a moment; is it apropriate to brandish such an item in public?
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I am assuming that you are a college student. If that is the case, then you should be learning to use the language in a precise manner. You stated that the professor was wearing the machete strapped to his leg. Since when is this brandishing? My dictionary says that "brandish" is "to wave or shake in a threatening manner." Brandish is one of those words that people misuse when they want to paint some action as sinister, when in fact no brandishing has occured.

Outside of the schools policy (which would normally be against such things except here the man was a faculty member) i know we have a right to owne and carry such items but does that mean we ought to?
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Yes, we ought to. If we have a right to own and carry items but are so tied up in political correctness that we can't bring ourselves to do so, then the right doesn't really exist anymore.

It's true that a machette is just a tool that is most often used to clear brush but when taken out of its natural enviornment, it does illicit certain responses in people and violate certain social norms.
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Eliciting responses in people is not illicit. Am I to restrain my every act, even ones to which I have a perfectly legal right, because someone, somewhere might not like it? No matter what you do, someone, somewhere will not like it. With whose social norms are you concerned? When I was a college student in the 60's, it was considered on many campuses to be a great virtue to violate social norms. It still is, unless those norms reflect the values of the approved party line of faculty and administration. In that case, they consider norms to be inviolate. We badly need to violate their norms when those norms would restrain legal activity.

I just feel that with expressed written rights come implied responsibilities.
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Rights do not have to be expressed written rights. The Bill of Rights are not intended to be a complete catalog. Rather, they are specific items that are so important that they require being set down in the supreme law of our country. All powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution for the government are clearly designated as being reserved to the people. That's you and me. Laws do not specify acceptable behavior. Laws specify legally unacceptable behavior. A free people must not be constrained from action because the powers that be have not given their express permission.

And no, I would not have worn a machete across a college campus. But my reasons are personal and have nothing to do with toeing some shadowy, imaginary line.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The social norms he might be violating are norms determined, not by law or custom based on utility, but only by hoplophobic attitudes that do no credit to the community espousing them.
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Welcome to BF!
:)

Eav, is hoplophobia the irrational fear of knives? If so, thank you, you made my day. That's a great word and I look forward to using it as often as humanly possible.
 
It seems really puzzling that the sight of a person carrying a large-bladed tool in a non-threatening manner would alarm someone who regularly visits a place called “Blade Forums”. :confused:
 
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