Letter to the Editor

Peter Atwood

Peter Atwood

Joined
Oct 26, 2000
Messages
2,468
I just sent this to my local newspaper. I'm sick and tired of seeing this topic come up as it does many times per year on all the knife forums. It's time to put a stop to this and I encourage everyone to do the same with their local papers. You may copy my letter if you wish or write your own. Whatever you do, don't just sit by, DO IT. Let's change some minds even if it is only one at a time....here's my letter:

I’d like to call people’s attention to a modern phenomena that has really gotten out of hand. It’s called Knife Phobia, the fear of any knife whatsoever in public, private or the workplace. Why someone would have a fear of a tiny pocket knife, surely one of the most common and useful tools in existence, is just beyond me. Were you afraid when your Grandpa used his folding knife to cut a piece of fruit or a string? What about that Swiss Army knife that you had in Scouts?

Recently I pulled out a small knife with a two inch blade from my pocket in order to open a plastic package. I was in an empty restaurant for an early lunch, no one else was around. The owner said to me “Whoah, you could kill someone with that! “ And he made gestures like he was disemboweling someone. This was a TWO inch blade…meanwhile he has an EIGHT inch chef’s knife at his side. I gave him a look of complete and total pity at his lack of logical thinking and proceeded to open my plastic package.

This idea that a pocket knife is a weapon is totally preposterous. It is a tool, period. And if you look at the statistics you will find that almost all the knife related crimes that occur are perpetuated with kitchen knives. So give the humble and innocent pocket knife a break, it could be a lifesaver to you some day. Even better, buy one for yourself and carry it at all times (except in courthouses, schools and airplanes of course). You just might realize how handy and harmless it really is.
 
Very nice letter Peter! I may have to just copy it and send it to the editors or the papers around here!

Thanks!

Tom
 
That's a very well written letter. I would feel totally comfortable using it. Thanks.
 
Pete, I commend your effort to have that rational letter defending pocketknives published. I hope you have better luck than I have when I've sent something equally rational to our local editor. Here we have a daily waste of ink and newsprint that is nothing more than a liberal rag best used to line the cat's litter box. But we have few, if any, residents with the loony mindset of that foolish restaurant owner you shocked with your tiny blade. Knives of all kinds are carried, used regularly, and understood to be very useful tools in this part of the country. During hunting season it's not uncommon to encounter hunters wearing their sheath knives openly in a grocery store. Nobody bats an eye at that. Knives are a time honored tradition here.
 
I could not agree with you more, BUT, no one would have called a "boxcutter" anything more than a tool prior to 9/11 either. So from my perpective, it is not the "tool", it is the intent of the person using the "tool."
 
Great letter. Depending on the bias and length of wool of the Editor, it may or may not get printed. :D
 
Well I live here in the heart of liberal MA. Our local paper is not right wing in any sense of the word however our editor did publish a long article when Bill Moran died right on the editorial page. Perhaps he's one of the enlightened moderates out there...
 
Excellent letter Peter Atwood! This country needs more men like us to stop the feminization that is slowly but surely destroying what this land was built on. Now lets do the same for concealed handguns and make permits easily available to every law-abiding citizen in each and every state!
 
Thanks Peter. I have witnessed similar behavior. Recently in the Post Office when I opened my small ( nail nick opening folder which was the gents folder by Kershaw) and the lady behind me said, 'Whoa! Could that thing be any bigger?" I informed her that it was my small one.

One other time a woman gasped in Rib Crib. Here I am sitting there at my table just checking my steak out and the waiter gives me this knife that is huge I might add and I simply pull out my small Dozier Personal to use instead. Does the woman gasp as all the other folks sitting at their tables cutting their steaks with even bigger knives? Nope. She gasped at mine about half as long and thinner to boot. I just shook my head rather than say what I thought about that but its typical of irrational 'sheeple' behavior that appears to be getting worse rather than better.

Personally I don't feel that the hype generated by certain advertisements and videos by some companies in the industry does anything to help this at all and in fact contributes to it. They should in my opinion be petitioned by the entire knife industry to wake up to how it reflects on all of us when they do what they do. But thats just the opinion of this backyard knife mechanic.

STR
 
STR said:
Personally I don't feel that the hype generated by certain advertisements and videos by some companies in the industry does anything to help this at all and in fact contributes to it.
Click to expand...

I wonder. I doubt people who gasp at small pocket knives ever read knife magazines or watch knife videos. Their antipathy stems from a deeper problem, of preferring security to liberty, and being afraid of anyone who shows self-reliance in any way.
 
Well put, Esav. More than a weapon (or what appears to them to be a weapon) is the self-reliant man or woman that instills fear....or maybe guilt expressed as fear.
 
Let's all order some Cold Steel DVDs and leave them on the doorsteps of our neighbors.

"When you use one of our 3-inch Voyagers, you'll think you're using a chainsaw...it's a cutting dynamo!" They'll either laugh themselves to death or try to have them banned. BTW, what are the knife laws like in the UK these days?
 
When I first started perusing this forum, there was a thread ongoing about what guys carried and had they ever used their knives in a restaurant. People were saying they would send the restaurant's knives back and whip out their Skirmishes (et al) to cut up their Applebee's ribeye, and how they enjoyed the surprised look on other people's faces. I thought "Now this is my kind of place!"

Shortly after joining, there was another thread about knives and sheeple. THere were comments like "Just whip out your fixed blade in a reverse-grip carry...." and other similar "threatening" comments. That's when I knew I was HOME!

The other day at the feed store, I was wearing my Northstar on my right hip. The guy there had to cut some plastic off a pallet of feed bags, but he couldn;t find his knife in his pocket. Stretch to the rescue! With a comment like "You should be carrying one of these". He replies "People with knives like that scare me". I said "Do I scare you, Max?" and he says "Naw. Just, you know, people that carry knives on their hip". hmmmm Interesting. THis guy is huge and relatively conservative in social thought. I've known him for quite some time.
 
Nice letter- I experienced same thing at a graduation party when I pulled my MOP CASE 54 Trapper out to cut balloon strings after watching a half dozen other adults try to break them, bite 'em, etc and then heard from 3 people, 'kind of large isn't it?'
Much of our population is becoming ignorant wimps wrapped around pidily lives balanced on credit cards, wasting time on major sports as it is better to watch than do, or so they believe.
 
Good letter Peter. Unfortunately, we live in a world our grandfathers would be ashamed of.
 
Recently, I saw a documentary about some folks that live in Tirol (part of Austria) some ways of the beaten path a very simple farmers life. They live up in the mountains on inclines that are so steep that use of modern machinery is pretty much impossible. Pretty much every second frame of this documentary showed someone using or sharpening a knife, axe or scythe. I think they would not be able to understand blade-phobia as it would mean certain suicide for them to ban bladed tools from their society. I mean, EVERYONE held a knife at one point or another, even the 80 year old grandmother trimming of strings while knitting and spinning wool. I think they would look incredulously upon blade-phobia of modern society. Quite sad, how far we have left our roots.
 
I'm glad I live in Florida. You can carry pretty much any kniofe you want openly, and anything you want concealed with a concealed weapon permit. Yes, I've walked into Wal-Mart and Publix with my RAT-7 on my hip, no one blinked an eye.
 
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