Public perception of people carrying knives

RedLynx said:
I've kept my forum and real life use of "sheeple" to a minimum. Sometimes it's difficult though. "Contain the rage, Justin, contain the rage."
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It might help the rage if you take a second to think of things through their eyes. Not trying to be a preachy jerk, I'm just saying. Everyone here wants Society at large to see our knives as just tools*, which is admirable. However, the news seemingly has reports every day of someone getting shot (and there was that mass stabbing in China not too far back), so people here forget or just bluster past the fact that many folks today see knives as weapons. Period. Knives are considered weapons by a great many people, because (DING!) they can be used as such.

Given that fact, is it any wonder why people are uncomfortable around strangers who deploy a weapon in their immediate vicinity? Hell, I'm a big shooting enthusiast too, but I've been to plenty of ranges where others who were there made me uncomfortable because of their appearance, or actions, or comments that were overheard. And these are strangers with guns. So, I would pack up and leave. Am I one of the sheeple for not wanting to be around people who made me uncomfortable because they had a firearm? So, I don't understand this idea that people who are uncomfortable with others having knives makes them sheeple. Maybe they're just people who are momentarily uncomfortable when a stranger deploys an edged weapon in their immediate area. It also explains why people who take out a Traditional design knife tend not to see folks looking uncomfortable around them. Folks have memories of their fathers or grandfathers carrying such a knife. But, you deploying a ZT801 with its characteristic CLACK and suddenly you have a dagger-shaped knife in your hand...I can see how folks who don't have a hobby in knives themselves might be nervous.

That doesn't make 'em sheep, sheeple, or anything else. They're just people. Ok, preachy jerk mode off.

That's my answer to the OP anyway. Me personally, like some others stated; I generally do not deploy any of my knives in a setting in which there are people I do not know personally. I just don't need the (understandable on their part) hassle.




*Difficult when so many knives are now sold as tactical quick-deployment "hard-use" knives, and the marketing makes it clear that these knives are meant to serve as weapons in a pinch. Emerson, ZT, and some Spydercos, I'm looking at you.
 
Quiet said:
It might help the rage if you take a second to think of things through their eyes. Not trying to be a preachy jerk, I'm just saying. Everyone here wants Society at large to see our knives as just tools*, which is admirable. However, the news seemingly has reports every day of someone getting shot (and there was that mass stabbing in China not too far back), so people here forget or just bluster past the fact that many folks today see knives as weapons. Period. Knives are considered weapons by a great many people, because (DING!) they can be used as such.

Given that fact, is it any wonder why people are uncomfortable around strangers who deploy a weapon in their immediate vicinity? Hell, I'm a big shooting enthusiast too, but I've been to plenty of rangers where others who were there made me uncomfortable because of their appearance, or actions, or comments that were overheard. And these are strangers with guns. So, I would pack up and leave. Am I one of the sheeple for not wanting to be around people who made me uncomfortable because they had a firearm? So, I don't understand this idea that people who are uncomfortable with others having knives makes them sheeple. Maybe they're just people who are momentarily uncomfortable when a stranger deploys an edged weapon in their immediate area. It also explains why people who take out a Traditional design knife tend not to see folks looking uncomfortable around them. Folks have memories of their fathers or grandfathers carrying such a knife. But, you deploying a ZT801 with its characteristic CLACK and suddenly you have a dagger-shaped knife in your hand...I can see how folks who don't have a hobby in knives themselves might be nervous.

That doesn't make 'em sheep, sheeple, or anything else. They're just people. Ok, preachy jerk mode off.

That's my answer to the OP anyway. Me personally, like some others stated; I generally do not deploy any of my knives in a setting in which there are people I do not know personally. I just don't need the (understandable on their part) hassle.




*Difficult when so many knives are now sold as tactical quick-deployment "hard-use" knives, and the marketing makes it clear that these knives are meant to serve as weapons in a pinch. Emerson, ZT, and some Spydercos, I'm looking at you.
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Sorry for the short response but I gotta Skype with the gf who is seven hours ahead of me... but I think you make a great point that isn't preachy at all.

I am reminded of when the NRA asked their members to please stop bringing their rifles into their local restaurants at lunchtime... I do agree some people in our hobby can go a bit overboard, and as you point out, even worry those of us who understand them.
 
RedLynx said:
Sorry for the short response but I gotta Skype with the gf who is seven hours ahead of me... but I think you make a great point that isn't preachy at all.

I am reminded of when the NRA asked their members to please stop bringing their rifles into their local restaurants at lunchtime... I do agree some people in our hobby can go a bit overboard, and as you point out, even worry those of us who understand them.
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I appreciate it. I am fairly well aware that my viewpoint isn't a popular one (not that that has ever concerned me), but sometimes I think people are in such a hurry to discount everyone's existence who might not see things as they do. I can't personally understand guys who don't carry knives, but I don't consider them lesser people for it. It's just a knife. Many people carry a knife and the most they do with it all day is cut an apple or smoothly open an envelope. Are you really less of a man if you eat your apple whole or rip the envelope open? It takes all kinds. :thumbup:
 
salmonkiller said:
I say it's none of their business what I am carrying.I can't go through life worrying about what other people are thinking.I am respectful towards others,and if they look at me like I am from another planet that is their problem not mine.I am not breaking any laws, so they can KMA.........Usually no one even notices what I am carrying, so it has been a non-issue.
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My exact thoughts! If ever someone sees my pocket clip and asks I reply "it's a tool". Most of the time it's another knife guy asking what I carry.
 
Quiet said:
It might help the rage if you take a second to think of things through their eyes. Not trying to be a preachy jerk, I'm just saying. Everyone here wants Society at large to see our knives as just tools*, which is admirable. However, the news seemingly has reports every day of someone getting shot (and there was that mass stabbing in China not too far back), so people here forget or just bluster past the fact that many folks today see knives as weapons. Period. Knives are considered weapons by a great many people, because (DING!) they can be used as such.

Given that fact, is it any wonder why people are uncomfortable around strangers who deploy a weapon in their immediate vicinity? Hell, I'm a big shooting enthusiast too, but I've been to plenty of ranges where others who were there made me uncomfortable because of their appearance, or actions, or comments that were overheard. And these are strangers with guns. So, I would pack up and leave. Am I one of the sheeple for not wanting to be around people who made me uncomfortable because they had a firearm? So, I don't understand this idea that people who are uncomfortable with others having knives makes them sheeple. Maybe they're just people who are momentarily uncomfortable when a stranger deploys an edged weapon in their immediate area. It also explains why people who take out a Traditional design knife tend not to see folks looking uncomfortable around them. Folks have memories of their fathers or grandfathers carrying such a knife. But, you deploying a ZT801 with its characteristic CLACK and suddenly you have a dagger-shaped knife in your hand...I can see how folks who don't have a hobby in knives themselves might be nervous.

That doesn't make 'em sheep, sheeple, or anything else. They're just people. Ok, preachy jerk mode off.

That's my answer to the OP anyway. Me personally, like some others stated; I generally do not deploy any of my knives in a setting in which there are people I do not know personally. I just don't need the (understandable on their part) hassle.




*Difficult when so many knives are now sold as tactical quick-deployment "hard-use" knives, and the marketing makes it clear that these knives are meant to serve as weapons in a pinch. Emerson, ZT, and some Spydercos, I'm looking at you.
Click to expand...

That for the most part echos my own thoughts on the matter.
 
KBnCO said:
I recently started getting back into knives(pocket) again after years of not carrying and I don't know why I stopped. I used to carry an old knife that was given to me by my grandfather everywhere and used it almost daily and not once did I ever get a strange look( that I recall) for using it in a public place. It seems now if you even carry a pocket knife, much less use it in public, I get some looks like I have an arm growing from my forehead. Is this a common occurrence from other users here, or am I just getting older and paranoid? What say you?
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People tend to notice blades, which is why deep carry/shallow carry pocket clip debate is a moot point. Its why I just have mine flopping around in my pocket. But, even in suburbia and urban environments I'm in nobody gets worked up about seeing someone with a blade as long as you're not waving it around. People do tend to notice someone using a knife.

Obviously some places have a much different attitude towards knife carry than other places do. I'm sure in NYC, visibly carrying a knife will probably garner more attention than rural Oklahoma. London would probably have their version of SWAT called on you.

Also (parroting off of Quiet), in London, knives are commonly used in murders and most robberies. Thus, their viewed as a weapon. In the US, as much as BF hates to admit it, the tactical/huge folder might be viewed that way also. Its usually a good reason to consider carrying a MT, SAK, or traditional folder because people still largely view those as tools.
 
Aren't most non-cutlery knives illegal to carry there? I watch a metric tonne of British TV but obviously it doesn't have a lot of real world knife knowledge in it. There have been a few times on various programs where it has been hard for a character to even obtain a carpet/Stanley knife.
 
RedLynx said:
Aren't most non-cutlery knives illegal to carry there?.
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Nope, slipjoint under 3 inches is legal to carry, you can carry a lock knife or fixed blade with a good reason. Knives are easy to get in the UK anybody 18+ can walk into a shop and buy a huge fixed blade, lock knife, machete etc.
 
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knife dragon said:
dang you beat me to the obvious sheeple answer. lol

i had a date sat. 12-13 just past. prior to our date she called me and ruined my freaking nap time. she said that she ran a background check on me. i was like so what i'm cool with that, i have nothing to hide. coincidently she saw something that i had told her about from my past. she also saw that i had been charged with carry my gun without a permit. she said that freaked her out, but she really meant it. she had serious anxiety issues over it all & to make matters worse she pumped herself up and ran down a path that she admitted to it not making sense.

so she didn't cancel and picked me up. while we were at the club i showed her some pictures. like a typical nosey women she starts going through my pictures. i didn't stop her nosey ass because as i said before i have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. sHE TOLD ME THAT SHE KNEW I HAD A KNIFE COLLECTION,
i was like ok ... so as she goes through my phone pics she sees my gun in it's case. she then asks is that you gun.

i said hell yeah lol. she asked do you have it on you now. i said no i don't have a permit so it's home. she then starts to run down her anxiety road again. i have never seen anything like it before in my life. Mind you before leaving i guess she forgot that she asked me if i carried or was going to carry the gun . i said no...
i said i do carry a knife everywhere though. i showed her the knife, told her small details and her anxiety raised up, but she didn't get so uptight & seemed fine.

If she don't get her shit together asap she is history. i understood her and tried ways to calm her down and reason with her. all of which she really appreciated, i know that because she gave made a compliment on how i seemed to be dealing with her...

The moral to the story is sheeple will think what they want and blow the situation out of proportion just because of their own innate fears/ignorance. iT'S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT THAT, except try to deal with them in a reasonable manner when called for. :thumbup:
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She sounds a bit paranoid. Anyway my first date with my now fiancée was her asking me if I'd take her to the shooting range and teach her how to shoot a gun. True love :)
 
Yext said:
Nope, slipjoint under 3 inches is legal to carry, you can carry a lock knife or fixed blade with a good reason.
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That's good to know. It would be difficult for me to go below 3" but a Cold Steel Tuff Lite at 2 1/2 would still be pretty good.
 
I'm not too terribly familiar with their laws. But you have to be 18 to even buy a butter knife. They also have quite a list blades that are flat out banned for ownership.
I remember reading a article of someone surrendering a Star Trek Klingon sword and they were describing it as some weapon of mass destruction.

Also, I believe you actually have to have a "work related" reason to be carrying a knife. I'm not entirely sure about that though.
 
The cow said:
I'm not too terribly familiar with their laws. But you have to be 18 to even buy a butter knife. They also have quite a list blades that are flat out banned for ownership.
I remember reading a article of someone surrendering a Star Trek Klingon sword and they were describing it as some weapon of mass destruction.

Also, I believe you actually have to have a "work related" reason to be carrying a knife. I'm not entirely sure about that though.
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Probably true. I actually like a lot about London and the larger general area of England in general. But I don't have a work-related reason to carry, just that "I want to." It would be tough to deal with for me just because I'm so used to carrying. That said, if the people at large are happy with it, good on em.
 
The truth of the matter is most stabbings are done with kitchen knives. Lol,you'll never look at Martha Steward the same again.:D
 
skyhorse said:
The truth of the matter is most stabbing deaths are done with kitchen knives. Lol,you'll never look at Martha Steward the same again.:D
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True. Most crimes I hear about that are stabby use weapons of opportunity... very few of these cases have a perp that brings a knife with him to use.
 
Yext said:
Yeah I wish they'd change the locking part, I'd love to edc a mini cqc7.
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It's pretty obvious locking knives are folding knives, to us, but... well we can hope for the future. :) I know people tend to think laws around these things are going into the toilet, and in some ways they are, but I also think there's always hope in the future for reversal and more tolerance too. We never know what will change the world, or how it will change.
 
There is no doubt that the way knives are looked at by society at large, has changed, and not for the better.

I'm an old fart, no getting around that. I'm 73 years of age, so I grew up in an era earlier than most of you. I was in the boy scouts during the early years of the Korean war, and the world was a very different place then. For one thing, knives were NOT demonized at all, let alone like they are now. Every single man I knew growing up had a knife on him if he had pants on. There was no way around it. A pocket knife was something a man carried. Didn't matter if he was a delivery truck driver, auto mechanic, store clerk, office worker, mailman, whatever. A pocket knife was just something a man had on him. And then, it was always a similar type, a smallish two blade jack of some kind. Serpentine jack, sleeve board jack, barlow, peanut, dogleg…

There were no tactical knives, and very few lock blades around. The most common locking blade knife was the Italian style switchblade the guys with the ducktail haircuts carried. Knives of that type were simple thought of as a punks weapon. It was presumed that the only reason a knife had a pointy blade and a lock was suit was usable as a stabbing weapon. The men looking down on these "punks" knives were not shrinking violets or sheltered members of a clergy. Our neighbors include men who had seen the darkest of WW2, and were verterns of the war in both Europe and the Pacific. Our scoutmaster was a retired Marine that saw service on Guadalcanal and some other garden spots of the Pacific.

Even in the late 1960's and 70's, when the Buck 110 changed the knife world, knives were still looked at as a tool. The black pouch on the belt holding the Buckknife was seen on soldiers, police officers, construction workers, truck drivers, and sportsmen. Nothing bad there, even after if became known that it was the favorite of Charles Manson and his bunch.

But in the 1980's was when I saw it all change. The birth of the tactical knife. First came Cold Steel and their marketing, and also Pacific Cutlery, with the balisongs. Overnight, TV shows, movies, all had baling flipping villains up to no good with a flair. Tanto pointed knives got good billing in the hands of movie bad guys, and the young men couldn't wait to spend their money on what the latest knife used by Stallone or Ah-nold was wielding in the latest action movie. The tactical knife has replaced the tired James Dean switchblade as the bad boy punks weapon and craze. So in effect, it was the cutlery industry itself, aided by Hollywood and the consumer who made it all happen. Things got crazier and crazier, and more and more outlandish designed knives sold like hotcakes to impressionable young men with lots of disposable income.

Fast forward to 2014, and the knife has become the manly badge of something for fans of certain TV shows and video games. So if there is a resin to point at why knives are demonized today, all we have to do is look in a mirror. To quote the old Pogo comic, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
 
jackknife said:
There is no doubt that the way knives are looked at by society at large, has changed, and not for the better.

I'm an old fart, no getting around that. I'm 73 years of age, so I grew up in an era earlier than most of you. I was in the boy scouts during the early years of the Korean war, and the world was a very different place then. For one thing, knives were NOT demonized at all, let alone like they are now. Every single man I knew growing up had a knife on him if he had pants on. There was no way around it. A pocket knife was something a man carried. Didn't matter if he was a delivery truck driver, auto mechanic, store clerk, office worker, mailman, whatever. A pocket knife was just something a man had on him. And then, it was always a similar type, a smallish two blade jack of some kind. Serpentine jack, sleeve board jack, barlow, peanut, dogleg…

There were no tactical knives, and very few lock blades around. The most common locking blade knife was the Italian style switchblade the guys with the ducktail haircuts carried. Knives of that type were simple thought of as a punks weapon. It was presumed that the only reason a knife had a pointy blade and a lock was suit was usable as a stabbing weapon. The men looking down on these "punks" knives were not shrinking violets or sheltered members of a clergy. Our neighbors include men who had seen the darkest of WW2, and were verterns of the war in both Europe and the Pacific. Our scoutmaster was a retired Marine that saw service on Guadalcanal and some other garden spots of the Pacific.

Even in the late 1960's and 70's, when the Buck 110 changed the knife world, knives were still looked at as a tool. The black pouch on the belt holding the Buckknife was seen on soldiers, police officers, construction workers, truck drivers, and sportsmen. Nothing bad there, even after if became known that it was the favorite of Charles Manson and his bunch.

But in the 1980's was when I saw it all change. The birth of the tactical knife. First came Cold Steel and their marketing, and also Pacific Cutlery, with the balisongs. Overnight, TV shows, movies, all had baling flipping villains up to no good with a flair. Tanto pointed knives got good billing in the hands of movie bad guys, and the young men couldn't wait to spend their money on what the latest knife used by Stallone or Ah-nold was wielding in the latest action movie. The tactical knife has replaced the tired James Dean switchblade as the bad boy punks weapon and craze. So in effect, it was the cutlery industry itself, aided by Hollywood and the consumer who made it all happen. Things got crazier and crazier, and more and more outlandish designed knives sold like hotcakes to impressionable young men with lots of disposable income.

Fast forward to 2014, and the knife has become the manly badge of something for fans of certain TV shows and video games. So if there is a resin to point at why knives are demonized today, all we have to do is look in a mirror. To quote the old Pogo comic, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
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I am not quite as old as you. :D

Being 49.

But growing up in the mid to late 70's and early 80's I can relate to the changes because I am old enough to remember them, the major ones that is.

TV, Movies and advertising has done the overall reputation of knives more harm than good in how the general public sees them.
 
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