I hang around more lawyers than the average Joe and allow me to say one thing: all of the hype surrounding knives labeled as "Spec Ops," "Spec War," "SWAT," "Tactical" etc, ad nauseum is from a liability standpoint, begging for a lawsuit. All it will take is one dead criminal with some survivors looking to cash in. They WILL find a mealy-mouthed weapon-phobic trial lawyer, DA, or your worst nightmare--both!
The ELU will not be the only one under the gun so to speak. In the criminal trial I easily envision, the maker or the company rep will be hauled into court and asked why they market their folder or fixed blade as the "Rabid Bite" or the "Widowmaker" or some other such nonsense.
Why will this come up for the maker or the company at the criminal trial of an ELU? Because the maker or company can look forward to being long-armed through a summons into being the ELU's deeper pocketed co-defendant in the wrongful death suit to follow.
Now, the odds of such a case succeeding on the behalf of a dead perp are low depending on your jurisdiction, but the cost of defending it will ruin most people. You do not get a public defender in a civil case.
So why name a knife something that conjures up silent stabbings, glorifies the paramilitarization of our police forces, (Thanks again Chief Gates), or glorifies putting people down through rapid deployment, when one can name the knife something innocuous?
It seems to me that cooler marketing heads will not be the folks dragging the knife industry into the same hostile ground the gun industry finds itself in. Companies like Strider, Fallkniven, Benchmade (most of the time) and even Cold Steel, seem to get it--name your knife something nonthreatening or something incomprehensible. The Strider Model WB looks and performs as tactically and lethally as anything you could possibly want facing the bad guy--it has everything it seems except a stupid name that will surely get you more heat than it is worth. Sure "Model WB" is a boring, non-sexy name, but if you have two fairly equivalent knives, why buy into the troublemaking image of the colorfully named perp-sticker?
Conservative naming is the way you do not wind up in court and your ELUs do not wind up answering these types of questions while the maker winces:
"Out of all the knives in the world you could have chosen to carry in your pocket you were carrying a quote-unquote tactical folding knife designed for a quick flick of the blade called a 'Widowmaker' weren't you?"
"And that name didn't dissuade you from buying that knife did it?"
"In fact this advertisement I have already entered into evidence helped influence your buying of a 'Widowmaker' didn't it?"
"It seems that a person who carries something called a 'Widowmaker' could only have one thing in mind should he have to use it doesn't it?"
"And this 'Widowmaker' I hold in my hand is the same one you used to kill Kenny isn't it?"
And just wait until your sinister looking Plaintiff's or State's Exhibit One gets handed around to twelve jurors who never handle knives. Watch them look at the recurve, or the serrations, and the non-reflective coating on the 'Widowmaker'. No doubt some will think that it would have been more humane to shoot the poor bastard. . . .
Why get into this completely avoidable crap? Buy a knife without the flight of fantasy naming that you, the saavy knife buyer, knows will fill the defense role if required. Leave the juvenile naming conventions to the people who like carrying oodles of liability coverage along with their "macho" knives.
Names mean nothing: I know a guy named Ira that could probably kick the butts of 95% of the people in this world. I knew a guy named Bart Ivano****---named changed to protect the innocent--tough sounding name for a guy who'd probably run from a Chihuahua with indigestion. I know some women in my Aikido dojo whom most men would hesitate to tangle with. They are not exceptionally brutish or anything like that. None of them have names that inspire fear, nor do they seemingly desire nicknames that will inspire such fear. They will inspire wariness in any potential perp because they will appear cool and competent when they are supposed to be wailing for mercy. If armed, they won't need a badsass name etched into the blade or printed on a brochure back home.
A knife speaks for itself. All of the naming in the world won't change its strengths or its shortcomings.
[This message has been edited by lawdog (edited 15 September 1999).]
The ELU will not be the only one under the gun so to speak. In the criminal trial I easily envision, the maker or the company rep will be hauled into court and asked why they market their folder or fixed blade as the "Rabid Bite" or the "Widowmaker" or some other such nonsense.
Why will this come up for the maker or the company at the criminal trial of an ELU? Because the maker or company can look forward to being long-armed through a summons into being the ELU's deeper pocketed co-defendant in the wrongful death suit to follow.
Now, the odds of such a case succeeding on the behalf of a dead perp are low depending on your jurisdiction, but the cost of defending it will ruin most people. You do not get a public defender in a civil case.
So why name a knife something that conjures up silent stabbings, glorifies the paramilitarization of our police forces, (Thanks again Chief Gates), or glorifies putting people down through rapid deployment, when one can name the knife something innocuous?
It seems to me that cooler marketing heads will not be the folks dragging the knife industry into the same hostile ground the gun industry finds itself in. Companies like Strider, Fallkniven, Benchmade (most of the time) and even Cold Steel, seem to get it--name your knife something nonthreatening or something incomprehensible. The Strider Model WB looks and performs as tactically and lethally as anything you could possibly want facing the bad guy--it has everything it seems except a stupid name that will surely get you more heat than it is worth. Sure "Model WB" is a boring, non-sexy name, but if you have two fairly equivalent knives, why buy into the troublemaking image of the colorfully named perp-sticker?
Conservative naming is the way you do not wind up in court and your ELUs do not wind up answering these types of questions while the maker winces:
"Out of all the knives in the world you could have chosen to carry in your pocket you were carrying a quote-unquote tactical folding knife designed for a quick flick of the blade called a 'Widowmaker' weren't you?"
"And that name didn't dissuade you from buying that knife did it?"
"In fact this advertisement I have already entered into evidence helped influence your buying of a 'Widowmaker' didn't it?"
"It seems that a person who carries something called a 'Widowmaker' could only have one thing in mind should he have to use it doesn't it?"
"And this 'Widowmaker' I hold in my hand is the same one you used to kill Kenny isn't it?"
And just wait until your sinister looking Plaintiff's or State's Exhibit One gets handed around to twelve jurors who never handle knives. Watch them look at the recurve, or the serrations, and the non-reflective coating on the 'Widowmaker'. No doubt some will think that it would have been more humane to shoot the poor bastard. . . .
Why get into this completely avoidable crap? Buy a knife without the flight of fantasy naming that you, the saavy knife buyer, knows will fill the defense role if required. Leave the juvenile naming conventions to the people who like carrying oodles of liability coverage along with their "macho" knives.
Names mean nothing: I know a guy named Ira that could probably kick the butts of 95% of the people in this world. I knew a guy named Bart Ivano****---named changed to protect the innocent--tough sounding name for a guy who'd probably run from a Chihuahua with indigestion. I know some women in my Aikido dojo whom most men would hesitate to tangle with. They are not exceptionally brutish or anything like that. None of them have names that inspire fear, nor do they seemingly desire nicknames that will inspire such fear. They will inspire wariness in any potential perp because they will appear cool and competent when they are supposed to be wailing for mercy. If armed, they won't need a badsass name etched into the blade or printed on a brochure back home.
A knife speaks for itself. All of the naming in the world won't change its strengths or its shortcomings.
[This message has been edited by lawdog (edited 15 September 1999).]