5. Never lend your knife to anyone unless you are near death and they might be able to save you with it!
I'm a generous man and frequently lend knives to other folks. I've yet to loose one or have it seriously damaged. I say, let the rest of the world see what a good knife is.
9. When in doubt sever but dont kill.
In Oregon, that would send you to jail. In Oregon, as in many states, self-defense is very black and white. You may use deadly force, and, in Oregon, a knife is always considered deadly force, to defend yourself only if you think that your attacker is immediately capable of and immediately intends to cause you a great bodily injury and there's no practical way for you to escape. In such a situation, it's hard to justify using less-than-lethal force. To do so would be to imply that you have doubt, that you doubt that your attacker is capable of and/or intends to cause you a great bodily injury. But, if you have doubt, then it's really not a self-defense situation.
There have been several cases in Oregon where people have deliberately shot at attackers in what would otherwise have been legitimate self-defense situations, with deliberate intent to wound, shot into the leg deliberately, for example, and have subsequently been convicted of "unlawful wounding." Had they shot to kill, they would have been acquitted on grounds of self-defense.
This does not mean that you have to kill, but it does mean that deadly force must be used with deadly intent. In another classic Oregon case, a store owner returned to his store after hours one night to retrieve something he'd forgotten to take home. He entered from the back. He became aware that there was someone in the front of the store. The owner was a target shooter, so he went to his car and got a .22 target pistol he happened to have in the trunk. He went into the front of the store and the would-be robber confronted him with a knife. The whole thing was filmed by an anti-shoplifting camera. In clear response to the knife threat, the store owner fired one shot to center-of-mass with deadly intent. The robber fell to the ground and was motionless. Keeping his gun trained on the robber, the owner then moved slowly and cautiously toward the counter to use the phone there. The store owner was not surprisingly quite nervous, quite upset. The gun is a target-shooting gun with a hair-trigger. Somehow, almost a minute after the first shot, a second round got fired and hit the robber in the head. The medical examiner determined that the first shot had not killed the robber at all. Given prompt medical attention, he would most likely have survived. But, the second shot killed him. The store owner was convicted of man slaughter. Why? Because he shot a man (by accident, yes, which why it was not murder) who was not, at that point, a threat to him. Thanks to the camera video, the jury could clearly see that the first shot was justified self-defense and that the second one was an accident, but a shot nonetheless.
My points here are that A) In Oregon, a knife is considered deadly force. B) In Oregon, deadly force must be used with deadly intent. C) The situation can turn on a dime moment-to-moment. But, whatever you do, be positive about it -- no doubts. You need to be able to stand in front of a jury and swear that you lashed out with your knife (which is deadly force) because you were absolutely certain that at that moment, your attacker was capable of and intended to cause you a great bodily injury and that you could see no other alternative but to counter with deadly force.
