What I don't need to hear about khukuries...

What ever! I detect a bunch of what if, PC mumbo jumbo here! The famous Gurkha Kukri did not become famous as a letter opener on some gay rights activist's desk... The kukri helped save us from Nazi and Japanese tyranny! Evil Nazis, Japanese and other axis troops lost their heads to the kukri! It is absolutely a Genuine weapon of war as well as a fine tool! This one of the most silly posts I've ever read on the forum and it directly offends the GH business establishe by Craig Gottlieb.I find positive things from HI and GH I hope they both do well and I will never take cheap shot at one or the other..Drink a gin and tonic and sort yourself out! Cheers!
 
If we want to keep khukuris out of the press as long as possible, how about addressing this quote:

No battle blade in the history of the world has more documented kills than the khukuri
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This quote can be found at the bottom of the third paragraph in the Khukuri FAQ Introduction.

If I happened to be an average politican, I would probably be more alarmed by this quote rather than the one that started this thread. I can see it now: "This type of knife is responsible for more confirmed kills than any other bladed weapon recorded! Each and every one of these vicious weapons must be confiscated and destroyed for the good of mankind!!" :rolleyes:
 
ABDB,

No battle blade in the history of the world has more documented kills than the khukuri
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We can also say that the Ford Explorer had more confirm kills last year than any other passenger vehicle, but that doesn't make it a weapon either. Non-the-less I am glad you raised this one, becuase we can probably argue the merits of this statement as well.

Statistics on edge weapon use during combat are notoriously vague. We can tally reports on the various wound catagories treated at aid stations, but some have argued, that we should not infer edge weapon lethality from these relatively low numbers since edge weapon use during combat results in a disproportionate number of dead versus wounded.

250,000 Gurkas served during the Second World War (most as part of the Indian Army), and each of them were issued rifle and bayonet. The bayonet was by far the most lethal edge weapon these men carried. Whether the bayonet falls under the loosely defined "battle blade" moniker or not is something we should leave for the subject of another thread.

We enjoy these knives, and we enjoy reading about these knives. It is natural that we gravitate towards those incident in which they were used heroically in battle. But, try to keep thing in perspective. The were very few military citations issued to Gurkhas for using their knives to top coconuts, or for anyother general field chore; but, that does not mean that the tool wasn't used that way, even though it was probably exclusively used that way by the majority of the men.

PipeyCain,

This one of the most silly posts I've ever read on the forum and it directly offends the GH business establishe by Craig Gottlieb.I find positive things from HI and GH I hope they both do well and I will never take cheap shot at one or the other..Drink a gin and tonic and sort yourself out! Cheers!
Click to expand...

There was no intention to snipe at Gurkha House. We were discussing the merits of equating these knives with weapons. Your site was not mentioned until Craig volunteered the name. As I commented to Craig, you are not the only ones using this kind of language. I will respect your opinion on the "silly post" comment.

n2s
 
15 years ago when I was putting together information trying to define Himalayan Imports and khukuris there was not as much political pressure on guns and knives as there is today. If I were starting over today I might take a slightly different approach. But to say the khukuri is NOT a weapon if somebody has the inclination (or DUTY such as military and leo personnel) to use it as such won't hold water. But as mentioned, the same can be said for a baseball bat or a rock.
 
I have been a student of historical fencing for a very long time, with an abiding love and respect for the broadsword. I always have several around. Talk about a blade with "documented kills"!

All the blabbing about "battle blades", "documented kills", and the khukuri's use in war is extremely myopic in a historical context. The tallying of "kills" has been around quite a while.

I have not seen any legislation specifically targeting the broadsword in the thirty or so years of my association with it. That could possibly change if some of the hyperbole about the khukuri were applied to it.
 
Fin, I have to agree with you totally here. 1st of all, the khukuri has simply not been used in as many wars or as large scale a war as some other edged weapons, so the statement on the FAQ is not really true. I also still think that to call a new-in-the-box (so to speak) knife a "genuine weapon of war" is still at least inaccurate. If I were to try and sell a re-pro. Colt 1860 Army as such, would that be accurate? I know it's basically a semantic argument, but "geniune weapon of war" does seem to me to mean an historic relic. Whether it is appropriate in the current political environment to put "genuine weapon of war" as a prominent statement on the 1st page of a commercial web site is a different argument. But as Uncle Bill already said, everybody's free to do what they want. I was simply agreeing with N2S that we don't think those statements will do anything good for khukuri ownership in this country. :rolleyes:
 
I'm no historian by any means but I'd guess the blades used during the Crusades killed more people than any other blades in recent history (if you can call the last 1,000 years recent) but the word in the FAQ "documented" is the key which to the best of my knowledge makes the statement true but perhaps misleading. I don't think they kept records during the Crusades. But, as mentioned, if I were doing it over today I'd probably take a different tack than I did 15 years ago.
 
For real fun we could always put a Khukuri knife = ultimate weapon proponent, in the same room with a Bowie knife = ultimate weapon guy. :)

It is always fun to look at these two knives in parallel. Both are ancient patterns that can be traced back to the vicking Sax and the Greek Kopis, and both enter the western conscience during the early 19th century. They have been veterans of every war we have fought since then. They have a reputation as killers, although most veterans will admit that the most aggressive thing they ever did with their knife was attack a case of rations.

Its fun to watch the correlation between hype and knife size. The more hype they get, the bigger the each of the knives becomes, as though they were actually expanding to accomodate an ego. Bowies have been known to grow to nearly sword size; while khukuries judging from a couple of examples Uncle Bill sent me this week are not far behind. :)

You just got to love it.

n2s
 
Uncle,

The most accurate records of casualties from the Crusades are of the massacres - prisoners, civilians. These figures were not usually inflated as much as battle numbers.
 
not2sharp,

So true. The bowie has been singled out for legislation prohibiting it's possesion, mostly in the Southern states where it was, and still is sometimes used with "fearful execution".
 
Let's boil it down to this: The khukuri is a very handy cutting tool and that's how it's used 99.999% of the time. But if the situation arises and it must be pressed into service as a weapon it works quite well in that capacity, too. And I think this is the philosophy that should be taken in promoting this blade and anything else that could serve the double duty -- from guns to hammers.
 
I just changed the HI brochure that we send out on a very regular basis. In fact, I'm printing a couple right now.

It used to read like this:

"No battle blade in the history of the world has more documented kills than the khukuri. In the country of Nepal the khukuri is the most widely used tool. It is used for everything from felling trees to digging potatoes. The men who make khukuris in Nepal are called "kamis" and they belong to the untouchable caste -- this because they work metal taken from the Earth.. Some kami families can trace their knifemaking history back for four hundred years."

It now reads like this:

"In the country of Nepal the khukuri is the most widely used tool. It is used for everything from felling trees to digging potatoes. The men who make khukuris in Nepal are called "kamis" and they belong to the untouchable caste -- this because they work metal taken from the Earth.. Some kami families can trace their knifemaking history back for four hundred years."
 
I think this perfectly illustrates what we've been talking about. It is better to advertise the khukuri as a tool, and not a weapon. I do think that some khukuris were designed as weapons 1st, tools 2nd, but they won't be used that way these days. We may all understand that anything can be a weapon, but alot of activist types can't. To them, if you call it a weapon and it looks scary, it is a weapon and only a weapon and so should be banned. There are alot of people today who believe disarmourment will make the world a safe place, and I for one hope they never even realise khukuris exist. I don't think it's a bad idea to simply link the khukuri with the gorkhas and their heritage, but unfortunatly I think we all need to be careful calling things weapons, etc. publicly.

Personally I feel that since people have been linked to more murders in the past than anything else, we must ban them as soon as possible!! :rolleyes: ;)
 
I think HI should budget for a full page ad in "Testicle Knives" Magazine featuring the new copy. Senators, Representatives, and other legislative closet testical knife fans will breathe a vast sigh of relief.
 
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