How does it not? Just by gripping the knife, you strengthen the frame lock itself making it unable to close on you in the same way the LAWKS system works on a liner lock.
if the lock does not mate properly with the tang of the blade (something you would probably only see on cheaper knives, or as a defect on a more expensive one) then you will not have good lock up. I dont necesarrily mean closing on your fingers, thats rare even among cheap knives (as long as you buy from a reputable cheap brand like byrd) but rather that you could have a lot of blade play. and honestly if the frame itself is weak and put under stress and snaps at the thin section where a frame lock is bent (again, not a problem on better knives or better cheapos) your hands being there is not going to stop the blade from rotating.
again, not likely, but I am a firm believer that you should take as little chance in these matter as possible.
and I would trust lawks more than either of these knives, though not by a whole lot. I trust emerson's design a whole lot, I trust benchmade linerlocks and I trust spyderco compression locks (and so on and so forth) because those companies have demonstrated to me that they just simply work.
I would honestly say that I wont trust a lock (even a frame lock) unless I have a chance to whack at it and see what its going to do or someone else that I trust does it.
tbh I didnt trust the axis lock the first time I saw it. I thought that accidentally hitting it could cause it to close and chop off your fingers. and thats from benchmade whos locks I trust. then I got to handle it and use it in an EDC role where a failure was far, far less likely to be a catastrophic event.
a lock is not good just because its a frame lock and some company X does it right, a lock is not just bad because some company Y did a bad job.
take your chances when the most dangerous item in the room is your apple.
