Why knives should be allowed on planes.

JD Mandrell

JD Mandrell

Joined
Apr 20, 2001
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Got this off the Victorinox webpage.


The passengers on the Indian Airlines inland flight number 524 from Bombay to Bangalore shared some minutes of desperate anxiety with a young mother who cried out for help when her child appeared to be choking on a hard sweet.
Attempts to save the child with the aid of an oxygen cylinder were of no avail.

Fortunately, there was a doctor on board, and the child's extremely critical condition made him decide to carry out an emergency operation. However, it turned out that the aeroplane's first aid kit failed to include a scalpel, so the air hostess made an urgent appeal over the intercom system for a knife.

One of the passengers handed the doctor a new, clean, sharp Swiss Army Knife, and the doctor saved the child's life with a deft incision in its windpipe.

The child was taken to hospital immediately after the plane landed in Bangalore, and not even an infection resulted from the impromptu operation.
 
This should serve as a good example of us knife toters. But it won't. Our bass-ackwards beaurocracy won't even give it the time of day. Know why? Something like this will shatter the picture they have painted of people with knives, that they are murderous people and that their knives are dangerous weaons.

Sad but true.
 
Yeah, it's the same as with guns. bad guns stories get front page while the 2,000,000 times a year people use them for good get totally ignored.
 
In our local paper today, I saw this:
During a journey last month to Central America, Tim and Amy Concannon twice made it through airports in Dallas and San Diego with a 2-inch Swiss Army knife dangling from a key chain.

"The knife was brought to our attention by the Costa Rican security," said Amy Concannon, an Escondido veterinarian who was surprised when inspectors returned the knife to her husband. "It was then missed again by American security on our return flight from Dallas to San Diego."

I really don't understand the reasoning of these people. Were they *trying* or *hoping* that the SAK would be confiscated? If they thought it was so bad, why were they carrying it at all? Do they themselves consider a little Classic-sized SAK to be a weapon? I'm starting to realize that a good many of the sheeple types that actually did carry at least a little SAK Classic-type knife on their key ring now actually consider them to be deadly weapons. They are hoping badly to have even their own tiny pocketknives to be banned. Maybe I'm overreacting to this, but I'm starting to feel you can never overestimate the lack of logic of most people regarding any type of blade, even the most harmless and benign knife.
Jim
 
Exactly! Its scary how easily people will sway their opinions. The media reports everything as a nondescript "weapon" or "knife" and suddenly anything with an edge on it is to be treated as a viking broadsword.
What really gets me is all the times where a knife could have saved the day and wasn't present. One instance was the men trapped in an elevator in the world trade center after it was hit. They chipped through about 3 sheets of gypsum board with a friggin window scraper to get free. And yes one of them was quoted as saying "does anyone have a knife?"
Another instance, there was a car crash where the driver was trapped in the car by her seat belt and the car was on fire. Emergency personell weren't going to get their in time. Witnesses tried to get her out, but no one had anything to cut the seat belt with. one woman supposedly was screaming for someone to find a knife. (read about this hear at BFC awhile back) No one had one and the driver was killed.
Everyone thinks that knives are evil, and have no purpose in society. And then when their life is on the line and a knife could make the difference, no one has one and they wonder why.
 
>... "there was a car crash where the driver was trapped in the car by her seat belt and the car was on fire. Emergency personell weren't going to get their in time. Witnesses tried to get her out, but no one had anything to cut the seat belt with. one woman supposedly was screaming for someone to find a knife. (read about this hear at BFC awhile back) No one had one and the driver was killed."

=============================================

I'm ALL for carrying a knife at all times, BELIEVE me.
But I have to :rolleyes: when I read melodrama like this. Sounds to me like a knife knuts' version of an urban legend.
 
On my flight from IN to PA last week, I was trying to open my airline 1/4 ounce bag of peanuts and ended up sending them flying all over my lap and the floor. :mad: If I could have still had my little SAK, this wouldn't have happened. The pretzels on the return flight were no easier to open.

Steve
 
When the bad guys have guns and the good guys don't... the bad guys shoot the good guys...:(

When the terrorists have knives on planes and the good guys don't... we have to go after them with our hard to open peanuts and pretzles...:(

What's wrong with this picture?...:mad:
 
I agree with y'all I support gun and knife control, after all who really NEEDS an AK - 47 or a flamethrower. But I think the airlines may have gone a little too far. I can see be required to declare my SAK and allow inspectors to examine anything I plan to carry on board. Further, I can understand having a restriction on blade length. But I still feel that any thing I carry is a tool, not intended to be used as a weapon and shouldn't be confiscated, at least not if it has been properly declared.
Lagarto
 
mnblade:
This is definitely NOT an urban legend. It was shown on America's most wanted (I believe). I saw it and was one of the guys who posted about it the day after it aired. The woman had to stop her car as there was road construction, and was rear-ended by another driver. Her seatbelt was stuck and her car started burning. Several of the construction workers tried to pull her out of the stuck seatbelt but weren't able to in time and she ended up burning to death strapped into her car.

At the time I saw that, I wondered why not one of the construction workers had some type of cutting tool to cut the seatbelt. I remember another forum member pointed out that it's possible someone did, but at the moment of stress had not thought of it, which IMO is quite possible.

On another note, when the super-popular movie Titanic came out, I thought the tiny bit of life-saving knife duties that were portrayed in the movie would have helped show the masses how useful knives can be. The scene in question is when several of the life-saving boats had to be cut free of the ship, and someone screams if someone has a knife, and it shows guys pulling out their jackknives, even opening them with their teeth, to cut those ropes that secured the lifeboats. But it seems like nobody remembered that scene. Ditto for the movie The Edge. (the reason I bring it up is because society is so influenced by pop culture, you'd think such scenes in big films would at least be remembered, not just the slash and gore knife stuff).
Jim
 
Ahh. But in order for such scenes to be remembered society would have to want to remember them. Therein lies the biggest problem. It's not that people can't see knives as a positive thing, it's just that those who don't, don't want to.
 
No one is going to hijack a comercial jet for a long time. After 9/11 they are going to have to kill every man, woman, and child on the plane before gaining control. No one is going to sit passively by waiting for the hijackers to negotiate with authorities.

n2s
 
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