I think anyone that reviews this thread, and I cannot really blame them if they don't want to. Multi-page threads have a tendency to make your eyes bleed and your mind cloud over...but anyone that does can clearly see that I am not advocating one over the other. I think everyone interested in
survival should know how to use a knife as weapon if they have to. It's a total package to me, all or nothing. They're not just for whittling trap triggers and scraping ferrocerium rods to me. I know they have this capability and I intend on exploiting every bit of that capability that I can.
What interests me is the absolute terror that a knife brings to people's minds. I've read it and heard it for years and it has been in this thread: "I'd rather be shot than stabbed/cut."
It's gut-level but it's silly. What the gun does is horrendous, I'd really rather not be shot, either.
There are people, for years on these forums and others, who have an almost psychotic bent on using knives as edged weapons. I'm not one of them. But I also absolutely refuse to not exploit that capability, either. To me that is just shortsighted and simply throwing away that great capability that a knife has to offer.
They are not the panacea to all self-defense problems. Neither are firearms. Ultimately, you should see the vast majority of self-defense situations and try to avoid them - awareness and avoidance - best weapons you can have to save your life.
I'm not some kind of nut that thinks knives trump everything and I'm not hell-bent on gutting my fellow man. But I vehemently disagree with those that basically shit on these ideas and then think that a pistol will solve all of their problems.
Better men than I have done a lot of real world research on self-defense and self-offense. One Gent came up with two basic self-defense situations you can encounter, it's just another way of breaking down what happens and those two basic situations, no matter what the weapon and no matter single or multiple attackers - there is brewing and flash. When something is brewing, you should be able to use awareness and avoidance. Sometimes violence is inevitable regardless but when it is brewing and you can see it developing and escape, that's great. If you cannot escape, at least you know it is coming. "Flash" is the
oh shit moment. Happens in a flash, that's how it got its name.
There are many things I could write about but I would like to leave anyone interested with the thought of the firearm and the knife in close quarters and this is not a "knife trumps gun in close quarters" argument but it is a statement about people using edged weapons on you. If it is close quarters and the person is moving, you have to have other skills than shooting to get out of this mess. For example, just one thing to think about. Take a straight weight bar and put 175 pounds on it, up top. Now, imagine trying to catch that damned thing if you had a knife or boxcutter or even a screwdriver secured to it. This is what many people don't talk about when it comes to guns and knives and ways of dealing with things in self-defense situations. That falling weight basically duplicates someone you just shot, and they are falling dead weight with a knife sometimes still attached to their hands.
You could be fatally wounded, literally, from a dead man.
This whole topic is so much more than just stupid slogans, as I said earlier in the thread. But I think anyone that just discounts the knife as a weapon that they should learn is making a huge mistake. Being into "survival" and "knives" for survival and not learning how to use one as a weapon makes about as much sense as owning a Glock-17 and only walking around with one 17 rounder in it half loaded. You are not utilizing that tool to its greatest capability and that is all I have been saying in this thread. Don't walk around with a revolver with three rounds in it instead of six.
