You’ve attained the rank of pussywillow!
I’m extremely fond of this one: http://www.gerbergear.com/Tactical/Tools/Dime-Black_31-001134 to the point where I have two, just to be certain one’s neraby at all times.
1 Like
I have a leatherman which I use all the time in the lab, and recently, when I was using the knife to strip some wire, a woman from Boston was quite taken aback, and told me so, that I was carrying around, as she put it a “switchblade knife.” I told her that it was a leatherman, or maybe a multitool, not a switchblade, to which she responded “yeah, with a switchblade knife on it.” I really didn’t know what to say to that, so I let it go, but my god city folk say the damndest things sometimes.
Scratching my head over that one. Has she never seen a switchblade? Seems like sending her a link to wikipedia might be in order. I’ll have to do a survey of city folks next time I’m far enough away from farmland that it would be worth the effort.
That’s not city folk, that’s just dumb folk. I mean, who traditionally used switchblades? Pimps and hoodlums, not hunters and hillbillies. I.e., city folk, not country folk.
I don’t think this person is dumb. I mean, she’s a physicist. I think it just comes from growing up in a culture where nobody carries knives, and it’s not considered acceptable, so she didn’t know the difference between a pocketknife and a switchblade.
Okay, ignorant, on that subject. Still though, you’d think the meaning of “switchblade” would at least osmose via popular culture. West Side Story or old gangster movies or the video for “Beat It,” something.
I hear that in the U.K., not having widespread guns to freak out about, they’ve taken to making pocketknives illegal due to a supposed epidemic of knife crime. Just wait til they figure out what you can do with a pen, or a screwdriver, or a splintered stick.
Start an EDC thread!
1 Like
I was sharpening my pencil with my swiss army in high school one day when our borderline retarded substitute walked by and got really weirded out. he was weird anyway, so I failed to read the writing on the wall until I was called to the office. the principal, who was new that year and generally disliked, confiscated my Victorinox. It was a new model at that time which had a lockback blade. as she lectured me, she kept mashing her thumb onto the release, despite that the knife was fully closed. after a few tries, I had to explain to her that it was a safety feature to release the blade after it was manually unfolded, not a switch-blade swiss-army knife.
I endured the condescension and catching hell at home while aware that in my parent’s generation there would never have been an issue.
It’s funny you mention this - because this sort of stereo typing was the exact thing that got them banned in the first place. These knives were originally marketed to outdoorsmen, farmers, ranchers, hunters, etc who needed a knife opened quickly and/or with one hand.
In the 50s some guy decided that little Johnny was being corrupted and would be forced to join a gang because of his switchblade knife. It was the same kind of witch hunt they had at the same time for comics - blaming inanimate objects for society’s ills. (Same could be said for the earlier demonizing of weed.)
At any rate - it’s rather absurd they are still largely illegal. Fortunately most knives now have thumb knobs that make opening them one handed fairly easy. I carry a CRKT with a tanto type blade. I’ve had it for years now. I would always lose my knife but I finally got one a bit larger with a clip, and thus far it’s stayed with me. FWIW my dad has an old paratrooper knife with a switchblade in his war chest. They are fun little knives.
1 Like
I thought the real technical problem with switchblades and rollerknives is that they’re not very solidly locked into place when extended. Fine for poking a rival ’50s gang member in the gut, but you’re not going to skin an animal or whittle with one.
I like the index-finger assist type folder better than a thumb stud, it feels more quick and natural to finger the protrusion and then wrist-flick the rest of the way. This has been my EDC for some years now; it’s not the greatest steel in the world but it’s inexpensive enough it wouldn’t hurt too much to lose it or have it confiscated. (Reassemble with Loctite to prevent the screws gradually backing out.) I’m interested to check out the Kershaw SpeedSafe knives though — apparently they’re just barely this side of legal.
The leatherman in question actually does have a real knife blade which can easily be opened with one hand. That might have had something to do with the confusion.
Wow - Gerber really copied the look of the CRKT knives. This one is mine - but they make one with a blade like yours -
http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=CHZlZOB%2FKrzHHNA&pid=Commerce
I played with my dads paratrooper knife a bit, and I played with a dealers sample of a modern Spyderco automatic, and they both were very solid. I’m sure there is some crap out there that isn’t. I have never gotten to play with an “angel” blade before.
Between hiking/camping, cooking and art (I cut my own nibs for pens, and sharpen pencils), I own a number of knives that are dear to me.
And now I have to be the downer voice who bemoans the condition of a society in which kids who know how to use a knife, and need one for a job or to perform daily tasks, are getting expelled under zero tolerance policies in states like, you guessed it, Pennsylvania. A friend’s nephew, 15, was expelled and put under 3 month house arrest for carrying a 3 inch folding pocket knife to school.
Of course, he could have kept it at home, but he worked after school and he frequently needed his knife. He had no prior offenses outside of cutting class occasionally. Pennsylvania was going through another of its “tough-on-juvie-crime” phases that seem to coincide with election cycles. Mark just got caught up in it. (Not his name.)
He was always a shop kid who loved to fix things. Since his expulsion and arrest, he’s developed a decidedly tough-guy appearance with friends to match, his outlook is bitter and, understandably, deeply anti-authoritarian. While he may end up living a life that’s satisfying, right now he’s headed for years in the system. His vector of his young life was dramatically changed because of a 3-inch pocket knife. I know my story sounds like a cliché. But it’s true. And perhaps it sounds clichéd simply because we hear it far too often.
2 Likes
That is totally fucked. When I was in school, in the '80s and '90s, boy scouts pretty much always had scout knives, starting at about the age of six, and it was never a big deal to have one at school if you weren’t a total idiot about it.
A sad comment on our times - here in the UK I can already hear people in my office tutting and bemoaning ‘only in America’! But when I was a kid in Scotland in the 1960s I - like my father and grandfather - always carried a pocket knife.
In fact I inherited my fathers. Unfortunately the tabloid press in the UK would have an apoplectic fit if such a workshop was organized for kids here. In my town - lovely Scarborough - there has been a recent spate of stabbings, but I can’t seem to convince people that there is any real difference between a kid who carries a Swiss Army knife and a kid that carries a replica of a Nazi SS dagger (which amazingly are for sale to teenagers on our seafront)!
The tabloid press has turned we Brits into a bunch of idiots.
I was wondering if someone would say that. I quite understand, you can try wearing it across your back where your belt is. Although that technique helps, some people will still not like it. To the person’s preference.
Although I prefer fixed blades, I only use them during camping. My EDC is the more common swiss army knives. Mine has a small set of plier, Super Tinker Model. I use this as EDC, due the small package of tools and it attracts less attention compared to anything else.
There have also been legal/administrative issues with the ceremonial knife that Sikhs are supposed to carry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan#Legality
It seems they typically get a conditional pass. The New York Board of Education’s solution was to allow them on the condition that they be basically glued into their sheaths. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Wait, you’re talking about a Leatherman, here!
I don’t know anybody who’d consider that as anything other than first and foremost a tool. It’s obviously a weapon no more than a screwdriver or a crowbar is a weapon.
(I consider multitools to be an inherently compromised proposition, but that’s another matter…)
My mind boggles at the person in question being a physicist; you’d think someone versed in physics would be across the whole weapon/tool distinction bit.
1 Like
Holy crap, I totally just saw a clown in that cloud.
Off to find a bigger version…
