IMHO, emergency workers all should have large bolt cutters on hand, for just such an emergency. We had an almost identical situation here, where a locked ranch gate prevented fire fighters from getting to a brush fire on pasture land that was threatening power lines.
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this is not already the case? I cannot believe that a bolt cutter is not part of the base equipment of fire engines
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anyone know what that curved/hooked axe thing he had is called?
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already answered ; )
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I dunno, but if I were a fireman, I’d use it over any other method of opening doors and gates. Such as doorknobs or handles.
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but I wonder if the ridiculed guy had good reasons trying to break the lock.
In his defense, the lock was an asshole.
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I think we should start again. You see, those three firefighters are walking to get their cars after a long day of…putting out fires. They won’t be able to leave that area (in their cars) because of the locked gate, and our kind be-tooled gentleman friend @hecep was only trying to do the right thing. HE knows how much that tree off to the right would scratch their cars. HE knows how much time and energy those firefighters have put into maintaining their cars (a lot!). HE knows that such a gate MUST by it’s very NATURE be de-locked and opened.
Now you’re probably asking yourself, “Yabut how does @hecep know these things?” And my answer is that I do not know.
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That’s a billhook, of course, although the weaponized version is simply called a bill. (All those years of playing RPGs has left me with a pile of useless information like this, so thanks for letting me put some of it to use today.)
I’m not sure if the long-handled version has a different name or not. Most of the ones I’m seeing online are the short handled versions, although some are pretty neat, such as from this Old Garden Tools site.
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Don’t get me started again.
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A more elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
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I always tell people it’s a clampoon, as wielded by the famous Reuben Clamso - but in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast USA it’s commonly called a brush-hook. I understand that it has many other names in other places, and as @awfulhorrid already pointed out the military version is generally called a bill (or a guisarme, if you are of Frenchy persuasion).
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Just how many times have you needed to have this conversation?
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Can there ever be too many occasions to use the word ‘clampoon’?
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Hmmm… three times so far on bOINGbOING? Maybe only two. Let me look… there’s this one we’re in now, and then this one, and this one… that’s three times at least!
It only gets worse if you include non-BB conversations. I have no idea why.
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I’ve noticed I tend to have a similar conversation whenever we pass the rack of weapons gardening tools at the hardware store. It usually ends with my partner asking questions like “why do you think you need this thing, again?” and “No.” She won’t let me get an agricultural flamethrower either, for some reason. Just because I don’t have an actual reason to have one … I mean really, I’ve promised to be careful and everything.
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…but how else are you supposed to weed the driveway?
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I don’t mind weeding so much, I have a hoe for that. I was suggesting it more for clearing the snow and ice!
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