Carrying Knives

It’s a great shame knives have been so abused lately on the streets of many countries. The UK in particular has seen knife crime and stabbing increase ten-fold over the last 10 years. This means that knife owners who would never use their tool as a weapon of defence, never mind offence, are precluded from carrying one.

Unlike handguns, which have only one real purpose, to wound or kill, unless they are used on a target range, knives have a variety of uses - and that includes types that have large blades. Most uses of knives are fairly obvious: in skinning animals, whittling or other wood cutting work, as a general tool in the camp for cutting tent-pegs, opening cans, (with the blade or attachments), striking sparks from a flint or stone for fire, and many more which I am sure you can think of. A knife, actually, is not a good offensive nor defensive weapon as, unless you are a trained commando, it usually cuts and slashes without disabling and you need to get too close to your adversary; you would be better served with a baseball bat or a pickaxe handle, or some other club which renders your opponent unconscious with a tap on the head or a poke in the solar plexus. Yet clubs aren’t banned, even ones that are actually made as weapons, such as the Maori war clubs, the Irish Shillelagh, the truncheon and more.

Neither - and here’s the most ridiculous aspect of trying to get knives off the street - are the huge range of legal culinary and table knives, gardening shears and pruning knives and even machetes (the weapon of choice for most of the world’s insurgents), some with razor sharp blades more than a two feet long! OK, a plod (cop) would take them from youngsters running the streets with them, but what if you had just bought it as a present for your mum? And how easy is it to go get another if it is confiscated? The domestic cutting implements industry must chortle ever time the law is tightened. Law enforcement confiscating knives on Britain’s streets would do well to remember the peer pressure forcing youths into buying knives and start to get to the real root of the problem: Something like the fact they have no real opportunities in a society saddled with this greedy and selfish establishment class, who only allow the poor and disenfranchised enough to stop them dying of starvation in the parks or actually starting a revolution, all else is theirs by birthright! Isn’t it, Lord Muck-Muck?

Knives can be so useful if carried for the reasons they were made. I carry a Royal Navy, stainless steel knife I have had for years. It is a folding knife with a marline spike, the most useful of all gadgets. My spike will punch holes in just about anything, it has opened evaporated milk cans more than anything else, I suppose, although it has made extra holes in belts as I needed to let them out (far too frequently). It also has a regular tin opener and a stout blade which holds a decent edge. It is not the best one I have had, that honour belongs to my Curry’s Lock-spike, stolen a few years ago; but it’s ok. I also have one other knife I prize but rarely take out as this would be confiscated if seen. This is a mint Uncle Henry, Bear Paw Lock-back, one of the last made by Schrade in the USA, which I bought online about 4 years ago just before the company wound up. Wonderful tool with heavy brass fittings and a balanced, locking blade. I would happily don the sheath and wear the knife in parts of the USA, Australia and Mexico, etc., where knives are a tool and not used by gutless drug freaks to stab one another in dark alleyways. After all, it’s not a 12-inch Bowie knife or a military K-Bar, yet those are ok too in some places.

I have had many knives through the years. The first were issued to me when I was in the navy and I acquired the habit of carrying one which has not left me and I will continue to do so, as the fancy takes me and to hell with the rules and regulations of a sick society: one that punishes the petty offender while allowing cricketing and other “celebrity” fraudsters, guilty of obtaining millions, to walk the streets without even being charged. “It’s money, honey, my little sonny…” Anyone want a can punched??