In Hollywood blockbusters, you tend to see either the hero or the villain, or even a worthless peon saving or ruining the day with a large knife either on hand or sheathed hanging from a belt. And I think that it is stereotypes and cliches like this that spark fear into the hearts and minds of people (mostly uneducated city libs) regarding large bladed and fixed blade knives.
In the movies, you see a character marching off to battle with a large knife clenched in his teeth like a pirate to smite his enemies. And generally, in these kinds of movies, the man with the larger knife [the hero] wins, showing how ‘dangerous’ these knives are. And with this demonstration of superior firepower [which, in real life can work for you, or it can fail you] people become fearful of large, scary looking knives. Tools such as a ka-bar, or another large Bowie or bowie-like knife have been branded with the label of ‘assault weapon’ or anything else that sounds like if you touch it you will become a raving murderer.
The truth is that most people [and I mean most people in the United States, not worldwide] employ these ‘deadly accursed assault weapons’ as camp knives or survival knives. It is usually very rare that somebody is forced to call upon a knife [or a firearm for that matter] to defend their safety and the safety of others just because those kinds of situations don’t seem very common in most areas and they are usually easily avoided. But, when duty calls it is nice to have a tool on hand, be it a knife, firearm or any other tool that can be used as a weapon [all knives and firearms are tools, by the way] to be employed to protect the safety of yourself and any innocent bystanders, or the victim if you happen to be an innocent bystander witnessing something bad going down.
I know that there are many specific designated areas and buildings where unauthorized personnel are rightfully not allowed to carry anything that can [stereotypically, because anything can be used as an improvised weapon] be used as a weapon, and I can understand that. I am of course talking about places like Federal Buildings and military bases. But there are entire zip codes and towns [I don’t have a list of specified areas, but I’m sure that most of them are coincidentally in California] where large blades [usually over a length of five to seven inches] and automatic knives [no, automatic knives do not rapidly fire knife blades, but are rather defined as any blade which does not require a specified amount of manual labor to open before being opened a specified amount of the way. And by the way, a fully opened folding knife is measured at 180 degrees], are banned and henceforth deemed illegal by the nanny-state regulations, and I know, I live in a state where automatic knives are deemed illegal.
People will tell you how these laws are put into place to save lives and keep people from hurting themselves [like I said, if you happen to come in contact with a large knife, you become a raging murderer.], just like gun laws. But, also, just like gun laws, these regulations are flawed, over-intrusive and unnecessary. The people who are assaulting and murdering innocent civilians with these tools are people who believe that they are above the law anyway, so why would they obey a new restriction over that of thou shalt not kill?
If I was going to go out and mug or murder somebody, don’t you think that for concealment and maneuverability purposes I would choose a smaller folding knife, with a blade length of about four inches? With a larger blade, it becomes more and more difficult to move and maneuver your knife and with that, provides your enemy with more and more opportunities to clip you and bring you down. If you were in a tight space with a blade pushing six or seven, maybe nine or ten inches, the first thing that you would probably catch on the business end would be yourself, and that is true for any large combat/camping knife, regardless of the model or maker. And above the maneuverability, concealment is a big deal as well. A four inch folder can be easily dropped in a pants pocket and nobody would notice, but if you hang a six to twelve inch fixed blade knife from your belt, you now have a fair amount of sheathed blade sticking out from under your shirt or jacket [depending on the size of your shirt or jacket, of course], and wearing a big long trench coat only further limits your movement and draw time for your blade, where you can just reach into your pocket and flip open a four inch folder in somebody’s face. So, if anything, it would make much more sense if the smaller, more compact knives were banned from the general public. But, of course, those kinds of laws are known as something called infringement, something that is frowned upon by the second amendment to the United States Constitution [which makes me wonder if these laws really line up with the constitution].
As a restatement and overall summary: these kinds of laws and limitations are almost always brought on by fear and ignorance and are usually very intrusive, overbearing, poorly thought out, ineffective and overall just plain dumb.
