Which I find sort of as a joke as I have a whole bunch of them I generally use as letter openers which they are great for. If I want a real weapon I'll generally reach for a firearm of some sort.
The one I grab often is the 'Sharks model, Bernando approved'. Although the 'Jets model, Rif approved does the job just as well. Both open letters nicely.
Outlawing switchblades was a stupid knee jerk reaction in the early 60s after West Side Story came out, with Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as Maria and Tony.
Like a lot of stupid, parents didn't want their youngsters dancing around to Leonard Bernstein's tunes and stabbing each other with them so the whoevers (Probably Karens of the time) started a scare and they were quickly outlawed.
Of course, those that were inclined to dance around and stab each other did it anyway, law or no law. They did just what I did. They purchased them illegally on the black market. I simply chose to keep mine in my pocket where it belonged rather than stuck in someone else's rib cage. Besides I dance like a cow on roller skates.
It was kind of like the rock n' roll music scare. Much ballyhoo over absolutely nothing at all. When you think about it, the youngest of every surviving Shark or Jet is in their 80s. That's a little long in the tooth to be hacking people up with a bladed weapon.
Legal or not, I have carried one from time to time. I bought my first one in high school and off and on have had one or more of them. At one time I had a collection of over 20 of them.
One time a couple years back a guy in his late 40s, out of kind of a concern asked me how a senior citizen could defend himself against a younger thug. He was actually a movie buff. "I'm pretty Old School," I replied.
"How Old School?" he asked and a second later the 'Nando approved, Sharks model' snapped open in his face. His eyes popped out of their sockets but to his credit he instantly recovered.
"West Side Story, huh? That's pretty Old School," he replied. We shared a laugh. He told me he had a carry permit and often packed a .38 special. I told him I was a 1911 kind of guy. We chuckled.
There's a pretty good chance that I'm here on planet Earth because of one. Sometime during the war my father was in the Southwest as a flyboy cadet under the employment of Uncle Sam when he was out having some beers with another cadet. It was during the Zoot Suit riot era. A group of them descended on the pair of them and let it be known the two of them were probably in for a helluva fight.
Andy, one of his fellow cadets, had grown up near a Mexican community somewhere in Arizona and knew the ins and outs. Andy calmly told dad, "Kick them when they come in! Kick them!" as the went back against a nearby wall.
Then Andy reached into his pocket and when he pulled his hand out of said pocket there was an unmistakable 'click' and a flash of steel.
Instantly it was over. While they knew that by force of numbers they would likely win the fight, they decided that Andy knew what he was doing and that it would be too costly a victory so they wandered off. Funny how that works. Nobody enjoys getting sliced up.
Knife fights generally have no real winners, only survivors. Everyone involved loses to one extent or another. Nobody comes out of one unblooded.
Laws against edged weapons are stupid to begin with. Either society is responsible enough to be able to cut their meat and potatoes as they dine or they're not. A steak knife can kill a person just as dead as a dirk or dagger will.
In fact any number of weapons through history were nothing more than converted tools. The Gurkha kukri is nothing more than a farm tool for harvesting crops and numchucks of martial arts movie fame evolved from a flail used to thresh rice or soybeans.
What's interesting to note is that all legalization of these things has done is decrease the crime rate a bit because when I opt to put one in my pocket and go about my business I am no longer being a criminal.
Mine came out of my pocket once several years ago. Some oversized older teenager annoyed me. I pulled it out, clicked it open, folded it back up and put it back in my pocket and simply said, "Young man, one of the keys to a good longevity is displaying good manners."
There was no threat made or even implied. It was a simple statement of fact. The man that had witnessed the incident laughed, looked at the wide-eyed wannabe and said, "He's right, you know."
All outlawing a firearm of any type (or drugs or anything else for that matter) is going to do is create criminals where there were none beforehand. I'll likely be one of them because I have no intention whatsoever of getting rid of anything that I decide to own.
Most laws are for stupid people because in the absence of them the resposnible still live responsibly and those that don't simply ignore the laws to begin with.
One of the things I learned in Kodiak in the late 70s and 80s when many laws went unenforced was that people generally behaved themselves with the absence of law and found no real trouble. Those that didn't generally found trouble. I noticed early on that while random violence does occur occasionally, most victims were generally tied up with drugs or some other criminal activity.
In fact in Kodiak I often carried a balisong (Butterfly knife) often and used it occasionally to cut things. I recall using it in front of a couple of police officers who said never even raised an eyebrow even think I think they were outlawed at the time.
As a general rule of thumb, if someone simply behaves themself it reduces their chances of running into any real trouble down to a very low level.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
