Knives as weapons?

[hso]

The fascination with and demand for the genre is a byproduct of entertainment. As "action" entertainment has become more fantastical so have the influences in knives.

I've been deep into knives for over 35 years and I've watched the change in the interest in knives and the kinds of knives that are popular. We went from the pre WWII period to the post WWII period with significant changes in movies and TV. We also saw a large number of military knives blossom in WWII and those knives come home with returning troops. Those objects became relics of a sort. That signaled a big shift in how the public thought of knives. Follow this with the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, spies and covert conflicts and you see film and TV and fiction change with it. You also see knives change. America becomes more urban and suburban and the shift from cowboy to war to spy entertainment follows. I remember boot knives like the Explorer copies of the Gerber MkI as well as the other Gerbers and "all the guys" wanted them. Heck, the first tactical folders from Terzuola and Emerson were made for covert and special operations reflecting the time and demands. I remember collectors and companies calling them "clunky" and "ugly" and asking who'd ever want them outside of a small group. Of course a few other custom knife makers got interested in making folders as tough as fixed blades and they began to expand the range of these new knives, but they were still pretty much the tactical ghetto. Once Seal Team Six came out mentioning the Emerson and covert and spec ops stories built up steam we see more public interest and more makers and more companies filling a growing demand. What was a few people making "sharpened pry bars" for a few exotic soldiers became companies making knives for guys fascinated with the covert war and warrior. Toss in "KungFu" movies and exotic weapons and SF films and TV shows with exotic looking ones. America develops a tasst for more realistic violent entertainment and the unrealistic violence in entertainment. We see more knives in response and more exotic ones and we see a demand with from the public who no longer have much in the way of farm/hunting/ranching utility uses for knives as that segment of the population becomes a minority. Once the interest develops the market responds. We now see "baboon butt" (love that) features and we see a fascination for the violent. Think about all the bowie knives that flooded the market in response to Bowie's myth. All the stories, self promotion, and "penny dreadfuls" made him famous and the knife became famous. It spawned an entire shift in the industry for many years and more "bowie" knives were produced than there were people in the U.S. "frontier". They were purchased for the cache' associated with Bowie and most never saw any use except to pass around and Ooooo and Ahhh over. No different today.

I don't think that there's anything more profound or complex than that. Fantasies sold and fulfilled to a hungry public.

 

[conw]

I read time and time again how the novice untrained in defense would not understand this or that. In more threads by more posters than I care to recall.
....
Theory can't give you that; it comes from doing it.

These two statements seem to be in conflict. There is a reason people say "untrained" people don't get certain things, and usually when I see it it isn't elitism, it's simply reality. It's MUCH better to let someone realize they don't know something than give a half-assed internet primer explanation on something that DOES need to be done to be understood.

As you stated later in the post, "theory" (which is all you get on the internet) is trumped by understanding, and understanding comes from doing. Good training is doing, not theory.

If I understand you correctly, you don't discount training but you find using a knife in a utility role to be more effective than training? I simply don't get that perspective. If someone who works in a slaughterhouse has the wherewithal, awareness, and will to win, sure, I'll give you they can probably use a knife efficiently, but I don't see any routine daily task no matter how similar the motor movement may be, as remotely being a substitute for formal defensive training.

 

[jbkebert]

Perhaps it is not meant as Elitism. I can understand and appreciate that.

However defensive training is based on theory no matter how you slice it. How many knife fights do you think Master whomever has been in. The teachings of defensive schools is based off of what they think should take place.

Defensive training does have its place and there are certainly different levels of quality of training. Most civialians do not have access to truley dynamic in depth training. So what alot of these schools teach is a choregraphed display of what they think a real fight looks like. Now these classes do teach how to move your body quickly and how to move with a knife in your hand without cutting yourself.

However since a good portion of the training is done with a plastic or a rubber knife that is made to simulate the real thing. When in reality they are as good a substiute as the rubber ducks we trained with in basic to simulate m-16s. They ain't even close they don't feel right, they don't deploy the same, heck they don't grip the same. Go buy a blue plastic Glock and tell me how real it feels. Now couple this with the fact that most people go to these classes at most twice a week. Then they go back home to their normal lives and practice little if any during the rest of the week. Even worse is they go to some Master Yoda weekend instant ninja class taught by some oral masterbaiter who wrote a magazine article or two.

So to think this intensive training taken by most of the so called experts of knife use. Is anywhere near as effective than the guy without formal training who has a knife in his hand hours each day. Who is cutting something be it shingels, drywall, or meat and sinew at a slaughter house. Instead of doing Kata with a rubber knife is a pipe dream.

I totally agree that sometimes the limits of ones training needs to be pointed out. I not saying all training is like this but lets face it the vast majority of these schools prepare you more for a dance audition than a knife fight.

 

[JimStC]

Jeremy,
Well put. Muscle memory or whatever it is called is as important as defensive training. Heck, combine the two and you have a formidable foe. I don't ever want to be in a knife fight with any of the occupations you mentioned.
A knife to them is as natural as a screw driver or hammer to most of us.

Jim

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Thanks for the talk Carl. Many today think Tactical Cool Blades are a cure all. But I hedge my bets with a 38, a cane, pepper spray and a solid lockback Buck 110, Gator or my new CRTC Hammond Cruiser.

 

[mr.trooper]

Knives may not have always been "tactical", but they have always been weapons.

Some of the first knives ever found have been copper 'tongue daggers'. Pure Weapon.

 

[jbkebert]

conwict:

I have been looking through your website and I think your doing a good thing. Like I said earlier I do not discount training. I have always fancied myself as being very handy with a blade. I trained both in the military and in martial arts based areas. I have sparred with a few dozen people of varing levels of skill with trainer knives. I have absolutly no doubt that anyone could walk away from a knife fight uncut or worse.

I guided a couple guys who had worked at a slaughter house for years on a deer hunt. I have cut up dozens of deer and other big game animals and thought I knew what I was doing. These guys quickly showed me how little I knew. I have never seen in my life knives move this fast with this much accuracy. To them it was mindless same old routine. To me it was fascinating and I quickly realized no matter how bad I thought I was. These guys would own me or anyone I had ever sparred against. Just in speed I was no match and with these guys there was no knife stroke wasted.

As a contractor in my everyday life I am often working around drywallers, roofers, and carpet layers as another. The speed and accuracy these guys have is just flat neat for me to watch. Add that to the fact that folks work this hard for a living. Have no problems getting their hands dirty and a chip on the shoulder comes standard with the blue collar. I am not saying you could not teach these guys a lesson. I do know most of them learn real slow that they are beat. Most are strong as a bull with the endurance to work like a dog 8-10 hours a day.

I have just seen to many people with little or basic weapons training think they are ready for anything.

 

[AStone]

This is a fascinating and informative thread.

 

[kBob]

I think knives became weapons shortly after austrolapiticus accidentally broke a rock.

That said yes it seems there is a much larger market today for Ramboesque blades than before Rambo and I think there in is one of the answers. The media shows action hero with BHK ( Big Honking Knife) and so "folks" have got to have one.

Like someone (hso?) said just upstream Stories of Jim Bouie and other folks with his knife became so popular that having one of "his" knifes became THE cool thing to do. Shoot, martial art schools, called sallons in the day, opened in some cities before the American Civil War that taught "fencing" with Bouie knives for gosh sake. Knife makers in England made profits from making customish looking knives and selling them here.

Rambo did this for BHKs in our day. Every wanna be has to have a BHK and every fifth for real feels there must be something to it for there to be such an interest.

As to when folks began to think of knives as weapons..well as I said pre history. As to whether they were in more recent times I guess that depends on where you were and who was around you. In the community I grew up in reports of knife injuries among a certain segment of the population were pretty much a weekly thing and that in a small town community of under 12,000 when looking at the surrounding county.

This was in the late fifties and early sixties. I knew and worked with a number of folks that bore scars from a common folding pocket knife, a slip joint not a rambo knife.

I think there is a good bit less perpopulation cutting going on these days than then.

On the other hand there are these Ramboesque knives and the lock blades and, even on this board, knifemakers gallore that produce "weaponized" blades.

When I was a youth every scout had a hatchet and semi BHKs of traditional design like the USAF survival knife or even a K-bar were not uncommon on campouts. Case even made a scout sheath knife. Today the BSA discourages anysort of non folding knife and even hatchets.

To some extent perhaps it is the allure of the you can't have it until you are and adult and the thought that "since you can't have it until you are an adult then having one makes you all grown up" that made smoking so popular that is also at work with the proliferation of BFKs and tactical folders.

Well enough rambling..... or is it Ramboing......

-kBob

 

[Deltaboy1984]

My basic knife tech came from my Construction background cutting drywall, insluation and vinyl using hook blade, razor blade or a OT OT8 stockman. I for one would never cross a Butcher, their knife skills are lighting fast and down right scarry. Dad tells of a old Butcher who carried a 4 inch Old Hickory in his belt and a Butchers/ Bar towel in his left rear pocket, If someone messed with him he used the towel to catch your knife arm and his OH to cut your wrist or inside elbow tendons. Dad said only fools who didn't know him crossed him at the dance hall.

 

[AStone]

Pre-amble confession: I've never seen any of the Rambo movies.

... there is a much larger market today for Ramboesque blades than before Rambo ...

Therefore, I had to do a search on "Ramboesque blades" (using "Rambo knife").

Found this page among others.

Um hmm.
_____

Added by edit:

OK, I just got my fill of Rambo for the next ten years.

 

[jbkebert]

I could of gone ten more years without seeing that as well.

Rambo is so bad he shoots a RPG from the hip and shoots a compound bow canted like a recurve. That is pretty high speed low drag type soldiering.

Thanks for the laugh Nem

 

[AStone]

^ <Laughs>

You're welcome, JB.

Glad I'm not the only one laughing.

 

[kBob]

My old stomping buddy and I almost got into a fight with some tosteserone poisoned 'utes at one of the Rambo movies because we started laughing and when one of the offended late teens early twenties males turned around and told us, "Hey shut up ! This is serious!" we started guffawing to the point of having trouble breathing.

Fortunately when they met us in the parking lot after the movie it occured to them that maybe starting a fight with two guys where the little one was 6'2" and 210 pounds and where both were smiling despite two to one odds we did not have to do a version of the rib house "knife fight" from "Second Hand Lions" a much later and in my mind better movie.

-kBob

 

[lemaymiami]

For anyone that's not familiar with Old Hickory knives... The models with carbon steel blades may actually cut meat (or fish) better than anything else I've ever used (and I own five or six Forschners and used to cut 100 to 300lbs of large fish a day...). They're not easy to sharpen (very hard metal) but hold a keen edge for working purposes. I used to see them in every grocery store but not so much any more. I still have one of their stiff boning blades in about a seven inch model. You can't get them anywhere near saltwater, but those things are a pro's tool for pure tough, day in and day out cutting.

 

[Carl Levitian]

"On the other hand there are these Ramboesque knives and the lock blades and, even on this board, knifemakers gallore that produce "weaponized" blades."
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kBob, you're brilliant!

You put in a few words what I was blundering around try to say. Can I borrow that term, "weaponized blades"?

That's the jist of what I don't understand about todays knife market. The almost worship of ridiculously designed knves that seem to have no real reason for existence except for some adolescent or Walter Mitty driven fantasy of knife fighting.

My time as a police officer let me see what even a cheap 3.99 supermarket bread knife will do to the human anatomy. Or a small serrated cheap steak knife. Then we had a homicide committed with a 7.99 discount store Rapalla fish fillet knife. It killed the guy stone dead right in the heart. I remember the call we had where a guy was beating up his wife, and the neighbors calls us. By the time we got there, the wife had got tired of being beat, and had shoved a cheap supermarket bread knife in his gut. Dropped the big guy right there. We got there, he was laying on his back gasping and groaning, and it was weird the way the thin flimsey blade was wobbling in time to his gasping. He'd breath in and it would wobble over on one side, and he'd moan and exhale and the black plastic molded on handle would wobble the other way.

With all the knives that people carried when I was growing up, any of them could have been used for violent ends, but were made for utility. All men carried a pocket knife in those days, but they were carried as a tool, not a weapon. If need be by extreme circumstances, it could be used to good effect. A sharp knife is a sharp knife. Does a knife get more deadly because so and so actor used it in a movie that was ludicrous?

The point that I was blunderingly try to make in my OP was, that I don't get the whole tactical knife fighting thing. Why does a knife that has a point that looks like it was designed for skinning eels make a better fighter than a nice pointy Buck knife that has a history of being used for mayhem more than any other production knife? And what does weird points and bulges on a handle have to do with cutting ability?

I guess all that, in addition to why anyone would want to engage in a knife fight, is totally beyond me. Aside from the fact that both party's will be sliced and diced, there is the question of blood carried diseases that make being splashed with somebody else's blood while your bleeding as well not a good thing. I was always taught that if a guy comes up with a knife, you put something solid between you and it, bar stool, chair, fire extinguisher, pool que, golf club, cricket bat, Maglight, 2X4, trash can lid or whole trash can, and then run like h---. I guess that's why I like a stick, it can be that solid object to block an incoming knife, or it can double as a striking tool to swat or bash it. Of course, the police departments stand was, if someone came at use with a knife, then that was what we had a Smith and Wesson revolver for.

But it seems like we're living in an age of "weaponized knives" to borrow kBob's phrase. The elevation of the common knife to a cult worship fantasy combat item. I can only wonder if any of these young guys I see in the knife shops going on "Hey look, its the new ninja death dealer by so and so" have ever seen the aftermath of a real knife to knife encounter?

 

[AStone]

All men carried a pocket knife in those days, but they were carried as a tool, not a weapon.
If need be by extreme circumstances, it could be used to good effect.

That captures my relationship to all my knives: they're EDC tools. I've used knives everyday since I was old enough to spread butter on bread, and carried at least one everyday since my first little folder that dad gave me, and sometimes - like in the wilds - I carry two.

But thankfully, I've never been in a knife fight, and hopefully I never will be.
I have zero interest in being in a knife fight. No, wait, make that negative interest. -1000.

I like the adage I learned here on THR years ago (wow, how time flies): Never go to a knife fight without a gun. And like you, Carl: if I'm ever attacked by a knife-wielding person, I'm not going to whip out my non-weaponized knife {tm} and engage in a duel, but I'm going to do my best to get something hard between me and it, or to use one of my sticks to break the hand/arm that's holding it and/or otherwise stop the attack, and get away.

Having said that, I am moving from EDC folder to EDC fixed-blade, mostly because I'm tired of pocket carry (I need that pocket for other stuff); because I like fixed-blades better than folders; because I think I'm going to find it easier and more convenient to use a 3" fixed blade than my 3" folder; and - yes - because in an extreme pinch, when every other weapon option has failed, if a big guy is on top of me trying to break my body, I might just be able to use my EDC tool to stop his attack.

 

[ThorinNNY]

I tend to see my SAK as a tool, rather than a weapon.Maybe it`s got something to do with what my dad taught me. One day he decided to teach how to defend myself from a knife using attacker.
He taught me how a stick,jacket, a belt, even a tightly rolled newsaper could be used for self defense against a knife user.I suffered nerve damage to one leg and my cane is always to hand while I`m awake. I think I would do a lot better defending myself with a cane or stick than with a knife.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

They are tools but even Carl had to get his Opinel out to get out of a Jam.

 

[Carl Levitian]

"They are tools but even Carl had to get his Opinel out to get out of a Jam. "
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Yep, I did, and that's sort of one of my points right there. This guy, a huge steroided up gym monster, who could have ripped me in half without raising a sweat, stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of an 8 dollar gardening knife. No one hand opening, no weird reverse curve ninja tanto armor piercing point, just a plain little wood handle knife I picked up years ago for the price of a couple of beers at the corner neighborhood bar. A more mundane knife never existed than an Opinel.

But the threat of it kept me from being assaulted by somebody who announced loudly he was going to beat my old ---. He didn't want to be anywhere in arms reach of that knife. I don't think it even would have made a difference what kind of knife it was. Could have been a SAK, an old barlow, a small cheap serrated edge paring knife. He didn't want to be cut. And that was okay by me!

Carl.

 

[T.R.]

Big bowies fit nicely in the glove box.

TR

 

[P.B.Walsh]

If I were an aggressor, I'd stop fighting at the awesome beauty of that knife!

 

[charlie fox]

I think the "Tactical Knife" fad will always be with us, producing some ridiculous blades and concepts. But as P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

 

[kBob]

I was once "approached" by a person demanding money and making threats. Unfortunately the only thing resembling a defensive weapon to hand was a SAK.

Not wishing to escalate, or show my hand, I turned my left side towards the guy and kept my left hand up in a open handed warding motion, slipped my right hand into my front right (now hidden to him) pocket and opened the only blade I could in the pocket.

You have no idea how silly you feel in a dark alley with a SAK in your fist with the cork screw sticking out between two fingers.

Fortunately things went well and I did not have to uncork any parts of his body.

I would be lying if I did not say that in that alley I wish I had had a bigger badder looking knife. Or at least the .45 auto that thanks to that towns then gun laws was locked in my hotel safe......

Still for the other 99.99999999999...... percent of my civilian life one might be a bit much.

Yes I carried one BHK or another in the service, but that was in the service and I felt it a good idea to have one then, but all four I carried in those years were plane janes by todays Rambo Scale. The most threating one was a Gerber Mark something or other (the later straight blade with scaloped "false edge) that I bought in a hurry when my other knives were stolen just before going over seas and it was what was available. (remarkably dispite the little spud of a shank in a cast handle it is still unbroken). The others were a real FS knife, a US aircrew survival knife (ugly llittle prybar of a bowie), and a German service sheathknife from the 1970's. (interestingly all issue to someones military or another rather than movie props)Can't really see carrying any of those on the street these days. Least you think me odd I generally carried only one or two at a time. I felt the F-S Knife was a proven tool for light infantry for its single job but not worth spit as a field knife, so I carried either the German knife or the Aircrew knife when I carried the F-S as well. The Gerber was a compromise and a rushed one. It was much better at stripping commo wire, cutting wire, hacking a point on a field expedient tent peg and all that sort than the F-S and a single sheath took less space on my gear.

I suppose if I was carrying an M16A1 and a basic load on the streets I might see carrying a BHK, but honestly what it could do would be more important than what it looked like it could do and weight (actually lack of it) would be more important than glitz.

-kBob

 

[Deltaboy1984]

"They are tools but even Carl had to get his Opinel out to get out of a Jam. "
__________________


Yep, I did, and that's sort of one of my points right there. This guy, a huge steroided up gym monster, who could have ripped me in half without raising a sweat, stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of an 8 dollar gardening knife. No one hand opening, no weird reverse curve ninja tanto armor piercing point, just a plain little wood handle knife I picked up years ago for the price of a couple of beers at the corner neighborhood bar. A more mundane knife never existed than an Opinel.

But the threat of it kept me from being assaulted by somebody who announced loudly he was going to beat my old ---. He didn't want to be anywhere in arms reach of that knife. I don't think it even would have made a difference what kind of knife it was. Could have been a SAK, an old barlow, a small cheap serrated edge paring knife. He didn't want to be cut. And that was okay by me!

Carl.

Yep and I am glad the OP got you out: it is one of the best real life stories I have ever read here or anywhere else. FYI if your ever in DFW PM me and we will meet and have a cup of coffee and compare OP's and canes.