Every Man Needs To Own A Pocket Knife

Return of Kings ^ | February 13, 2018 | CR Smith

[vannrox]

Even though a permit is not required to have one, I admit to not carrying a pocket knife until 2015. I had realized that I became part of a generational sea change on this item, which I now view as being much more than just a male accessory choice.

It all started when I was at a Garden Center store looking for a trellis, but when I found one, it was bound to several others by nylon zip-ties. I knew I couldn’t saw it free with my keys, so I started to look for some help. I soon saw an old man walking down the aisle and instinctively thought he would have a knife on him, but he didn’t, nor did another man I asked. I then found a store worker who cut them free and off I went with my trellis, though not feeling good about myself or the state of male civilization.

As a kid in the 1970’s, almost every boy carried a pocket knife. It wasn’t a weapon or for showing off, unless it was new. Sometimes you had to actually cut something and scissors just wouldn’t do.

When you were bored, you’d whittle a stick or a piece of wood with it. I have a simple walking stick carved by my great grandfather, and I recall the mystique of watching and helping as he sharpened his knife. In my keepsake box, I have a pocket knife of my father and grandfather. Interestingly, along with a Confederate $5 bank note, Lincoln had one in his pocket the night he was shot.

But times have changed, and I stopped bearing the humble tool that naturally accompanied my forefathers. I am not alone here, and think this happened for various reasons and with certain outcomes.

1. Fewer Men Work With Their Hands Or At Jobs That Need Them

My farmer and forester ancestors needed knives at any potential moment, but for my generation of desk jockeys and mind workers, scissors and box cutters do just fine. This is a banal, demographic reason, but the next ones cut to the core of a man’s soul.

2. The Expanded Safety Culture

Safety is a great thing for us all. Seat belts and even OSHA have had some benefit. In my job as a scientist, we take precautions scientists never gave thought to a few decades ago. People like me in occupations with built-in physical hazards are happy for that.

But when we live our everyday lives with a requirement of eliminating all hazards, we get ridiculous. This leads to safety Nazis who apply their same calculus to pocket knives as they do to guns: viewed solely as a dangerous object to be feared and avoided, and not as an everyday tool that has hazards to be respected.

There’s a reason the 2006 book The Dangerous Book For Boys included topics on uses of knives. The safety culture agitates against even reasonable male daring, much less carrying a tool that could be used as a weapon. This mindset turned rancid as it became codified absurdity through.

3. Zero Tolerance Policies In Schools

It sounds tough, but it’s a cop-out. Adults who abandoned the need of using discriminating wisdom and good judgment implemented “no sharp objects allowed on campus” rules, as opposed to something like “pocket knives may be three inches or shorter” with strict enforcement (liberty with reasonable limits that is age appropriate).

Intractable un-Solomon-like thinking leads to such silly results as boys being expelled for bringing a kitchen knife to school to cut an onion for a science project and for biting a pop tart into the shape of a gun.

You soon realize that when adults don’t use adult discretion, kids don’t learn the right lessons and are trained to have foolish fears. Humble pocket knives became an easy victim. The do-gooders imagined they were protecting kids from switchblade or machete melees, but they forgot that Grace Kelly used scissors to kill the intruder in Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder.

4. The 9/11 Attacks

The pocket knife culture was already feeble, but 9/11 gave it a grievous blow. Swiss Army Knife sales fell by 35% as a result of the attacks. The hijackers interestingly used not knives, but the culturally un-feared box cutter to do their evil deeds: they used our overblown fears against us. Since then, many a pocket knife has been melted into plowshares by the TSA, I assume, after confiscation at airports, including one of mine. All of these contributors have led to another sad consequence…

5. The Emasculation Of Men

I believe the culmination of these factors have led men to be changed and lessened. The old man from whom I asked for a pocket knife at the garden store looked embarrassed to admit his knifelessness, as he knew from whence he had fallen. I felt no better as I had to get assistance from a female store employee, no less, who got some scissors (what else) to cut lose my quarry (what a daring name for a trellis). To complete my humiliation, she had to do the cutting… corporate safety rules, I guess.

As is human nature, some rebel against our anti-knife culture and dive headlong into getting more, bigger and longer blades, but most of us just rolled over, and we were figuratively castrated.

But I’ve decided to not roll over anymore. I didn’t need an impressive knife like my son’s, which doubles as a gun bayonet, but I did ask him to get me a traditional pocket knife for Christmas, and now I carry one with me always.

The two knives I have now are quite different and illustrate the types that are suitable for many guys. My small one is barely 2-1/2 inches long when closed and is a sleek 3/8 inches wide, with two thumbnail opening blades. It serves for minor and general use at work and doesn’t fill my pocket. It looks and works better than a stupid freebee keychain Victorinox-wannabe with bad scissors.

My other knife is almost four inches closed with a full-bellied blade and can be opened with one hand by a thumb stud. It is more useful for chores around the house or in the woods.

A thick, multi-tool Swiss Army knife is useful, but can be too bulky for a pocket, which is why if you have one, it’s likely in your dresser drawer. Just start with your needs and avoid the urge to go full-bore Crocodile Dundee. You may rarely need it, but when you do, you’ll feel better for having your own pocket knife.

Read More: How To Keep Your Knives Blazing Sharp

[M.K. Borders]

I'm a woodworker, hunter, hiker.

My carry knife of choice has always been an Uncle Henry in stockman style. 3 blades, < 3” long. Razor sharp at all times.

Even while in the Army Guard, forget the bayonet or the fancy fighting knives, my Uncle Henry did the job.

Trimming tenons, chip carving, putting up fur, it's all I ever needed.

Free advice to the room, learn to sharpen knives. The right way. A razor sharp $10 knife will always be better than an $80 screw driver.

[kjam22]

I carry a pocket knife and a 9mm everywhere. Cheap pocket knives. Lost one at a OKC Thunder game recently. Forgot it was in my pocket.

[hdbc]

Ping.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Something similar happened to me several years ago. I always carry a Swiss Army knife (not unlike yours, but mine has a corkscrew and no tweezers), a Gerber folder, and an original Leatherman, all of which I’ve carried for at least 20 years. I was in the Charlotte NC airport, and had put the knives in my checked-in bag, but forgot that the Leatherman was on my belt. The TSA guy didn’t confiscate it, but let me go find a box and check it through.

[anton]

More advice to the room. Don’t be intimidated by persons who think “razor sharp” is important. “Sharp” is important. A $10 knife, sharpened after every use, even if not to perfection, even with a kitchen ceramic rod, is better than a $100 knife waiting for the owner to find time to make it perfect.

[shelterguy]

Crocodile Dundee cost 9 million to make. It grossed 300 million.

Croc 2 cost 15 million and grossed 200 million.

Croc 3 only grossed 39 million.

I have all three on the shelf. Quality entertainment.

[BudgieRamone]

Every day, two spyderco harpies, one spear point fixed blade, a gerber tool, electricians scissors, marlin spike, and a small adjustable wrench.

I catch plenty of crap from people, but who the first they go to with “hey, you gotta knife?”

My response is usually, “yes, why don’t you?”

For the record I’m a machinist and yes I work with my hands., and I had plenty of knives taken from me in good old catholic schools, when I was a youngster, usually because some weiner saw me using it for a proper purpose and ratted me out to the teacher.

[Sirius Lee]

Growing up we all carried Boy Scout knives on us at all times, school or no. There was always the odd rich kid with the giant bulge in his pocket. They'd have the fat, almost useless Swiss Army knife. (You couldn't throw the later at tree stumps in any convincing way, so not very practical)

Nowadays I keep a little CRKT knife on me at all times, Leatherman when I'm working, and a big Uncle Henry SHRADE when hunting and or camping. The little CRKT gets the most action doing things like opening packages of other tools or hardware, batteries, or the occasional prepackaged food item. It's also useful for making a little air hole on the other side of the drink hole in your general store to-go coffee.

[ought-six]

I’ve carried a pocket knife pretty much every day for the last 50 years or so (couldn’t have it in boot camp, though; they took all that stuff away from us, but we got them back when we got out of boot). My current pocket knife is a two-blade, couple gadget Swiss Army knife, which I’ve had for about ten years now.

I have a box filled with pocket knives that I’ve acquired over the years, in varying shapes and sizes and quality. Habit, I guess.

I’d feel naked without a pocket knife.

I also carry, on my belt, a 3” Buck knife and a Leatherman, each in its own scabbard.

Not a day goes by that I don’t use at least one of these tools for some task or eventuality.

I’ve always been handy with my hands, and do all my own carpentry, most of my own plumbing, and most of my small electrical work. I have a well-stocked and supplied workshop in my garage, and I spend lots of time in there, just tinkering. I love it. It is one of my sanctuaries.

[kjam22]

I was in a walmart a couple years back buying 22LRs. They had a little spinning display deal with $3 pocket knives. 1 bought all 23 of them. Not bad knives. I don’t worry about sharpening. :)

[Vaquero]

For many years I kept a small extremely sharp Barlow in a front pocket. Used it for everything including gutting deer. Lost in in a field while rabbit hunting. Picked up a new one at a gun show but it never felt the same. Gave it to my youngest son.

Started toting a leatherman. I keep the current ‘wave’ model’s primary blade, very sharp. It does so many things, I don’t know how I got along without it.

[FreedomPoster]

I got started with the Delicas because the blade length is just under what was allowed in carryon pre-9/11. I had been carrying them for 2-3 years before 9/11 hit.

[ought-six]

“Free advice to the room, learn to sharpen knives. The right way.”

I couldn’t agree more. I have almost as many sharpening tools, honing stones, etc., as I have knives.

[Alas Babylon!]

Same here about flying, which I do/did a lot.

One of my favorite knifes wound up in the hands of TSA because I forgot to pack it in the checked baggage.

I got the Delta AmEx Gold Card because it covers free checked bags. So the knife goes in there. I usually put it back in my pocket at baggage claim, long before I head out the door.

A real PITA to check a bag, but like you, I feel vulnerable without it. Plus, I usually takes trips of a week or more.

[Truth29]

On 9/11/01 I was out of the country. I carried a commemorative 75th anniversary Boy Scout knife and I could not get it or me back into the country days later unless I got rid of it. I could not even put it in checked luggage or visibly throw it away (pain). I had to write and sign a release to give it away before I was allowed to board a plane to return to the US. Insane snowflake alert.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I’ve carried an old Buck tool for the last 25 years. Made in America. Won’t leave home without it."

Bucks good. Uncle Henry better. My UH is the first knife I ever bought that I could shave with "out of the box". Had to sharpen all the rest to that state. I am NEVER without a knife AND a small tape measure.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

I carry a pocket knife and a 9mm everywhere.

Me? A knife and two (2) .380's. And, a 9mm in my computer bag.

[bankwalker]

Growing up we played stretch and chew the peg all day long then hit the farmers field to carve up some cucumbers and sweet potatoes to hold us over until dinner.

[sweeperboy]

My grandpa’s CaseXX in my pocket daily. Buck Lite in the work truck and another 100 or so in a box. Mostly Case, but also various other brands.

[tom paine 2]

bump