Did You see this article?

[The Tourist]

I happened to catch a article on knives in one of the new gun rags, either Handgunner, or Petersens's Handguns, I don't remember. It was their May/June issue.

The title of the piece was 'Let's talk about tactical knives--calmly!' Further in the article, they discussed various styles of knives, and when they got to tactical fighting knives, they prefaced their comments with "this is a touchy subject."

This is something I've noticed on knife forums, the guys just can't debate an issue before it degrades into flaming. Some members attend these boards just to flame, and any criticism of one of their 'fighting gurus' is branded heresy.

Why in this sport? Yikes, I've been debating Ford vs. Chevy, .45 vs 9mm and revolver vs. automatic for decades and I have not received half of the flak. Something about knives really stirs the blood.

So much so, that I've dropped a few knife forums, let them fight among themselves. I just don't understand all of the vitriol.

 

[Preacherman]

I can only think that it's a lot like religious belief. I have my own beliefs, of course, and am committed to them, but I have no problem respecting and accommodating the religious beliefs of others. However, many others who are very sincere about their religion are completely intolerant of other religions, to the point of rejecting, attacking or snubbing their adherents. It's almost as if they're afraid to admit that there might be another point of view...

I think the same mental/emotional process goes on in the minds of many people in many fields: Ford vs. Chevy, .45 vs. 9mm, Bowie vs. Tanto, etc. If one person has become a "true believer" in a particular product or skill or whatever, it becomes almost pathological for him/her to denigrate the opinions and choices of others in order to justify and strengthen his/her own approach.

Strange people, humans...

 

[Don Gwinn]

You've got to remember too that most of the people who debate the "high speed low drag tactical" knives are collectors who don't use the things for their intended purposes.

Thus they're only in it because they really, truly love the art and craftmanship. . . . . or because they love to argue.

And some of us are both.

 

[The Tourist]

Mr. Gwinn,

I know the concept of argueing, or debating, but I don't find personal attacks to benefit anyone.

I got 'cyber stalked' on one forum. Every time I posted, the guy posted right after me with insults. And I'm not the only one.

Member after member wrote in to say they were going to 'take a break.' Some of the worst conduct was over who was the better and 'more enlightened' instructor. I even read about the 'dark side' of knife usage, if you can believe that.

And then in a gun rag, the same thing is noticed. And the same course of action is taken, that is, the gun guy tries to get at an issue, and he insulates himself from an instant flame war with a knife guy.

To be sure, there must be sincere knife collectors. If I was one of them, I'd be embarrassed that the general public felt this way about the sport.

 

[hso]

Don, TTourist,

Most of the folks that engage in flame wars about this knife "fighting" school or that fighting knife are posers that are neither true collectors of knives appreciating their cold beauty nor are they fighters that spend any time training. Few have any training at all that they didn't get from the big or small screen (or the littler computer monitor) and all their practice produces less sweat than the damp palms they get watching their favorite brand of carnography. In rare occasion there are those folks that spend some time in the dojo or salon and they may have passionate faith that their school/knife/sword/guro is the one and only "right" one. Given time they may be lucky enough to learn that there is no "one" right school/blade/teacher, but plenty of wrong ones. Those that spend time "learning by doing" are the rarest ones and they snort in derission at those flamers who think it takes anything more than a cheap WalMart chef's knife and a will to spill the life from another person.

You can sort most folks on boards into tolerant and intolerant of other opinions to get a good idea of whether their opinions are usually of value.

 

[The Tourist]

Hso,

There is no doubt in my mind that you are right on the money. The trouble is that this concept is not about a tight little group of friends, a renegade troll or even a particular website.

This article appeared in a nationally recognized main-stream gun rag, and the author used broad disclaimers to keep from getting hate mail; and my guess is by his care, he's had some before.

Am I mistaken, or does some issue have to be fairly wide before it becomes an article in a national rag? I mean, these authors get mail all of the time like "You denigrated my favorite calibre!" or "Your article sells out to your advertisers, the gun is junk!" and so on.

Heck, Andy Roonie got 60,000 adverse letters on his criticism of Mel Gibson.

My position is that an article has to appeal to tens of thousands of readers or the managing editor will have that piece struck.

 

[hso]

My experience has been that many magazines that take advertising have a pro advertiser stance in some of what is written. Friends that write for such magazines have taught me to "read between the lines" for the real opinion. They feel that critical readers (no, not the ones that that will attack, but the ones that analyze) will get the point by looking deep and the ones that don't want to hear anything but their preconceived notions will be happy in the shallow end of things. An analogue to this is the editorial stance that wants to stay away from controversy within the reader group. They have a demographic that they want to play to and the writers can either write pap or try to put the "real meaning" deep within the way the article is worded, but they avoid controversy nonetheless. I would expect that the writer in the gun mag you mentioned wants to avoid the controversy that might cause the editors to worry about circulation. Perhaps he spends too much time on-line reading boards and sees the recliner rangers and remote-control recondo flame the mall ninjas and double-naught spies over every little thing and considers this particular subbasement of the wannabe subculture to be important enough to avoid. If you take the old editorial/political axiom of a letter written represents 100 people with the same opinion and transfer it to the innovation of email then emails and faxes have an impact. This unfortunately ignores the fact that (m)any moron(s) can shoot a poorly thought through note across the ether with a few keystrokes and (hopefully) the use of a spell checker. If you simply count them up and sort out the “Nyaaa, you’re one too†crowd you can get the impression that people with opinions that have an economic impact on your world are telling you something you have to pay attention to. Guess what. They are. The real operators, uniform LEOs, back country adventurers work on limited personal funds (life is cheap so you don’t have to pay the folks who risk it for you very well) and can’t afford the latest, greatest, coolest toy out there, but the knife manufactures for the most part have to get the buyer to buy something new every year or they would see profits fall when all the real deal dudes had bought what they needed. Well if the RDDs don’t have lots of money, want something they can rely on=something they’re used to, and are not easy to market to because they are busy DOing, who makes up the market share the manufacturers are carving up? The guys that can buy knives as fashion! They aren’t underpaid, overtasked, high tempo folks. They’re right in their little homes flippin’ channels or surfin dry. These folks you can market to in the age old way that couture’ is, some glamour appeal. And when the stakes are so small the fighting is particularly vicious. So the writer doesn’t want the editor to get nervous about the stream of emails that indicate a circulation quake. If my assumption is correct you don't have to have a real national issue to cause a shift anymore, just "virtual" issue can make some folks uncomfortable if they put too much stock in the internet.

 

[The Tourist]

Hso,

Fair enough, it could be an author cashing in on a 'non-topic.'

But, do you feel as I do, that the area of 'low drag' knives has really taken a strident tone?

 

[Sunray]

The Tourist. The term 'tactical' regarding anything is a marketing term. Period. If any knife has that in its name, its a marketing thing.
A knife is a tool. If it's made for killing, it's still a tool. Some of said tools are designed to be better killing tools. The Sykes is one. So is the Kukri.
However, if you get into a knife fight, you've done something terribly wrong. Far worse than if you have to defend yourself with a handgun.
The Gurka Rifles use their kukri far more often for cutting firewood. The no pulling it without drawing blood is Hollywood BS. They'll sell a Kukri to anybody with money. A troopie of mine was sold one when he was an Army Cadet shooting at the Bisley matches, 20 years ago. Gurka's are mercs. They soldier to send money home to their families. Like that is bad.
The K-bar was a modified bowie knife. K-bars, despite the heritage, US Marines mostly used them for opening ration cans or cutting firewood. So were most bayonets. The spike bayonet for a No. 4 Lee-Enfield was useless for opening cans. Lots of troopies bitched about it.
My point is that knives are tools. Period. And last ditch self defense weapons. They're not the first choice weapon of anybody. The media will write to amuse their market. Doesn't mean they know anything.
Better than nothing? Yeah, I suppose, but it takes a lot to do. And if the bad guy has a gun, you lose.

 

[The Tourist]

Sunray,

Of course. In fact, I think the production of 'black knives' was just a marketing ploy. What I was trying to discuss was the strident attitude.

You may not remember it, but for several years, Ayoob and a writer whose name I forget, had an open, running written debate over 'aimed fire' for defense, and 'point shooting.' Obviously, most people take sides. (The real practitioners learned BOTH, but I digress.)

There was no name calling. The two authors both respected each other, and it's obvious they were going to still be sociable after the series ended.

You could even say the debate was 'staged.'

You cannot do that in knife debates. If you simply say during a debate, "I believe the time for the Bowie in modern security issues has passed," there will be some clown WHO POSTS WITHIN FIVE MINUTES that such hypocracy denigrates JAK.

And yet, in our circles, the author of an article with the same slant could easily say, "I believe the time of the revolver in modern security issues has passed," and most guys will just site a list of police departments that still issue revolvers. No screaming, no threatening.

After all, I join forums for fun.

 

[Guyon]

Tactical Knife equates with Assault Weapon. Both are designations intended to make the object out to be a lot more than it really is. A Buck 110 can be plenty "tactical'. Just because it doesn't have a thumbstud and G-10 scales doesn't mean that it can't be effective in a wide range of capacities.

Sunray is right on two accounts. Knives are tools, and weapon is but one function they can serve. Also, if you're really into "knife fighting," you might want to re-evaluate your stock of common sense. Knife fighting is ugly business.

Why the flame wars? Why do people get so bent out of shape? Well, when I read Bladeforums sometimes, I get the feeling that most of the "knife fighters" out there are teenage boys or the mental equivalent. They spout off at the mouth because they're acting their age.

Now there are some folks in LE or military jobs that can utilize a knife effectively--both offensively and defensively. For them and their training, I have a lot of respect. I suspect, however, that there are a lot of pretenders out there who just like to argue.

 

[The Tourist]

Guyon,

Amen to that.

 

[JShirley]

Considering I believe it to be the ultimate camp or "brush" knife, it's hard to believe the kukri was "designed for killing".

It does make a rather nice short-range weapon, though.

John

 

[Joe Demko]

I wouldn't call it knife fighting as much as I would call it stabbing, but you need look no farther than the prison system to see lots of use of sharp or pointed objects to harm another human being. What can we learn from what goes on there?
1. The tool is less important than the will to use it.
2. The best "knife fighting style" is to ambush your opponent and vigorously use your tool on him.
As for why the knife boards are such acrimonious places, it is for the same reasons that so many martial arts boards are the same way:
1. Lots of teenage posers.
2. Lots of people who have studied a bit and who managed to get a lot of ego and emotion invested in what (little) they learned.
3. Most gun/knife/martial arts boards aren't as skillfully moderated as this one. They either fall into the "anything goes" camp or the "assimilate with the hivemind or you will be banned" camp.

 

[hillbilly]

Uh, how you reckon those "knife fighting gurus" and gee-whiz tactical stealth fighting bowie knife sellers make themselves money?

Yep.

They get all sorts of suckers to buy their training programs and their knives as the ultimate badass kill-em-all-instantly he-man macho pinnacle of tacticality.

When you get money and image at stake at the same time, folks get overheated.

Happens in all industries.

Ever see what happens to K-Mart packaging materials at the annual Wal-Mart Stockholders meeting???????


Think French Revolution.


hillbilly

 

[The Tourist]

Golgo-13, Hillbilly,

I'm afraid that I have come to believe this, but not only has my time on knife boards stopped, I've stopped collecting knives. In fact, I just gave one away.

When I get into a hobby, I readily admit I know nothing of the sport. But I learn; I read and I try different products. After 25+ years of guns and motorcycles, I got into knives in about 1996. As with most hobbies, I found a knife forum. And the in-fighting was going on even then.

The problem with this trash-talking is that it left such a filthy taste in my mouth that I quit the boards, but now I've decided collecting is a hassle, as well.

After all those years, I learned nothing, got a knot in my stomach, and found that Ben Dale can teach me to make cheap knives very functional. Besides, I like bikers and gun nuts better. I wouldn't advise anyone who is not a knife collector to start now. Collect coins instead.

 

[Joe Demko]

Well, I actively collected knives from the mid-70's up through the early 90's. Frankly, I always liked knives better than knife collectors. Snobbery and cliques have seemingly always been a part of it. There was a time, for example, when collectors of what we now call tactical knives were regarded as somewhat lesser, rather vulgar beings. Real, true knife collectors collected things like Case folders and obsessed over handle materials and dots and patterns and such. Knife shows could be really boring, if not outright irritating, if you didn't think having an example of every variation on the peanut pattern Case ever made was The Grail. The only fixed blades that it was seemly to have an interest in were those made by Loveless. It seems to me, that the interest in tactical knives had an upswing after the Rambo movies came out. That was mostly younger guys, and they are the dominant voices today.
With respect to giving knives away, since I quit collecting, I have given away most of my collection. I haven't gone out and bought anybody a wedding or birthday gift in years.

 

[The Tourist]

Golgo-13,

Your experience mirrors mine. My collection is also dwindling due to gift giving. I still have way too much!

This is the problem I think that that the owners of these boards are missing. At my peak, I was buying 2 to $4K per year in knives. I was a good client, and a good ambassador. Lots of people bought knives (and Edge Pros) because I had showed them my collection.

When I soured, the 'trend' was over. My friends and I are now going back to bikes; even our church elder has a new Fat Boy.

In business, they say it is harder to find a new client than it is to service an existing client. No one can afford to snap at the buying public "Take your business elsewhere!"

Barlow knives were 'in' for a while, now that 'The Alamo' is coming out, I'm sure that Bowie knives will be in for a short while as katanas were in during 'The Last Samurai.'

But these are short trends. Since Buck put up their custom 110 page (and now is expanding it to other models) the old stand-bys are returning. I hate to say it, but while tacticals enlived the sport, the ninjas killed it off. And I'm glad it's going. In one more year like this, you won't be able to even give away a copy of TK magazine.

 

[hso]

TTourist,

I get what you're saying, but I've been in and out of knife collecting since '76 and it ain't about the people who collect knives. With any group of folks that take anything seriously that they don't make the group is flooded with folks that are nothing more than critics. Some are good critics and many are bad because they can't DO and can only carp about the bug dust(trivial). The collecting is about the knives, bikes, etc. I found a young knife maker down in LA ("lower" Alabama) who is a wiz at folders. Pivots slicker than grease on glass. Good lines. Clever use of materials. Great prices! And humble. He makes folders that cut like crazy by hand in his garage with bead blaster sculpted G-10 scales that look like the buttes around Sedona done in silver. For every self impressed twit that thinks his knives should bring Loveless prices there are 10 makers that are just trying to make the best knife they can because they just love it. Let the whineybutts collect the dots and X's. Look for the makers that craft because they can't help themselves and be happy when you find them.

 

[JShirley]

Hey, you! Joe! Assimilate with the hivemind or you will be banned!



Got to lose the ego, sometimes. Everybody knows something, and sometimes it's different than what you know. Anyway, when I finally get around to getting time to finish the rewrite, I'll send you something. (Sorry, Mike- been buried lately.)

John

 

[hso]

No prob John. Crazy here too (having to be both my boss and ME at the same time gets confusing {can't decide whether to yell at myself or cut an order for a bonus for me })

 

[Joe Demko]

Hey John!
Looking forward to that rewrite. Things busy here too. Just remember, though, that a big part of "assimilated" is "a$$."

Joe

 

[twoblink]

And then again, the most convincing thing thus far from knife companies is that I should buy their knives just in case I'm attacked by a 3" rope cord...

People put too much into their knives.. They argue because they don't want to believe that your $9.95 made in Taiwan knife cuts just as well as their $199.95 knife...

 

[The Tourist]

I'm at the point of my life where if I wanted a $3K Tussey custom, I'd order one, tell my wife and we'd discuss when to put it against a card (and which one) and then we'd make dinner. No fuss.

I liked the things that Mick Strider was saying, and his loyalty to his clients; I bought two of his knives for $750.00 with 3 months of each other. I don't even remember my wife asking about this new vendor when the credit card bill arrived.

I'm not alone here. Guys my age buy $80K Humvees, fancy Harleys, cabin cruisers and custom pistols. We reward people who treat us well and provide good customer service, and price is secondary. That's the nice thing about being in your 50's. You have enough income to have nice toys, you're young enough to enjoy them and no one is going to tell you what's appropriate.

The knife industry really lost a big battle in treating clients like me with the back of their hand. I have enough knives, I don't need their boards, I tell my friends my experiences and I have other hobbies.

You want to build a business for teenage ninjas with soft mouths and a bad attitude, fine, it's your business and income. But don't expect me to reward you when I'm treated poorly.