AyersGT,

I salute you on your CORRECT interpretation and implementation of the Guide to Safe Scouting Knife guidelines. Though I am only a Webelos Den Leader right now, I always figured the right approach was not to battle with the District or Council rules, but rather to accept the rules and work with them.

During my BALOO training (Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation) they had us dice up potatoes and onions for foil cooking. Seeing my folder fill with potato and onion guts I immediately was reminded of the benefits of the forbidden sheath knife (we were in a Council campground). The funny thing is that those in charge of the training supplied medium sized fixed blade kitchen knifes for those adults who didn't bring their own knives.

My thinking is that I would want to pre-approve personal fixed blade knives that boys plan to bring to non-council campgrounds (they are banned from our Council campgrounds) just to limit the Rambo effect and, where applicable, make sure legalities are met. For safety I think I would suggest that fixed blade knives be properly carried in packs (securely aligned side-to-side or up-and-down, rather than hanging from a belt, though if a sheathed blade is carried on the rear portion of a belt, it seems it should be sufficiently safe. As with anything in Scouting, if a boy was found to be doing anything dangerous - with any knife, a cutting tool, or anything - they would be corrected (Totin' Chip corners ripped) and eventually could loose the privilege until better skills/sense could be demonstrated.

There is a time and place for every tool even in Scouting.

Also, for splitting wood in Boy Scouts, we carried full-length axes and often splitting mauls and mallets - though not when backpacking. We woud NEVER have tried to split a log with a knife. Keep in mind though that NONE of our fixed blade knives in Scouting when I was a boy were nearly as robust as some of the popular survival knifes today (like the Beckers and some of the Ontarios). Most of them were more like the Buck Vanguard or smaller.