United States Knife & Tool Association
www.uskta.org

The recent Wall Street Journal article titled, "How New, Deadly Pocketknives Became a $1 Billion Business," has served as a wake up call to knife owners everywhere who see in this a desire by "anti-everything" forces to quite literally take away our knives ( see article reprint here as WSJ is subscriber only )

A knife is our most fundamental survival tool besides our brain. We want knives with locking blades and ergonomic handles and one-hand opening because they only make sense. They want to take these tools away.

Regardless of the errors and bias in this article, it was in one of the most respected and widely read newspapers in the nation. It has credibility that raises this issue from the back burner to the front. It is now on the wire services and being picked up by smaller newspapers and TV news.

The United States Knife & Tool Association (USKTA) is proposed to serve knife and tool owners as their advocate against restrictions on knife and tool ownership and carry. Many industry insiders believe that knife owners are too apathetic, that until they see local or state laws proposed to restrict their freedoms, they won't do anything; that this effort is doomed to failure. They may be right. What I know is that if we don't try, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I believe that this article is a call to arms for knife owners and we need to organize to prevent the ridiculous restrictions faced by owners in places like England and Australia, where most knives we take for granted here in the U.S are illegal, where thousands of knives have been confiscated, where simply carrying a legal knife is itself illegal unless you have a "good reason" to be carrying it, a determination that's almost entirely up to the local cop, and where using a knife in self defense is usually illegal.

Right now we are simply looking to see if there is support for this advocacy organization from knife owners. If we only get a few hundred interested, then the naysayers are right and we'll drop the whole idea. If we get a few thousand to sign up, then we know we're on the right track. That is entirely up to you. Please encourage your fellow knife owners to drop by this page. The success or failure of USKTA rests almost entirely on you spreading the word and engaging your friends and colleagues.

www.uskta.org

We had an incident last weekend in which two women died and several people where badly injured when an inflatable attraction at a country fair was torn loose from it's tie down points. The two women fell to their deaths. The attraction injured seveal other people, including small children. Some badly. There was a valiant attempt by members of the public to reach and help the injured. Because of the wileful stupidity of British Politicians, who do not give a [censored] about the lives of their constituant's, and regard any knife as a weapon rather than as a tool, those brave people were reduced to trying to cut through the fabric of the attraction using keys. Nuff said....

Hi Doug & ETS,
I signed up as soon as I saw this. If we are not willing to defend our freedoms, they will be taken away from us. How is the response???

What about AKTI? I've been a member since its outset.

http://www.akti.org/

I've been having a mental wrestling match with myself since this was first posted. On the obvious side, the WSJ article is a disgrace, and is just more evidence of the soccer mommy mentality of asking the press and government to tell us what to do. On the other side, is the knife and tool industry just using this to get money from us to do soemthing that they are in business to do?

Now I give a lot of money to a lot of "rights" organizations. While I strongly believe in what they do, and even more strongly believe in the rights they are affiliated with, I am constantly bombarded with fund raising requests.

I would hazard a guess that the knife and tool industry is more financially solvent than say the gun industry. They also have a far better public relations image (up to now). I guess my question is, is this just another reason to add money to their marketing coffers, or is this really the first step down another slippery slope?

Comments?

It's hard for me to imagine that you could be so much more cynical than me, but I have to admit you beat me by a mile on this. <wg>

1. USKTA IS NOT the industry, this is BY owners and FOR owners. This is me doing this, not the industry. The industry is still having difficulty wrapping their brains around the concept that AKTI cannot and does not serve the individual very well, which is why they have so few individual members, and that as a result we're forming our own advocacy group.

2. Calling the knife industry more solvent than the gun industry is so far off that it would be funny, if it wasn't so sad. I have no idea where the reporter got his numbers from, but I am very skeptical of the $1B figure and Emerson's egotistical boasting not withstanding, I am quite skeptical of that number as well. The knife industry is small potatoes compared to firearms. The WSJ figure is not a Last year we lost Shrade, now just a name for an imported line not selling near even what the original was, and this year we're losing Camillus, two of the oldest names in the business and both major manufacturers for others as well. . At least a few other major players are having financial issues to one degree or another. Some are pulling lout, some are questionable. The industry is solvent, but not robust.

3. The knife industry needs this fight like they need a hole in the head. But, because they are relatively small and because they are not well organized or well financed, they've been identified as an easy target.

I take that as a compliment!

Thanks for the education on the knife industry, and the USKTA.

If you're a individual member of AKTI, what they refer to as an Ambassador, you're a pretty rare bird. AKTI is still alive and more or less kicking. They have done a pretty fair job up until now, but they are limited as to what they can bring to the party and their reaction time is slow. Note that a week has gone past and they have still to respond. They are not a cohesive group, which is part of the problem. They are fierce competitors and there is little love lost between some members, making it difficult to get many things accomplished. Also, note that with the exception of Buck, those quoted in the article are NOT members of AKTI and "don't get it!."

We envision working closely with AKTI, and a teleconference is being organized for later this week, but it is critical that owners have their own organization, both for their sake and for success in this fight. There's good reasons that most all threatened industries and sports have both a industry organization and an owners organization. It's because it works best that way!

The following is from the FAQ posted at www.USKTA.org/faq.htm

Doesn't the AKTI (American Knife and Tool Institute) represent us?

AKTI was formed to represent the entire knife community including manufacturers, retailers, owners. For a lot of reasons it simply hasn't turned out to be much of a knife owners' organization. It is the manufacturers that contribute the vast majority of its financial backing and who control the organization. AKTI has done a pretty good job to date at its primary mission, preventing adverse legislation by educating lawmakers. In that respect, it certainly does represent us.

Any organization must concentrate on its primary constiuency if it is to prosper. So no matter how much ATKI may profess to want to represent the individual knife owner, it simply cannot do it as well as an organization dedicated to that owner. AKTI isn't geared to support or service the individual knife owner and it hasn't the resources or organization to provide the individual member the benefits they deserve. It just doesn't have the appeal that a dedicated knife owners organization would have and therefore will never attract the critical mass of individuals required to make a difference.

There's a reason that virtually every industry, sport, what have you, has both an industry organization (or two or three) and an owners organization. They are different constituencies and require different care and feeding. While there is some duplication of effort and expense, in the long run it's a win-win situation for both industry and the owners. They are complementary and together can accomplish more than either could alone.

What would USKTA offer that we can't get from AKTI?

First off, it will be our advocacy organization, owner oriented. While both manufacturers and owners have the same overall interests in preventing adverse legislation, they are different as night and day in the services they need and desire. What services are those? We don't really know for sure as we haven't really fleshed this out yet, but certainly a newsletter aimed at the owner, a web site with information the indivdual owner will find helpful, perhaps better and more personal advice to owners about knife laws and regulations, and then there's opportunities for things like insurance, discounts from a variety of vendors and many other possibilities. If you belong to any woner advocacy organization, you know what we're talking about. But, regardless of the any other benefits, the primary purpose and advantage is advocacy with politicians and bureaucrats who only understand the force of numbers.

By emphasizing individuals and catering to them and building up a large membership, the most critical difference that USKTA could offer is the ability to organize owners into a force to be reckoned with. Groups like the NRA and AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) have incredible political clout for the very simple reason that they represent votes--lots and lots of votes. In the end it is votes that politicians listen to, not reason. When NRA, with nearly 3 million members, or AOPA, with over 400,000 members, issue a call to arms to their members to write letters either opposing or supporting some particular legislation, it is the tens of thousands of letters and emails pouring into their office that gets the politicians' attention. And, every politician knows that for every person writing in there are dozen or hundreds more that will vote that same way if they don't listen. In addition, the Political Action Committees associated with these advocacy organizations represent enough voters and enough money that they can make a difference. The Anti's already have their organizations in place and without a similarly mobilized counter, they will be increasingly difficult to counter.

You only get this clout with a large organization and you only get a large organization by being responsive to members wants and needs.

Could you find and either post the article or provide a link for us to read more about the fair incident.

thanks

Any thoughts yet on what strategies might be used by USKTA? Political lobbying? Grass roots "get the information out"? Organized demonstrations?

I'm asking only because I've felt a bit burned by other groups in the past. Good intentions + unplanned or ineffective tactics = no benefit and waste of money. I'm thinking back to years ago when I donated to Greenpeace. I'm all for save the whales and stuff like that, but one of their tactics of rappelling down the sides of US Navy ships hanging banners was worthless at best, most likely totally counterproductive. So despite the good cause and intentions, I no longer donate.

I don't know what my point is here. It's probably not the question I asked up top. More of a spoken hope that USKTA will move forward with a reasonable plan and make good use of moneys that come in, which will probably be on the low end of the financial scale as the organization is just starting out. Any comments on how the "interested parties" numbers are looking? I realize that this may be (should be?) privilaged information at this early date, so no pressure to answer. Just wondering - that's all. I haven't done much Internet searching on this, but I haven't bumped into much knowledge or interest with random surfing. I was expecting to run into front-page lengthy discussion over on BladeForums, but I did not see that - not obvious to me, anyway. Not in the Politics forum, not in Knife Laws. Maybe I just missed it. If it wasn't for visiting the ETS website, I probably would have no idea that any of this was going on.