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