Knife Rights needs YOU! I can think of no excuse why every member of this forum doesn't join Knife Rights. You represent the core knife owner and user around which we can build a powerful advocacy group. Please join today at www.KnifeRights.org/membership

(Knife Rights was formerly known as U.S. Knife & Tool Association - same organization, new and better name. This is a grassroots organization that is not associated with AKTI, the industry organization.)
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In Europe and Australia, regulations regarding knives, including their size, style and ownership by individual citizens have made many commonly carried pocket knives illegal.

Knife Rights, a grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to defending Americans' right to own, carry and use knives has been created to oppose similar attacks on individual rights by left wing activists.

Announcing the new organization at SHOT Show 2007, Doug Ritter, founder and Chairman of Knife Rights, said, "we must organize now and be ready when the only solution is to flood the politicos' offices with mail. If we wait, it will be too late."

“The anti-gun lobby is already well organized,” says Ritter, “They sent up a trial balloon last summer in the Wall Street Journal. The piece was inflammatory, inaccurate and misleading. It looked exactly like their campaign to demonize the term ‘Assault Rifle”. Just substitute the term ‘tactical knife’”.

The knife in the article, Ritter adds, was Buck Knives’ diminutive Metro. “That knife,” says blade expert Ritter, “is essentially a bottle and soda can opener with a tiny 1 1/8 inch blade. Not exactly what I’d call horribly dangerous despite its being ‘virtually unregulated.’”

"Knives are tools that have been essential to civilized society for practical and lawful purposes for millennia. Knives and other edged tools are a cornerstone of civilization and remain useful tools to millions of citizens, even in the modern world. Our right to own, use and carry these tools should not be abridged; these are Essential Tools and Essential Rights."

Knife Rights is a non-profit advocacy member organization. Annual membership is $28. Go to [url=http://www.KnifeRights.org]www.KnifeRights.org[url] to join or dial toll-free: 866-889-6268.

I hope for you guys that this organization can prevent the absurd rules wich we in Europe need to obey.

I couldn't agree more. Save yourself while you can!! <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

You, unfortunately, serve as the poster children for why this organization is needed. Our aim is to prevent what's happened in Europe and elsewhere from happening here. That takes political clout and that takes lots of members.

Site looks really good! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
We will probably be joining at a retailer level.

Examples of knife laws in Europe?

The laws are not the same in every country.

You are not allowed in a number of countries to carry fixed blades, unless e.g. youre hunting. And.... folders with locking blades are considered fixed blades. With balisongs it's worse. In some countries they are forbidden to own , sell or buy.
Pretty much the only thing that you may carry is a sak.

Further, if a LEO has a bad day, and find youre 3d maglight could be (mis) used as a weapon.... well then it's possible that it get confiscated.

Doug didn't even plug it as much as he could. Although this is a primarily an "American" venture, non-citizens can still become non-voting members and help the fight. And you never know, perhaps a strong and successful effort here means future organizations like this in Europe and elsewhere.

https://www.kniferights.org/index.php?op...;amp;Itemid=142

Hi Doug,

I've sent requests to at least 60 people to join the Knife Rights group. One response states:

Now, you and I know that there's every likelyhood that's coming, and perhaps a bill is already written, waiting for a publicly nasty stabbing or other trajedy before being introduced in congress and rammed through. But he brings up the point of "It doesn't affect us". I'm pretty sure most of the folks here would disagree with that on principle, but to many people, this is a prevailing attitude.

I've found plenty of written attacks, petitions and the like against knives and for legislation making massive penalties for carrying knives, but nothing that is being threatened into making it into law in this country. I'm sure that one of the goals of the site is to track laws affecting knife rights, but since there wasn't anything on the site, one of my friends wouldn't join. I'm pretty sure I could have missed pertinent legislation that's already out there, and I know this is still a new organization and that probably only true believers will join initially, but it's food for thought moving forward.

Do you have a response prepared for that? Is there anything that Knife Rights can put on the site addressing this common attitude?

I don't mean to hijack the thread, and perhaps it's best left to the Knife Rights site forums when they are online, but I thought maybe in this one instance folks here could come up with a good response for my "hard to convince" friend.

Thanks!
-Tom

Tom,

We expected we'd get a lot of responses like that. We were warned that apathy among knife enthusiasts was going to be our biggest challenge.

Eventually we hope to have plenty of answers. Right now there are two bills in New York dealing with knives, which we know about because a member emailed me about them. Probably lots others elsewhere as well. Recently some Wisconsin city police chiefs, including Oshkosh, took it upon themselves to visit Wal Mart and others and told them they'd be arrested if they sold specific assisted opening knives. We know about that because a member tried to buy one of those knives. A store owner in NYC is facing several years in jail for selling some simple one-hand opening knives from Spyderco, Benchmade and others, just like can be found in hundreds of other stores in the city. They also seized his personal knife collection as "evidence." We know about that because the gentleman contacted me in hopes that we could help. I don't enjoy telling them that we don't yet have the resources to do so.

Getting set up with legislative and legal alerts is not inexpensive, but high on our priority list, for obvious reasons. Anyone want to volunteer to do it the time consuming hard way, just email me. There's no question it would help us in our membership drive.

The list could no doubt go on and on, but since it likely doesn't personally affect this individual today, this week, now, he's not threatened and therefore there's a good chance we'd probably never convince him. That's someone else' problem, not his. But, that's really dangerous thinking and seriously shortsighted because precedents make it easier for someone else to accomplish something elsewhere, perhaps where it will directly affect him. You have to look beyond your back yard.

The bottom line answer is that if we wait until it becomes a crisis, then we're sunk. Hopefully, we'll get enough of the millions of knife owners out there with foresight that it won't come to that. That's one reason that the typical NRA member is an easier recruit than the typical knife enthusiast. They understand how this works, how you cannot just wait to organize until the threat is finally obvious and in your face. If the organization doesn't already exist, then it's 100 times more difficult to stop.

Essentially, we have to crawl before we can walk and walk before we can run. All those blank and coming soon areas of thew Web site require either dedicated volunteers with time or money. I have discovered that dedicated volunteers are hard to come by, but we hope that will also change as we grow and more become aware of us. Just getting the word out isn't quick or easy. We all have a day job or two or three. We all have prior commitments we have to keep or work through. I have a SHOT Show report that has to be done along with trying to launch KR and a commitment to do survival presentations the 26th-30th made months ago. We wanted to be at Safari Club Int'l Convention the weekend after this, but every one of us on the KR board has a prior commitment, as do all our current volunteers. Anyone outgoing and well-spoken want to attend Safari Club and hand out Knife Rights buttons and talk to people?

My point is, we're running as fast as we can and trying as hard as we can, but if folks don't have vision and faith, they aren't going to join at this juncture and there's not a lot we can do to change that in the short run. The NRA, AOPA, BoatUS and the like have had decades to build an organization we're trying to build in months and a few years. Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say...


Thanks very much for your support and help.

Doug,

Thanks for taking the time in your busy schedule to answer. I know this takes time and lots of effort and money and wasn't implying otherwise just because it's not setup on the site yet! Thanks much for the comments about knife rights cases, I'll be sure to pass those along to him. You never know, we might have a convert sooner than we think.

I would gladly volunteer for the show, but it's in Reno, right? That's a bit of a stretch to fly out there for volunteer work, but I'll make sure that I help spread the word here as well as I can.

As you say, it takes time and volunteers. Perhaps some national exposure from folks like Les Stroud and others would help. I should mention renaissance fairs, war reenactors, D&D crowds and the like, plus local gunshows and even flea markets would probably be fertile ground.

Anyway, if nobody else has said it, great job on the work thus far. It can't have been easy getting this thing off the ground over the holiday season while also doing your regular jobs. Congrats.

-Tom