Doug Ritter is famous!

Woot! Check out this article on Doug and his advocacy work for Knife Rights! Granted, it's kind of full of misinformation and half truths at times but overall it explains his efforts. What do they always say- just spell my name right?

Good share. Aggravating article.

I was just about to post this as well. Could you discuss the "misinformation and half truths' a bit more in detail. Knives have sharp edges and can be misused? So can hammers, and frying pans, and baseball bats, and on and on....

Thanks, good read although the author does seem to be trying to be objective, especially regarding the lady in Texas who lost her son. It is tragic when anyone loses their child, but that doesn’t mean we need to restrict rights to possibly prevent a reoccurrence. However, the author’s bias is readily apparent in the first paragraph...
The article makes it appear that Doug was carrying the knife concealed, but was DR carrying the knife concealed as defined by law? I carry and have carried (in LV) a 3.4” Benchmade 940 — right front pocket clipped so that only the butt and clip are showing; at least in CA that qualifies as not concealed. I’m not familiar with LV, NV law, but is it in fact illegal to carry a folding knife concealed...

My read of the article was that comparing Knife Rights to the NRA was intended to horrify and alarm the good folk, among other invidious comparisons and statements. Suffice it to say that I don't agree with the article's slant.

Yeah, the implication seemed to me to be that under cover of darkness all kinds of 'evil knives' were secretly being legalized. Longish article so I could have missed it, but absent was the fact that many mundane blades are legally being misclassified as 'gravity knives' when they're not. Still, exposure is exposure.

What caught my eye immediately was the 20 oz. rib eye...I can dissect an 8 oz and ask for a box - twenty oz would be at least four or five entrees.

About legal carry - I learned something. I carry illegal (in CA) most of the time, my Skeletool CX riding deep in my right hand cargo pocket, and I'll bet I am not the only perp in this state. Doug may or may not have been carrying legally, but it is a pretty minor issue, typically invoked when someone is detained for some other reason...

Regarding the NRA, whatever you might think about them, they are one of the most effective lobbying organizations around...Why not follow their playbook? People who don't like the NRA may react negatively, so what?

I thought there was a pretty good discussion of the media-related demonizing of various types of knives, as well as coverage of the civil rights slant on selective enforcement against minorities, an issue of real concern to all of us.

The article mention figures on firearm use in fatalities, as well as knives, but did not relate those to overall homicide stats, which would have improved the article. How do knives stand in relationship to all the other means of killing? poisoning, for instance...

I am always a bit suspicious of articles which simply flatter and praise, and I thought this one to be a reasonable treatment of the subject. I didn't get any kind of "under cover of darkness" tactics - just straightforward legislative lobbying, pretty common nowadays.

What is so often overlooked in discussions of this type, is that it truly is not the article itself, whether knife or gun, which commits the act, but the person wielding it. How do manage those, and yet maintain constitutional freedoms? There's a really knotty problem!

Thanks!

Just for the record, it was a bone-in rib-eye so a whole lot less than 20 oz. of steak to eat. And, we all ordered the same thing, FWIW.

As for the "misinformation and half truths," we are working up a write up of the most egregious of those.

Considering how badly this article could have gone, given the source and how it started out, we are quite pleased that from our perspective, it is mostly positive for us and was worth the 3 weeks of effort we put in to educating the reporter.

Looking forward to your comments....

On the positive side, the article did make me want to go out and buy another knife, and a ribeye!

Knife Rights has an email out that links to a Washington Post article and explains in detail how the interview was arranged and conducted. Many here will probably receive the email. For those who don’t, the webpage at: “Knife Rights Featured on The Washington Post Front Page!”, replicates the email.

And in answer to my question a previous post, yes, DR’s knife was carried legally.

Yeah, that's the first whopper just to set the tone. In the article I linked the author accused Doug of a crime in the second sentence! Could be worse, he could have lead with it. I'm not an expert on knife laws but if you're going to toss accusations at someone that is you damn sure better have your facts straight.

So for me that got the piece off on the wrong foot. If I'm introducing bias of my own in reading it, well, that's an issue we all have to be careful of. I imagine I get a little defensive because while I've never met him in person, Doug is "one of our own." It seems the the author injects subtle digs wherever possible. I suppose though it's as Doug said- it could have been worse.

Apropos of nothing and speaking for myself, not Mr. Ritter, the knife laws I find the most egregious are the ones like the "Gravity Knife" laws of NYC. Incredibly even their State Supreme Court can't figure out the facts. There really is no reliable means of determining if a knife is legal to carry. While I don't have a link right now I know of a case where a guy had a couple of different cops test his knife to see if would open with a flick- it would not and was deemed okay. But eventually he came across a bionic robocop that was able to flick it open and he went to jail. If you happen to be stopped by an Olympic-level knife popper maybe even your SAK is a gravity knife. It's asinine IMO, and a violation of our civil rights. Plus as the linked article points out those arrested are usually browner than I am.

I note that the article was linked here already, but here you go: https://kniferights.org/legislative-update/wapo/

The WaPo reporter never exactly lied, but he also never quite told the whole truth. To some that's an art form that allows them to escape libel, while biasing the story the way they want. To those of us who prefer our news reasonably truthful and somewhat balanced, it is annoying.

As an example, as noted, he said the knife I carried was illegal to carry concealed, which, indeed, it is. He didn't lie. That this info is irrelevant to telling the story and is there just to lead an ignorant reader to the wrong conclusion is just a tad bit dishonest.

The article above notes some of the more major issues, there were many others. If it was easy, anyone would do it. Such is the advocacy game when you are successful enough to attract the attention of the big dogs. It beats being unsuccessful, at least most days.

It was bound to be a hit piece, given the paper's political leanings and the sordid track record of the reporter, the only question was to what degree.

We can only hope he ends up as successful as the WSJ reporter who set me down the path to founding Knife Rights in the first place: https://kniferights.org/legislative-update/knife-rights-was-born-10-years-ago-today/

Thanks to you all for you kind words and support.

Reading the subject article "cold" for the first time, I thought you and Knife Rights looked pretty good. I was more worried about your cholesterol level than anything else! Granted that there is that thing about your drawing your knife.

More important is your statement that kitchen knives are the most common "weapon" - that definitely should have been included.

I thought of weaponized kitchen knives last night as I was washing dishes, cleaning Mrs. Hikermor's favorite tool, a nice pointy 5" paring knife, and gazed at our cutlery, including my grandfather's 14" butcher knife, a sacred totem. As with most kitchen drawers, lots of potential mayhem there...One wonders, are most knife crimes involved with domestic confrontations?

All in all, I thought you came off rather well in the article, as did the objectives of KR. If this is the worst job you ever receive from the media, you are fortunate. I have been involved in far worse....

Certainly not the worst. But, the one with the most reach and potentially causing us the most serious problems.

Yes, according to our best information, domestic violence is by far the most common situation where knives are used criminally. Where to many domestic arguments start and what is immediate at hand?

The FBI stats are pretty much useless since they lump any edged item used as a weapon into the same category.

That's the tool/weapon dichotomy of so many everyday items. At a little league game you'll see a stack of baseball bats and it alarms no one. If a half dozen people are carrying the same objects down the street at 1:00am they're clubs and people panic. Very often I'll be toting my work knife case to or from the car on the way to work; within it are ten blades, most of them in excess of 180mm with one being 300mm or around 12". Few would bat an eye to see a guy wearing a chef coat carrying chef's knives.

The same applies to many other tools. In common law there's no problem with a contractor having a crow bar in his work vehicle, but if you're walking down an alley late at night with a crow bar in your duffle bags you may be in possession of "burglary tools".

The problem with the laws, at least IMO, is that the objects are being treated the same regardless of context.

A knife can make a fearsome weapon, that's true. But it's also a valuable tool, in many cases a life-saving one.