I suspect that we're not going to reconcile our viewpoints on this forum- and it's probably not the place.

>>If you identify the presence of a weapon before it comes into play, it's easier to keep it out of play than to remove it from play once it's been assessed. That applies to good guys and bad guys.<<

I guess my thought is that if you spot a knife on me, you have not identified a threat, as I am not going to be one. If you don't spot a knife on someone else, you have not eliminated them as a threat, they still could be carrying anything. And just because a "bad guy" has a knife doesn't mean that that's what he'll use. Seems like very iffy information at best.

>>Bad guys make their decisions on who to attack based on lots of things (body language, eye contact, awareness level of the intended victim) but rarely on the presence, or lack thereof, of weapons.<<

Frankly, I find that very hard to believe. Can you cite a source for that info?

I would suspect that criminals are using "body language, eye contact, awareness... " as gauges of the likelyhood of real resistance- and being armed is fairly convincing evidence in that direction. If it's "rarely" a factor, I suspect it's because people are rarely openly carrying weapons.

>>The role of the knife, defensively speaking, is not to allow you to say "get back or I'll cut you" but rather to say "get back or I'll cut you, again". The knife is more useful to you if its presence is not known to the bad guy until it is in use.<<

There is no way to talk about past altercations to any extent without sounding like a jerk, but twice, that I remember, this has not been the case in my personal experience. Twice, showing that I was armed and willing to resist caused an assailant to leave me alone (once after a lengthy verbal harange) and prevented me from having to use the knife- which I consider a perferable outcome. In both cases, I'm sure that if I hadn't shown it, I would have had to use it. Once having a knife stopped a guy who was dragging his wife accross the parking lot by her hair. And at least once, when I was a young jerk, it didn't work, and I got cut... facing the situation when I probably should have run.

It's not an easy call. Obviously, those with overwhelming force on their side (numbers, firearms) are not going to be dissuaded, and concealment until use is the better option.

As an absolute statement, though, what you've said is simply not correct.

>>Of course, carrying a knife, as a defensive option, without training is not advisable. The knife is every bit as much a lethal tool as the gun and subject to the same restrictions on use.<<

It is certainly a potentially lethal tool, and not to be taken lightly... but c'mon. "Every bit as much a lethal tool as the gun"? Check some hospital statistics- it's nowhere close. If that were true, firearms would never have caught on in the first place.

These "authoritative", absolute, but obvious overstatements are not helping your case.

What I think you're really saying is that WE shouldn't be dealing with such things, that it all should be left to trained professionals... who generally aren't there- can't be- when the stuff goes down, but oh, well. Tough for us.

For decades now we've had the entire world telling us constantly that we cannot defend ourselves, and that we should never try.

The world is not a better place now for that attitude.

Perhaps it's true that we cannot, but hearing it from those with a vested interest in continuing to "protect" us has the flavor of asking a barber if you need a haircut... and in the post-Todd Beamer age, it's a LOT more obvious to a lot of people that there are times when we should try- when we must try- whatever the cost.