The Truth about Knives posts a reader’s story about his son and a knife. It’s a sad tale indeed.
So imagine that, my oldest Son developed an interest in knives… In the fall of 2012, at a Gun and Knife show, a particular knife caught my Son’s eye. He had the money to buy it but the vendor refused to sell it to my Son because he wasn’t 18. I gladly assumed responsibility for the sale and exchanged of My Son’s hard earned money for the knife he wanted. He was now the proud owner of a fancy new “spring assisted” knife. We both marveled at how quickly it opened. I gave him the same advice my Dad had given me when I got a new knife. I said intently, “be sure to be careful with that knife”. The knife quickly became my Son’s favorite knife. The next spring as the weather warmed and even though Christmas had provided a few new ones, it was still my Son’s favorite knife. So He took it with him almost everywhere he went.
That is, until April 13, 2013.
It was a perfect night at the end of a beautiful Spring Saturday in April. It was the kind of day you dream of all Winter long in Michigan. That night my oldest Son was out riding his bike around the neighborhood. I wasn’t exactly sure where he was, but I wasn’t exactly worried either as we live in a fairly quiet small town. Besides, my Son had never been in trouble and I wasn’t worried as he’s a good kid and not the kind to go looking for it… But when my ex-wife knocked at my door out of the blue that night and said we needed to talk about our oldest, my world changed completely. I rounded the corner out my front door and onto my porch and saw my Son sitting in the front seat of my Ex’s van. He was as white as a ghost and shaking. His eyes were red and full of tears. I’d never seen his face so full of fear. The two of them explained to me the best they could through the emotions and tears, that My Son had been riding his bike just a few blocks away from My House when a Police officer stopped him and charged him with carrying an illegal knife!!! The Police report later confirmed My Son was doing nothing wrong when he was stopped and that he behaved very respectfully to and with the Officer that night. The Officer had simply seen a clip on My Son’s back pocket and stopped him to see what it was. My Son while still shaking told me “Dad I wasn’t trying to break the Law”, “I thought my knife was legal.” And then that night My Son would say the words that would haunt me to this day!! “If I can’t carry this knife without getting into trouble, what knife can I carry?” “What knife can I carry…?”
It was a few weeks later or so before the first court date so my Ex-wife and I set up an appointment with her Lawyer to meet to talk about what happened. The Lawyer explained the legal process and what to expect next… and I asked about MI knife laws and if the knife My Son had was or was not legal according to the Law. The Lawyer responded that “it didn’t matter what the Law said about his knife”. Simply put, my Son was being charged by the Local Police and the best option, since he had never been in trouble before, was to hope the court would go easy on him. He said since it’s his first offence if he plead guilty he would likely just have to do some community service hours and pay a fine. But I persisted! What about the knife and the Law!?!?!? What does the Law say!?!? But the Lawyer persisted as well and said that the Law did NOT matter! You see the night of April 13th when this first happened I started to do some ‘Google’ searching to try to understand the law and I was getting confused. But I did know the MI State Police web site said knives over 3 inches were NOT illegal, unless the person had unlawful intent. So I called the Officer that night to try to understand the charges. The Local Police Officer who charged my Son told me on the phone that night that any knife over 3 inches was illegal in Michigan… And when I questioned him about why the State Police website said otherwise, he told me to get a Lawyer if I needed help understanding the law because I didn’t know what I was talking about. I tried to explain to him that I believed HE didn’t understand the Law correct… The call ended and I knew we were in for an uphill fight. The Visit with my Ex’s Lawyer was no different. My Son and I talked and neither he nor I wanted him to plead guilty to something he didn’t do wrong.
The months following would prove to be some of the most trying times and frustrating experiences I have ever had. I called Lawyer after Lawyer and heard the same thing, the Law does not matter. But I still kept trying to understand it better, and I ended up finding AKTI and KnifeRights.org. I did everything I could to learn everything I could about knife laws and regulations. But unfortunately where we lived the Laws did not seem to matter, facts did not seem to matter. I’d lose more sleep and eventually succumb to panic attacks and bouts of rage trying to prove my Son’s innocence and understand the charges. Because the truth was traded for opinions and facts were perverted to try to make a innocent child look guilty. We heard excuse after excuse from the Prosecutor as to why My Son’s knife was not legal. My Son’s knife was even recorded as being 2 inches longer than it actually was. At a time when the police department who charged him were teaching and enforcing the law based on the belief that length determined the legality of a knife. Which does NOT agree with the Law. But yet they recorded his knife longer than it actually was, when they believed and were teaching kids that being longer than 3 inches made it not legal. The Sergeant had even signed and verified it into evidence at the incorrect overstated length. The first meeting at the Prosecutor’s Office I questioned the charges and explained I did not believe My Son did anything wrong. The person we were dealing with looked at the Police report and went straight to the the length and said, yes it’s over 3 inches it’s illegal! When I handed them a copy of the Michigan State Police website that contradicted what they were saying about blade length they became irate and turned bright red! It was then we found out the 3 3/4 inch long knife blade of my Son’s knife had been recorded as 5 3/4 inches long! That simply wasn’t right! So I questioned the length in the Police report and the Prosecutor contacted the Police department to verify the length. But I was told they were having trouble contacting them because the Prosecutor could only talk with the charging officer about the case and he worked nights… Eventually contact was apparently made because according to my lawyer the charging Officer stated it was the correct length. How can that be! So I contacted the Chief of Police directly, he was able to review the knife in evidence and confirm the recorded length was not correct! And stated there was no record of anyone attempting to verify its length from the Prosecutor’s Office. Then he told me the Officer was not able to find a ruler anywhere in the Station on April 13th and so he had to print one off of the internet to measure my Son’s knife, that’s why the report was not accurate.
Visit TTAK for the rest of the story. I don’t take as improbable that either (a) the ruler he printed from the internet was to the wrong scale, or (b) he didn’t know the difference between inches and centimeters.
This has as one of its root causes the fact that law enforcement agencies around the country hire in the main improperly or undereducated people to do the job. This isn’t mean to be insulting – rather, it’s meant as a clinical assessment.
I would advocate that candidates for LEO have taken and passed at least course work in physics and calculus. College degrees in criminal justice are mainly worthless.
Furthermore, I don’t mean to leave out lawyers from what may seem like a scathing rebuke. They can be some of the most undereducated people on earth. Courses in law don’t prepare you for anything except wading your way through the corrupt legal system in America. How many lawyers do you know that can work on machinery, or maintain their HVAC or automobile, or wire a home, or do the simple geometry and trigonometry necessary to build a structure?
As for knives, every man carries a knife all of the time. I’ve used knives for everything from opening packages, to cutting plastic bags full of hex-head screws for those infernal apparatus my wife wants me to construct, to cutting tape, to cutting paracord or other cordage or ropes, or repurposing when nothing else is available and turning a screw. Add to that the fact that a knife is the last line of defense, and it’s obvious why every man carries a knife all of the time.
A large folder, or a straight edge, but a good enough knife to be useful. And spring-opened if you like that sort of thing for one-handed operation. I know what women do – they use scissors to open boxes, but since any force on these instruments can cause instant closure of one sharp edge against another, they are dangerous. When you see that happening, stop it and use a proper tool. A knife.
But since every real man carries a knife all of the time, it’s no surprise that lawyers, LEOs, lawmakers and judges don’t want to see it happen. They want the feminization of the American man until he is no more.
And in case I haven’t mentioned it enough times, every real man carries a knife all of the time.
