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TSA’s Pocket Knife Ban: The Blow-by-Blow

May 13, 2013 / Tim / 24 Comments

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Members of the Association of Flight Attendants protest TSA’s pocket knife rule change

March 6, 2013, may have been the most newsworthy day for pocket knives in history.

On that date, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it would be allowing small pocket knives (under 2.36 inches) on planes.

The policy change, which brought the U.S. in step with regulations across most of the world, was seen by knife owners as not only a personal victory, but also a step toward a more sensible and effective policy for TSA.

In addition to allowing small knives on a plane, the rule reversal also meant that individuals would be permitted to carry hockey sticks and golf clubs on board.

TSA officials cited the low risk of these items to passenger safety and the time-consuming task of searching for them as the reason for the policy change.

“The focus is on what could present catastrophic damage to the aircraft,” said David Castelveter, a TSA spokesman.

Backlash Erupts Over Pocket Knives On Planes

The rule change, which was result of significant lobbying by knife advocacy groups such as The American Knife and Tool Institute, was quickly the target of harsh criticism from a number of different groups.

The most vehement objection came from the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), who characterized the decision as one that makes both airline employees and passengers less secure.

The organization started an online petition, No Knives On Planes.com, and recently filed a grievance with the TSA, stating that “permitting knives in the cabin is an unnecessary risk to the traveling public.”

Member of Congress from both parties also vowed opposition to allowing knives on planes.

New York Senator Charles Schumer blasted the decision in a radio interview with a local station.

“You don’t have to have a PhD in physics, you don’t have to be Albert Einstein to know that these items are dangerous.” he said.

Family members of 9/11 victims were also angry

TSA Backs Down in Wake of Boston Marathon Bombings

While the AFA and other organizations decried the decision, a number of transportation safety experts, journalists and policymakers supported the change.

In a article for the libertarian publication Reason, J.D. Tuccille, blasted the AFA for its opposition. Tuccile noted, as many others had, that there were a number of other equally harmful, if not more dangerous items that would be allowed in board, but weren’t drawing the same criticism.

I hesitate to point this out for fear of sending the flight attendants’ association into an organizational panic, but the same TSA notice allowing for small knives also allows novelty bats, pool cues and golf clubs.

Honestly, in a bar fight, I’m reaching for the pool cue, not my Leatherman micra.

It’s also been pointed out by many that TSA currently allows pointed scissors with blades up to four inches long, knitting needles and screwdrivers as long as seven inches, and glass bottles, all of which can easily be transformed into a deadly weapon.

Lastly, many cited the fact that since all cockpits are now fortified, it would be impossible to hijack a plane using a pocket knife.

It appeared that, despite the opposition, TSA would go ahead and begin allowing pocket knives on planes starting April 25.

Yet, on April 23, two days before the new rule would go into effect, TSA announced that it would delay the change while considering additional input from airline companies, passenger advocates and other stakeholders.

Many suggested that in addition to the backlash, the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon may have also swayed TSA to move more cautiously.

Meet the New Knife Depot Community Manager and Win Badass Knives!

April 29, 2013 / Tim / 1 Comment

Knife Depot Community Manager Dan Lawton

Dear Knife Depot Fans,

I’d like to take a second to reintroduce myself. For the last two years, I’ve been blogging for the Cutting Edge. In fact, I founded this blog in 2010. The initial name was actually the Happy Dagger. That’s a Bill Shakespeare reference, in case you’re not aware.

Anyway, I have a confession to make. The reason I started blogging for Knife Depot wasn’t because of my love for knives. It was because, like most people writing on the Internet, I was a copywriter.

In fact, I wasn’t just writing about knives then, but about all sorts of subjects like: birdfeeders, picnic baskets, temporary tattoos, seafood restaurants, wedding planning and even bankruptcy law in Arizona.

It wasn’t a bad gig — I could do it in my underwear — but some of these subjects just left me feeling a little thin.

I quickly noticed that most of my best writing was about knives, because they truly fascinated me. The guys at Knife Depot started sending me boxes of them, which was pretty badass, and I’d use them when I went camping with my friends.

You see, the thing about working as a writer is that you have to spend lots of time behind a computer typing when all sorts of kickass, beautiful stuff is going on outside in nature. It can be kind of a bummer.

The knife was my only link to the tangible world. It was a rugged product that reconnected me with nature in a way I was missing. Over time, I became intoxicated by the power of the blade.

And why wouldn’t I? It’s the world’s oldest tool, suffused with a deep religious, historical and cultural meaning. It was used by Roman craftsmen, Native-American hunters and frontiersman like Jim Bowie and Daniel Boone.

It turns out that over at they Knife Depot office they noticed my zeal for the knife, which is why a few weeks ago they invited me to central headquarters to discuss working full time for the site.

As you can expect, I was a little bit nervous. These guys don’t just rock one EDC: they are a walking arsenal of stainless steel. Their offices have more Bowie knives then paper clips.

"Art of Combat" Keeps Stage Fighting Alive

April 5, 2013 / Tim / 0 Comments

Art of Combat NYC Class in 2011. Photo by Jared Kirby.

Have you ever wondered how someone can go from an average actor to a seemingly experienced, masterful sword fighter? As you might have guessed, it takes a lot of practice and training for Uma Thurman to do this or for Liam Neeson to do this.

However, unlike movie actors, who have the benefit of doing multiple takes and sometimes even get help from the magic of film, stage actors must get the scene just right and in front of a live audience after only a few sessions of practice. That’s what I call amazing.

But the best and most serious actors don’t go it alone. Enter the Art of Combat.

The Art of Combat is an organization founded by a group of fight directors who wanted to take stage combat (both on stage and in films) to another level. Here’s a little more about the group from its site:

Art of Combat has been actively transferring historical combat styles to stage and film for over a decade with many members working in the industry for much longer. With our Fight Directors across the United States, Great Britain and Australia we have enhanced theatre, film and TV with authentic and realistic combat sequences all around the world. Company members are trained in historical as well as standard stage combat styles, so whatever the aesthetic requirements for your production, AoC can give you an excellent fight!

In July, the Art of Combat is hosting an intensive week-long workshop for fight directing and combat in NYC. The class, which will have participants from all over the world, is going to culminate in a public performance showcasing what they’ve learned.

Hot Kitchens, Hot Knives: The Kitchen B***h

April 2, 2013 / Tim / 0 Comments

This is the eighth installment of The Cutting Edge’s culinary article series: Hot Kitchens, Hot Knives! Cooks and foodies almost love geeking out about their knives as much as they love food (and at times, even moreso!), so we’ll be sitting down with chefs, kitchen crews, and bloggers all across the world to ask them about their knife collections and the culinary workhorses that they know and love. Check out this series every Tuesday if you want to find out what kind of heat the guys and gals in the kitchen are packing in their knife rolls.

After talking to chefs, big-name bloggers, and hunters for the past few months, I’ve come to realize that I, too, have a knife philosophy of my own that I’d like to share! Here’s a little background about myself, but I’ll spare you from anything too self-fellating: I’ve run my cooking blog, The Kitchen Bitch, off-and-on for the past 7 years. Since then, I’ve worked as a professional food writer, writer-writer, and cook for a few years, and now I’m writing for the illustrious Cutting Edge! I also, of course, have a butt-load of knives.

More on my knives, Japanese blade fetish, and the silliness of knife sets after the jump! Continue reading

Manly Groomsmen Gift Ideas for Your Buddies

March 29, 2013 / Tim / 0 Comments

Attending a wedding is not for the weak. It requires tons of patience, a lot of formality and huge amounts of self control. But fewer people suffer more than your groomsmen, who would probably rather be out walking their dog through the woods than walking your Aunt Bertha down the aisle. That’s why groomsmen gifts are a great way to honor your buddies for sticking by your side.

We all already know the traditional groomsmen gifts — the fancy pen, the fancy cufflink, the fancy flask — but those tend to be a bit too impersonal and become useless quickly. So if you’re looking for a way to show your friends how grateful you are for their dedication without sacrificing your manly bond, we’ve got you covered with these ideas.

Shaving kit

Image from Dirty Deeds Soaps

There are so many gifts your groomsmen will never use, like a silver pen or money clip, so buy them something they will use. Nothing says functional more than an old-fashioned shaving kit. Aside from the benefits of a classic shave, having a traditional wet shave will boost your groomsmen’s confidence and make them feel badass.

Engraved pocketknife

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I’m sure you saw this one coming — we’re a knife blog, for Pete’s sake! — but engraved knives are a classy way to honor your buddies who would would rather be waiting for a deer to come into sight than waiting for a reception to start. The best part of personalized knives is that they can be customized and selected based on your friend’s attitude and preferences.

How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

March 22, 2013 / Tim / 53 Comments

Update: A few people have asked if they can see emails between Knife Depot and Google Adwords staff. The short answer is yes, if it’s something you’re interested in writing about, then just email me at Dan@knife-depot.com. I also added an excerpt lower in the post, in which a member of the Adwords staff reveals his own disgust at the “double standard” Google is applying to big brands.

For seven years, Knife Depot has been selling top-quality blades over the Internet to the jubilation of knife lovers everywhere. And for the last two years, we’ve been writing about knives and knife culture on The Cutting Edge.

However, recently, something has threatened our ability to promulgate our large selection of knives to the legions of blade lovers across the world: Google has shut down our AdWords Account.

AdWords, if you’re not hip to the Internet jive, is a Google advertising program that allows companies to place text-based ads next to specified search queries. To the user, it looks like this:

Up until late February of this year, Knife Depot had generated a good slice of its revenue from Google AdWords. We’d also been careful to not ever violate Google’s Adwords weapons policy, which prohibits “the promotion of knives, such as butterfly knives, (balisongs) and switchblades.”

For this reason, we were shocked when last month Google told us they would be terminating our AdWords account unless we removed all of our “assisted opening knives,” which are legal, hugely popular across the U.S, and not prohibited in Google’s policy. Assisted opening knives, if you’re not aware, differ from switchblades by the fact that pressure must be applied for them to be opened.

Here’s a more in-depth explanation.

After some deep thinking, we decided that serving our customer base, who legally buy large amounts of assisted-opening knives, was more important than continuing to advertise with Google. For this reason, we decided to not remove the knives and forgo our Google Adwords account

Of course, we expected that our fellow knife vendors would be subjected to the same anti-knife policies, and be forced to make the same decision of whether or not to advertise with Google or sell assisted-opening knives.

We were wrong.

While Google shut down the AdWords account of a few other Internet knife vendors, it has continued to allow large brands such as Walmart, Amazon and Bass Pro Shops to sell assisted-opening knives and advertise on Google Adwords.

Just check out the images below from Amazon.com and Walmart.

Yes, the world is unfair. And yes, we have contacted Google on numerous occasions about this blatant favoritism toward big brands and despite assuring us that they would rectify it, they haven’t. In fact, even their own staff was sickened by the hypocrisy, as you can see from this February 28th email excerpt from a Google employee.

“I am still waiting on an answer to my reply where I asked for a universal enforcement of the policy OR we allow knife depot back online. I replied and said, I refuse to tell knife-depot they need to remove a product category that 7 other competitors are advertising & selling the same products. I then named each domain, called out the double standard, and requested that they state the clear differences that allows these competitors to serve & knife depot to be suspended. Still waiting on this reply.“

So for these reasons, we wanted to let you guys, loyal Cutting Edge readers and Knife Depot fans, know that you might not be seeing Knife Depot ads peppered across the Internet. However, rest assured that it’s not because we’ve softened our commitment to build the world’s most badass knife store, not even one bit.

It’s just because The Man tried to put his foot on our throat and say, “Hey, stop selling those badass assisted-opening blades,” and we refused, so The Man shut down our ads.

However, what the Man didn’t realize is that though he might be able to shut down our ads, he’ll never crush the desire of knife-loving men and women across the country to own perfectly legal and totally badass spring-assisted blades. And he’ll never stop us from selling them.

We appreciate you being a part of the Knife Depot family and we hope, despite our absence from Google Adwords, you continue to buy knives on our site. Oh, what’s that, you want me to end this blog post with a razor-sharp video of our top-selling assisted-opening knife?

You got it.

Gorgeous Maple Wood Kitchen Knives via The Federal

March 19, 2013 / Tim / 3 Comments

Late last year, The Federal, an Ottawa-based design firm, prototyped a set of kitchen knives crafted from polished steel and Canadian maple wood. The knives’ particular proportion of wood to metal is unique, but how does it handle? Their materials are undoubtedly high-quality; plus, the warm tone of the wood makes the knives look gentler than the sleek, cold steel that typically graces our kitchens.

via The Federal

Here’s what The Federal has to say about these wooden wonders:

With this project we wanted to explore an alternative emotion to the standard kitchen knives you see every day. The focus is drawn to the high polished blade, while the rest of the knife’s Maple wood body sits warmly in the hand and blends in to its surroundings. The wood is sealed and food safe to allow for easy cleanup. The knife gives the appearance of being lightweight; however their weight is balanced to ensure that they can be used by any level of chef.

via The Federal

As you can see, these knives are quite different! They may even be the beginning of a new trend in culinary knives: one which increasingly emphasizes the home decor aspect of a knife collection. What do you think? Is this a good direction for knives to move toward?

Knife Throwing Boy Uses Mom in Circus Act

March 17, 2013 / Tim / 2 Comments

(Picture: Adam Gerrard)

Meet Edward Pinder. He’s a 10-year-old British boy who does his homework and invites his friends over to hang out. Oh, and he hurls knives at his mother.

No, Edward doesn’t throw knives at his mom out of malice. He’s actually a member of a traveling circus show in the UK and his mother is his assistant.

(Before we proceed with this story, we must give the obligatory don’t-try-this-at-home warning for those who are crazy enough to think it’s a good idea to throw knives at your mother.)

The young boy, who some claim is possibly the youngest knife thrower in Europe, is surprisingly precise at throwing knives dangerously close to his mother. He admits he’s never actually hit his mom but that he’s come close. His mom and dad are also part of the circus, so his developing abilities are not very shocking. But his mother must have a lot of trust in her son to allow him to throw sharp knives near her head.

Here’s an excerpt of his mother from an article:

Following last week’s performance, mother-of-two Mrs Pinder said: “I was a bit nervous, but Edward was really calm and everything was fine – and the audience really enjoyed it.

“It was really, really scary when I was waiting for him to throw his first knife at me.”

She added: “I had seen him practice and knew he could throw in a straight line, but my heart was jumping, I was terrified.”

Don’t think for one second that the boy is using training knives or throwing knives that won’t harm his mother because he uses razor-sharp, professional throwing knives.

Jamie Carlson and his mom posing with squirrels.

Hot Kitchen, Hot Knives: Jamie Carlson of You Have to Cook It Right

March 12, 2013 / Tim / 1 Comment

This is the seventh installment of The Cutting Edge’s new article series: Hot Kitchens, Hot Knives! Cooks and foodies almost love geeking out about their knives as much as they love food (and at times, even moreso!), so we’ll be sitting down with chefs, kitchen crews, and bloggers all across the world to ask them about their knife collections and the culinary workhorses that they know and love. Check out this series every Tuesday if you want to find out what kind of heat the guys and gals in the kitchen are packing in their knife rolls.

If you’ve ever been stumped for cooking ideas for your wild game, Jamie Carlson’s blog, You Have to Cook It Right, is a lifesaver. Though venison steaks and wild boar sausage are great standbys, they can get kind of dull — especially if you’re as good of a hunter as Carlson is. His dishes are imaginative and versatile, ranging from sesame pheasant to wild game charcuterie. Even if you’ve never hunted or eaten wild game in a serious way, Carlson’s enthusiasm for hunting will inspire you to get cracking on your duck shelter ASAP.

Naturally, he’s got quite a respectable arsenal of knives. More on that after the jump! Continue reading

TSA Will Allow Small Knives on Planes Again

March 5, 2013 / Tim / 3 Comments

UPDATE: After much resistance, the TSA has announced small knives will stay banned.

knives allowed TSA

For the first time since 2001, air travelers will now be able to bring small knives on planes again, according to an announcement from the TSA this morning.

The change, which conforms to more lenient international rules on what passengers can take on board, will take effect starting April 25.

While this is a big victory for knife carriers around the country, there are still numerous restrictions on what knives can be carried on board. Only knives that are under 2.36 inches (or 6 centimeters), have non-locking blades and have a blade width of less than half an inch will be allowed. All other knives will still be confiscated.

Here’s more from the American Knife and Tool Institute on the announcement:

The American Knife & Tool Institute (AKTI) was instrumental in working with TSA to allow this policy change to happen. “As the knife and tool industry association, we were very pleased to work with the TSA on these revisions to ease the restrictions for all Americans carrying essential and valuable tools when they travel,” noted Jan Billeb, AKTI Executive Director.

If you’re wondering why this change was made, TSA spokesman David Castelveter said that they will now focus more on what could present “catastrophic damage to the aircraft.”

The Cutting Edge

The official blog of Knife Depot