Devil or the Deep Blue Sea?

When I posted about the new kerambit, I made a little bet with myself: How long, I wondered, would it take before somebody sent me an email or a note here regarding the advisability of carrying such a nasty-looking thing around?

Less than twenty-four hours, as it turned out:

"Your [sic] nuts. Cut somebody with that and you go to prison for sure."

It is possible. But, attend my reasoning ...

If I have to use my legally-worn kerambit against a life-threatening attack, it'll be because the options are A) use it or B) go RT (that's "room temperature.")

This will mean that two other things will have taken place: 1) I was in a back-to-the-wall situation whereupon I could not flee -- this being my default response to deadly attacks, publicly and privately -- and 2) My gun ran out of bullets and I didn't have time to reload.

Yes, I have discussed the notion of a jury-proof blade -- a Girl Scout pocket knife -- but the truth is, given who I am and what I know, that won't fly. I will be painted, if the grand jury indicts, as a crazed martial artist knife expert praying for a chance to slice somebody. No matter that I have, high, wide, and repeatedly averred and avowed that I'd never use such a weapon unless it was a matter of self-preservation for me or my family. (That I posted about the GSA knife means it would surely come up, and look like an attempt on my part to sneak one past the jury. Listen to the prosecutor: Knife? Shoot, the defendant could kill a room full of black belt SEALS with a pair of fingernail clippers!

Well, yes, that's true. But I'd never do that. I'm against seal hunts.)

If lethal force is justified, then the weapon doesn't matter, long as it is not prohibited, and a sheath knife on the belt in plain sight, no matter how wicked-looking, is legal in these parts. Yes, juries get swayed, but when it gets right down to it, I would rather have the option of convincing them I had no other choice, than having my neighbors interviewed by Channel Six news outside the police-line tape about how shocking it was to have somebody's grampa killed right here in our quiet neighborhood. I used to see him walking his funny-looking little dogs. He would smile and wave. So sad ...

I am a child of the universe; I have a right to be here. Long as you don't try to make me leave, we're gonna get along fine.