Swiss army knife in my “purse”, and a leatherman in the glovebox of the truck

I have a Swiss knife, which i consider a tool, and certainly not a likely weapon.

Only my razor sharp tongue.

My husband has a small Leatherman. Other than that he doesn’t carry a knife. I don’t recall any of the men in my life carrying knives (in Australia or the UK).

Me, carry a knife, in englandtown, in broad daylight? Are you mad?
My butler carries one whenever we’re out for a picnic, spreading butter on scones & all that

Small pocket knife for utility purposes, it wouldn’t be much of a weapon.
Northeastern U.S.

I do carry a folding knife as I get boxes of samples here at work almost daily and I also use on the weekends for fishing etc. I do carry a Ka-Bar in the door in my car in case I have to defend myself against raving raging liberals who drank too much Kool-Aid. ~

Yep. Leatherman. It is a handy tool that I use almost daily. Western NY. I think most men carry them around here.
I also keep one in each car.

@LuckyGuy I have always had the knock off Leatherman tools and not too long ago I inherited my dad’s real Leatherman and Holy #*** what a difference in quality! You can do surgery with the knife blade!

I’ve misplaced my big Swiss Army knife so am carrying a mini-version these days. Not much of a weapon but the tools in it always come in very handy.

No.

Yes, feel odd without it. Like forgetting wallet or phone

I do when not in dress pants. I carry a sailor’s rigging knife, or pusser’s dirk, like this. The metal parts are all surgical stainless steel that, like most stainless steel, resists oxidation due to salt water, but unlike most stainless, will hone to a very sharp edge. The main blade is not pointed and has a flat edge, best for cutting line. If you have the urge to stab something, you use the marlinspike, which does have a point and is very useful in knot and linework (also called marlinspikemanship).

Then there is the all important can opener for when you’re two days offshore, the fish aren’t biting and you find you’re down to one can minestrone. That’s you discover that can openers aren’t standard equipment on boats and there isn’t even any rough pavement around on which to grind the bottom of the can off. This is when you either have one on your knife, or you begin kicking yourself for not buying dental insurance.

I also find this knife useful in ranch work, which also involves rope and leather lasting. And lastly, it’s just a damn good everyday knife and tool.

Mini- Swiss Army knife, everyday.

Carrying a knife, especially for self defense is, I think, illegal where I live. If it were legal and were not considered weird/alarming, I might carry a sword.

I want a sword!

Not in my pocket, but I keep one of those miniature hunting knives in my car for little chores like opening packages.

Not anymore.

@Espiritus_Corvus Why I have a P-38 in my wallet

@Cruiser
I thought you meant the other p38

@ragingloli What other P38, the plane, the pistol or mitogen-activated protein kinases?

the pistol of course.

No. I do have illegal pepper spray though and if I fend off some psycho and get cited for having pepper spray without a permit, oh well.
I am not out and about in high crime areas, rarely am out after dark by myself and while anything could happen, I am not a paranoid type at all.
I live on a very safe 12 acre horse property. Now, if you were to attack me in the horse barn here you’d be fucked. lol

I’d nail you with a pitchfork, smack you with a manure rake, garotte you with nylon hay twine, stuff a curb bit in your mouth, blast your eyes with horsey fly spray and lasso you for a nice drag about behind one of the horses. Be warned. haha

@Espiritus_Corvus, in a younger day my pocket knife was a good rigging knife like yours, but just the blade and the fid. that prong-y thing would’ve been helpful. I still have that knife, but I don’t do a lot of rigging anymore… :-(

@Coloma illegal pepper spray? WTF? I always have that handy. B
wasp killer is legal to carry just about anywhere

@ARE_you_kidding_me In CA. you have to have a Permit. Not that I give a damn, it;s not like I have an illegal gun on hand. haha Yes, a spray bottle of Ammonia is a great self defense weapon too and it’s perfectly legal. I like the D-Con idea too. It’s a Raid! lol

you should try butyric acid.
it literally smells like vomit.

@Coloma Wasp spray has the range and stopping power. I’d just carry a bottle of water to keep the recipient from going blind. I can’t believe you need a permit for pepper spray in CA Won’t be long till you’ll have to have a permit to take a dump in a public restroom there.

I live in Canada. I carry my Leatherman Juice when I travel. And I’m not a man.

The only thing I’ve ever carried for self-defence is bear spray. I’ve spent several summers in the backcountry in the Canadian Rockies and have had multiple bear encounters, but never had to use it.

Good lord no.
I can’t pay my taxes with a cell phone in my pocket! I suppose some redneck security guard would shoot me dead if I had a pocket knife on me.
Believe me, my tongue is sharp enough to cover almost any situation I encounter. My mind covers the rest, with a cell phone back-up.

Em yeah, primary function of a pocket knife is not self defense. You’re better off with a big stick, chair, rock or other blunt object in arms reach.

No, knives are likely to be taken and used against you. I do carry pepper spray though. I also carry a tactical flashlight so that I can feel like I have an option in a “borderline” situation in which actually harming someone with pepper spray wouldn’t be justified but temporarily blinding them with a bright light and then running away would be fine.

If someones intent is to cause bodily harm I am not going to worry, for one second, about returning that harm two fold or better. You try to mug me and you end up blinded, well, you made your move and I made mine. haha

Oh agreed. I won’t hesitate to use my pepper spray if I know someone has bad intentions. The flashlight is for “borderline” cases in which I’m not sure whether something bad is going to happen but maybe someone is just acting a little creepy or something. I haven’t had to use either, btw.

Thanks for the contributions all.

Lots are getting hung up on the defense part. I was just curious how people around the world behave, and laws prohibiting carrying knives.

Special thanks to those who added their geographic location per the questions details.

Oh, this is about self defense? Those little things some of us carry around aren’t good for self defense. What are you gonna do, peck the guy to death with your tiny sliver of metal? Even if you are lucky enough to hit an artery—for which you will have to get in awfully close—he still has time and the proximity to get you. You very likely are going to get one chance to neutralize the threat if it goes so far as violence. That’s what chairs are for, or any number of blunt objects that are lying around. You need to incapacitate him, put him down immediately, and good weapons for this are everywhere.

You can kill with a small knife/shortish blade. An Iraqi guy I dated about 40 years ago taught me that the key was the ability to leverage (since I was pretty shrimpy then). Blade pointing down – enter just below the Xiphoid process (bottom of the sternum) – then kind of jump and push the handle down – not in.

A doc I knew years later told me it would work. I hope I never have a reason to try it out.

Yeah, special forces shit. Remember, K-Bar knives are a little longer than what we are talking about, but it is possible. The target is the pulmonary artery, or better, the aorta. They are bisected when you make the flip. It’s not as easy as it sounds. These guys practice under experts for the whole time they are in. You better know where the sternum ends here, know your anatomy, and have good aim under stress, or you will hit cartilage as hard as bone and only piss off your opponent even more.

You’ve also just given him a pretty strong signal that he is now in a fight for his life. And now you are within his grasp. And even if you do hit your mark, what do you do in the twenty or so seconds it takes him to lose consciousness? That is a long time and adrenaline is a wonderful thing. I wouldn’t attempt this unless it was my absolute last possible chance. People watch way too many action films.

There is a second and third maneuver to this that your boy forgot to tell you about. In one swift move, whether you hit your mark or not, you stomp and crush his arch, then come up with same leg and knee him in the crotch. Then you run for your life.

He didn’t forget. I didn’t tell you.

I know anatomy pretty well.

Just hit the fucker with a chair. For chrissakes, Bella. Put him down. This isn’t rocket science.

I think a pitchfork to the genitals would be a fine take down maneuver too. lol

@Coloma I thought that is why they make stiletto heels so women don’t have to always carry a pitchfork?

@BellaB LOL

Sorry. No. It was NOT focused on defense. Just lifestyle.

Apparently, in the UK it is illegal to carry a knife. I would certainly carry one and use one if required.

Like @Coloma, pepper spray was illegal without a permit here in MA too until pretty recently. I carried it illegally for awhile, figuring that if I don’t use it, no one would find out I have it, and if I do use it, then I’d rather the legal trouble than whatever else might have happened to me. Then when I dumped my ex and he started getting scary and threatening, I looked into getting the license, but it required a MA state ID, which I didn’t have because I was just a college student in MA and my permanent residency was elsewhere. Ridiculous shit.

@MrGrimm888 I think that the Q. taking a bit of a side track into self defense is kinda a natural unfolding when talking about knives of any kind. Sure a pocket knife isn’t exactly a self defense weapon but it could still do some damage if necessary.

@Mariah Ridiculous indeed.

Victorinox Swiss army knife; usually the Tinker. Always, since I was 16/17. I could not even guess how many I have had over the years. The only thing I don’t care for is that once they lose an edge it is gone. You can sharpen it but it never stays sharp for long afterward. For several years, until last year, I carried one I called “the club”. My latest one is blue instead of the classic red. I do like the other bits (screwdrivers, toothpick and especially the tweezers).

When camping I add a larger bladed Puma Skinner sheath knife. When younger and more foolish, it was the Puma White Hunter but it is large and heavy and my wilderness camping is very limited these days so it stays home; not that I am going to part with it any time soon.

When rafting I wear the NRS Pilot River Knife on my PFD.

My daughter is fond of her Bear Claw knife and carries it with her in her purse. When hiking it goes on her hip. She also totes a K-Bar strapped to the bottom of her day pack.

@Coloma. That’s fine. Just wanted to make sure I was clear. If a Flutherite read the question, but not the details, and picked up on the bottom, it would have seemed like the question was different in nature.

Although defense is a reason I carry them sometimes ( because I prefer not to carry a gun. Although I have before, and it is legal in my state with a CWP.)

In my state you can carry a folding knife concealed also, but there a limit on blade length.

@rojo they tend to keep an edge well for me.

Perhaps I need a different re-sharpening method.

@rojo Get a Arkansas Stone I haven’t bought from Dan, but my 50 year old stone is great.

Not long after 9/11, I stopped carrying one. Too many people were getting into deep shit just for a pocket knife. I grew up with a cop, and he told me where to aim when it came to using even a pocket knife. I knew where and how to do the most damage, when I locked my knives away they were all razor-sharp. Hey, I was not going to get grabbed on some bullshit weapon charge and have my knife taken away, and probably end up in the pocket of some dirty cop.