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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3782 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What do you carry in your pockets every day?

For me, it used to just be my keys, wallet, and phone. When I started to consider concealed carry, I realized that I had a pocket knife and pepper spray that I never carried around even though it's really not much more cargo than what I already had, and I just need to build the habit. I don't have the pepper spray oriented in a way that makes it very easy to get out and use, but the pocket knife has already been quite useful; at work, cutting off zip ties or opening packages is useful. At July 4th, other people handling the fireworks were asking to borrow my knife quite a lot. The knife you bring with you is a lot handier than the knife you leave at home! Even a dull one.

I also bought an OLight Mini 2 for my keychain. Pretty nice, though I think it's only really come in handy once or twice so far. It seems to be marginally brighter than my phone light, and a lot quicker to bring to bear. It was cheap.

Things I have considered:

  • A telescoping baton. Like the pepper spray, I was considering it for dog defense, mostly, but apparently it's legally questionable to carry one and actually ever use it in a self-defense scenario. I wonder if one would be useful for anything else.
  • A lighter. I don't smoke. When lighting off fireworks for the 4th, I was using someone else's long lighter for lighting grills, and it was very unreliable, bad for what we were trying to do which was synchronize 4 different mortar tubes of fireworks at once. I thought that if I had my own lighter, I could have just used my own and not been as frustrated.
  • A multitool. These are commonly carried, but I don't know if I would use most of the functions or not. Many people swear by them, though.

I recently reported on a series of stabbings that took place in Dublin at hip hop concerts, and a recurrent sentiment I've seen expressed by multiple people independently is that a person who brings a knife with them to a gig probably fully intends to stab someone at said gig, and the fact that they were carrying a knife on their person should be judged evidence for premeditation.

I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion. If I was hosting a party or barbecue and someone brought a knife with them (without a good reason, like they were coming straight from work), I would mentally strike them off all future guest lists.

EDIT: I got a lot more pushback on this than I expected. Give me credit lads, at least I can laugh at myself.

I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion.

My good man, all I can say to that is don't set foot in the United States. I can't remember the last time I attended a social occasion where somebody didn't have a blade on them. That's not even getting into guns.

I live in the US, and there's only been one time I can think of when someone had a knife at a social event. I can't say it's common in my experience. Bringing guns is completely unheard of.

I imagine it can be uncommon in some areas in the same way that some people might not know anyone who owns a truck. As for the guns, though... the point of concealed carry is that it's concealed. You almost certainly have been around random civilians with guns and you just didn't know it. Unless you're in some hell state like New York or New Jersey or something.

In Texas concealed carry is often enough not concealed very well.

The majority of states allow permit less open carry

Well yeah, of course you won't know if someone has something but conceals it. I think it's fair to count that as evidence in my favor though, because there's no way to distinguish "someone has X hidden" from "someone doesn't have X" when comparing casual experiences.

That's wild. I work at a few venues where weapons are banned for basic common sense reasons (trip hazards, flammable gas, etc), and even there I clock at least a dozen people with poorly concealed pistols each night. Knives are so common we literally have the equivalent of a coat check at one place.

I'd give someone carrying a knife a questioning look, but wouldn't worry past that. As you can see from this thread, some men have strange hobbies. I'll live in peace, as long as it's not a machete or a Bowie knife.

As a knifemaker who finds them incredibly handy to have, I think you're painting with far too broad a brush.

I can understand being disinvited for that.

At last, someone who understands where I'm coming from.

Harmonica
Music

A likely story.

I once attended a pre-wedding party carrying a knife/multitool.

The company managing it was so bad that I was the only one with a bottle opener on said multi-tool.

I got alot of good attention because of it.

Then you'd wrongly judge me and most other adult men my age. Yes, I have a knife clipped to my pants. No, I've never stabbed anyone or planned to do so.

This premeditation mind reading is certainly something.

I lost my (full-sized) Swiss Army Knife, a gift from my uncle, to a TSA bin shortly after 9/11. Intellectually I know it was foolish of me not to adjust more quickly from "knives are useful and a bit nerdy" culture to "nobody would need to carry a blade unless they're premeditating an attack" culture, but if I'd realized the former culture would eventually become unfathomable I think I would have resisted adjusting even longer.

I recall some of my elders' generation reporting similar feelings, after the statement "my classmate brought a gun to school" no longer primarily implied "I want to go hunting after class too!" Like, even if this is a change that needs to be made for safety's sake, there's definitely something being lost along the way.

I recall some of my elders' generation reporting similar feelings, after the statement "my classmate brought a gun to school" no longer primarily implied "I want to go hunting after class too!" Like, even if this is a change that needs to be made for safety's sake, there's definitely something being lost along the way.

There was absolutely something lost along the way. Imagine* living in a place where one could have a gun rack in a pickup's back window with a rifle in it parked at the high school. Not only was no one concerned about violence at the school, it was so safe that no one would break into the truck to steal the rifle.

*I don't have to imagine it, I did live in and attend HS in such a place. Only the 90s, and yet a totally foreign country now.

At home it would be very surprising if any of the men in my family were at a BBQ and did not have a pocket knife to be honest. I have one in my cargo shorts almost all the time.

I have a lovely walnut handled folding knife in my pocket right now in fact. Unless I know I am going somewhere they are likely to screen for blades/weapons, it will be with me everywhere I go.

I did grow up culchie to be fair so maybe there is an urban/rural divide here.

I had something to open or cut at work a few years back, so in front of the owner, I asked my manager if I could borrow his knife. Keep in mind I didn’t know if he had one on him, but he has a Texan accent.

The CEO looked at me with an expression of incredulity, as if I’d grown a third ear and she just noticed it.

Well, without a word, my manager grabbed a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and handed it to me. She looked at him with an even more incredulous look.

It was the single most sitcom moment ever. I could practically hear the laugh track.

You'd be put off by someone carrying an Opinel or Buck folding picket knife?

I guess a man can't even give a little boy a useful knife any more.

Opinel

I assume you mean a No.07 or No.08, which are the most popular EDC sizes. The former of which is right around the 3 inch limit for locking folding knives in more restrictive US states.

But, I like to imagine you are referring the No.12 which has a 5 inch blade and 11 inch reach. Might count as a dirk in some states. I'm sure it would still be horrible to deploy, since it has the same mechanism as the smaller ones. I suppose with something that large you could use it as a club if you don't have a free hand to work the mechanism.

Yes, absolutely, I would.

If I was hosting a party or barbecue and someone brought a knife with them

How big of a knife are you envisioning here? This is my daily carry and no one I know would blink at me taking it out during a bbq to cut open a stubborn package (although I do live in a small town in a rural area of a red state). It's not as if I'm hauling around my grandfather's WW2 Kbar knife (if only I were that based).

I guess I'm experiencing culture shock. In Ireland, the only people I can imagine carrying around a knife like that would be drug dealers or aspiring drill musicians (but I repeat myself).

Folding knives are extremely normal for Americans to have in their pockets for opening boxes and the like; even if it's technically illegal nobody cares outside of the sorts of places that already have metal detectors.

Then again, this is the country where a day long class and a background check entitles people in most states to carry a firearm anywhere they go.

Then again, this is the country where a day long class and a background check entitles people in most states to carry a firearm anywhere they go.

And some states don't even require that. Up to 29 states now that allow concealed carry with no permit.

Every single man in the world carries a knife.

Maybe in the South but in rural Northern Ireland most of my family would be carrying a folding pocket knife at pretty much all times. There's always a good use for a knife (folding, blade under 3 inches generally) in the countryside. Maybe with a few other attachments but often just the knife itself is useful enough. They'd also have larger ones for specific purposes, but those wouldn't be usually carried.

I suppose I should have said "in urban Dublin" rather than "Ireland". I can imagine lots of entirely legitimate reasons someone living in the countryside might have to carry a knife around with them.

Pocket knives/pen knives are useful, you never realise it until you need to cut something and realise you are not in reach of anything like scissors etc.

People used to routinely carry knives because they'd be cutting up their plug tobacco to put in their pipes. Those days are long, long gone though!

I see people smoking pipes quite often, but it's been a long time since I saw someone (other than my grandfather) using one to smoke tobacco.

Aye, it's fair to say it would be a bit more unusual in Belfast, unless you are a tradesman of some sort. Or just handy.

Right. The one person in my immediate social circle I can imagine showing up to a party with a blade would be my cousin who does landscaping work. But even if he did, I'd much rather he leave it in the van, especially if he's going to have drink or drugs taken (which he almost always will).

What if they keep a swiss army knife in the car or in their backpack?

In the car, fair enough. And even a Swiss Army knife would be far less objectionable to me than some of the specimens people are sharing here. But I can't imagine a Swiss Army knife would be a whole lot of use in a self-defense situation, and OP explicitly claimed that was his reason for carrying one. I misinterpreted, apologies.

Wrong, I never said that. I said the pepper spray was for self-defense, and the telescopic baton was a contemplation along those lines as well. The pocket knife is, as I said, useful for opening stuff or cutting zip ties off or cutting cheese or whatever. Knives are not good for self-defense. I guess in an emergency, you could use it on an attacking dog if the pepper spray didn't work, but you're already bitten by then.

I guess I must have misinterpreted you. From this:

When I started to consider concealed carry, I realized that I had a pocket knife and pepper spray that I never carried around even though it's really not much more cargo than what I already had, and I just need to build the habit.

it sounded very much like you started carrying around the pocketknife as an alternative to carrying a gun. My apologies if I got that wrong.

I guess I worded it poorly. From the concealed carry classes I took and the videos I watched, they emphasized getting into the habit of putting it on every time you left the house, because the gun you leave at home is of no use to you. The more I thought about it, I realized I had a couple things that I also had wanted to carry with me for ease-of-access but never got into the habit of doing so, even though they were easy enough to take along, certainly less burdensome than a compact pistol.

That makes more sense, thanks for clarifying.

I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion.

...Like, a pocket knife, not a fixed blade?

Maybe you can provide an example of what you're referring to by a pocketknife.

a 3-to-4-inch blade with some form of locking mechanism.

I actually don't routinely carry a knife any more, mostly because I work from home and am not usually anywhere but at my home, which has knives like these scattered across most interior surfaces. But anywhere I go, my prior would be that 50%+ of the men I see, and no few of the women, are carrying one of these.

The women too? I live in a rural area, and I think I might know one woman who regularly carries a pocketknife. Of course, like you say, the majority of the men do. I’ve been both gently chided and ruthlessly mocked for not always carrying one.

Well, gosh, I really am experiencing culture shock now.

This thread really could use a link to the "that's not a knife" scene from Crocodile Dundee.

Also this seems like a good question to add to the next user survey.

Or better yet.

I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion.

I carry a small multi-tool on my keychain, and other than having to remember to remove it before air travel or large venue events with metal detectors, I've never stabbed someone with it in the almost two decades I've carried it. The closest I've gotten there has been on myself. Also useful as a screwdriver and small pliers. The knife on it is maybe two inches long and would be a very ineffective weapon. I know folks that carry a full-size multi-tool around, too.

Hopefully you wouldn't kick me out of your social occasions, but I suppose standards for edged "weapons" vary a lot by country: it'd be legal here for me to concealed carry a firearm many places I go, but I don't.

A multi tool or Swiss Army knife that's small enough to fit on your keychain, fair enough. I'm talking about a knife that's long enough to be used as a weapon, which the OP explicitly stated his is. I misinterpreted, apologies.

...What? I didn't say how long my pocket knife is. I have a "Magnum" Boker knife that says "440A" on it. It's a cheap shit knife.

I know you didn't say how long it was. As I said I was under the impression that you started carrying your knife as an alternative to carrying a gun, and therefore assumed it could be used as a weapon.

But looking at photos of that model, it certainly looks like the kind of thing I'd look askance at someone for if they brought it with them to a party.

I will keep this in mind if I ever have to account to foreigners for my knife. Nobody at the party cared, the house I was a guest in didn't care, my uncle found it useful enough to ask me to borrow it a few times because he left his at home, and a ~13 year old boy bragged to me that he had like 20 different pocket knives at home, which his father attested to as true. I think it's generally a good thing to have. If you wanted to murder someone here, you'd really want to use a gun anyway.

Yeah, I guess this is just a major cultural difference between urban Ireland and the US.

While not exactly a bayonet, a typical multitool could easily be used to stab someone to death. And to me and most people I know the blade on a multitool is easily the most useful tool on it, by a lot. So your being ok with someone having a knife is dependant on them also having less useful tools stuck on it?

I'm specifically picturing a multitool small enough to fit on a keychain, and I have a hard time imagining how something that small could be used to kill someone. How long would the blade on something like that be, two inches?

Most "US" multitools are based around the gerber style, which usually ends up around a 2.5" 'primary' blade. You'll see Swiss Army keychain knives that closer to what you're thinking and are someone common (if considered very much a 'for kids' product, especially Scouting), but the last time I've seen one of the multi-tool-but-tiny versions was well before COVID.

They may be more common on the coasts; New Jersey and Massachusetts have much closer norms around >3 inch knives than the midwest or southwest does.

So no Leatherman? The "standard" one has a blade a bit under 3 inches.

I guess it comes down to expectations. While a Leatherman could in theory be used to kill someone, it's hardly optimised for that purpose, and my default assumption if I saw someone carrying one would be that he uses the various tools on it (including the blade) for his job. I would certainly find it surprising if I invited someone to a party and they showed up with a multitool, but that might just be a reflection of the circles in which I move (there are no electricians, plumbers or other tradies in my immediate social circle). I would probably ask him why he carried it with him, if only to satisfy my curiosity. It wouldn't be an automatic "you are no longer welcome in my home" thing.

But if someone showed up to a party I was hosting carrying a knife (just a fixed blade, rather than a multitool), my immediate assumption would be that they were a drug dealer. I think this assumption is an entirely reasonable one in Dublin.

I think "social occasion" is doing more definitional work than "knife" here. "Concert" is very different from "barbecue." If a bunch of my buddies came to my house to grab a beer I wouldn't be surprised or shocked if one had a knife, if we went to a concert and one of them had a knife I might find it odd.

@FtttG was saying he wouldn't accept a knife at a house party or barbecue. I think that's pretty extreme and I hope if he ever visits the US, he keeps in mind a culture difference here. Folding pocket knives are just generally useful for opening stuff. I used mine to cut some cheese for a lunch we were having, too.

I agree that taking a knife to a concert or something like that is a bad idea, but in defense of knive-havers everywhere, stuff you get in the habit of carrying every day is very easy to forget that you have with you. I went to a baseball game on the 3rd and had to think to myself "okay, baseball game, no knife". If I already was in the habit of carrying it every day for multiple years, it probably would have been easy to forget.

Seconded. When it's part of your daily carry, it doesn't always register that it won't be allowed quite everywhere you go.

I did manage to convince an NHL stadium to let me coat check my knife at the customer service desk, once I gave them my business card and explained that I made these for a living.

I lost my best knife when I accidentally took it into a federal building in D.C. a few years ago. To their credit, the security officers offered to let me turn around and leave with it, but I was miles from the hotel by then. I’d even reminded the rest of my group to leave their knives at home or in the hotel, but my mind was overcome by force of habit. I’m still annoyed by it to this day.

You should've just quickly buried it in their lawn.

I think it's important to teach the youth that knives are tools more than they're weapons, and alcohol is a social lubricant more than something to binge in private. I have a bunch of little (but very sharp!) knives in my elementary classroom I inherited from a previous teacher, and I don't let the kids use them very often, but I do want them to see adults using tools that require care to be safe. That's actually one of the art standards, learning how to use tools safely. I think it's a Scouting requirement as well.

You're right, I misread OP. I'm downvoting myself.

Mrs. FiveHour was once deeply embarrassed when the courthouse security took my leatherman off me at the metal detector when she asked me to come in and hang a picture for her.

Mrs. FiveHour was once deeply embarrassed when the courthouse security took my leatherman off me at the metal detector when she asked me to come in and hang a picture for her.

In urban courthouses in my state, trying to bring a gun into a courthouse will get it confiscated and the bearer will likely be charged criminally. In my rural area, they tell the person to take it back to their car. It's no exaggeration to say everyone here carries, and they carry so often they forget they're carrying.

Yeah I had the same happen although it was at City Hall. They said they were supposed to dispose of it, but luckily the security guard was a nice guy and held on to it for me unofficially until I came out.

What day to day tasks does this help with? I have a swiss army knife somewhere but there never seemed to be anything to do with it, so I'm curious about what I could use it for.

I realize this is a common cultural difference even within the United States, but there's a lot of relevance, anywhere from opening packages to cutting zip ties to prying out heat-set inserts to breaking open containers to stripping cable to trimming plastic nubs.

My uses are a little more common than most people -- I carry the cheapest tantoized blade possible because I've had to derivit aluminum plate in the field enough that it's a parlor trick -- but still, I work in a field with soft hands.

I try not to carry to public events like a concert, but I'll admit I've had to throw mine away a couple times because I just forgot I had it on me and went to a venue that banned them.

What is "deriviting"?

I assume "de[-]riv[e]ting".

Sorry, typo. Removing rivets, generally from joined plates. If you ask a mechanic, the 'right' way to do it involves a properly matched good quality drill bit, but if you have a good knife or even a wood chisel (and don't mind permanently damaging the knife/chisel!) you can get almost all aluminum rivets out with just the heel of your palm, and some steel rivets out with a good hammer.

Is the tanto shape more conducive to this?

Yeah. You need a flat or mostly-flat edge a little wider than the rivet head; anything too curved will slip over the rivet, and anything sharp will dig into the surface of the plate instead. And they are much stronger, which matters more with decent quality knives than walmart-grade ones (440j isn't brittle, I'll give it that), but since you're using a knife like a chisel on metal, you want every bit of redundancy you can get.

While there's a few other cases the tantoized shapes make sense (uh, mostly leather or upholstery work?), for most cases I wouldn't recommend it.

tanto points are significantly stronger than a lot of other point styles. In addition, tanto-style blades are frequently chisel-ground, which is worse for cutting but better for this sort of thing.

I read it as removing rivets.

It probably gets most of its use cutting boxes, zip ties, those infuriating plastic clamshell packages, and once or twice has cut and stripped copper wire. Often enough that it's worth carrying around, but not used daily, and not always at home where I know where the scissors are. I can't undo zip ties by hand.

Yes, I see. Thank you for explaining.

opening packages, breaking down cardboard?

I see. I'm used to using kitchen scissors for that.

In my experience, a lot of people who carry knives are used to spending time outdoors. When you're out in the woods, in a field, etc etc, then having a tool on hand (even if it isn't the best form of said tool) is super valuable.

Are you my wife? She'd rather spend five minutes futzing with scissors to open a package rather than five seconds with a knife.

A pair of sharp scissors held open is a knife. In any case, I'm not criticising, it had just never occured to me before.

Yes, a knife with a blade for a handle. I severely chastise people I see using an open scissors as a knife.

More comments

If I was hosting a [...] barbecue

Don't all men eat using only their personal dagger? The fork was invented by Italians.

You use cutlery at a barbecue? La-di-da Mr. Frenchman.

LMAO. Real men pluck meat from the fire with their teeth.

fire

Does your widdle tummy goes ouchy and achy from eating a bit of raw meat?

Actually, no. Chicken sashimi is surprisingly good, and I could eat thin steak tartare for days.

Funnily enough I was at a country house party once. The hosts were very grand but not always very aware of prosaic detail, and they'd cooked a delicious pheasant. Now, I'd had a few glasses of wine and it took me quite a while to actually look properly at my plate and realise that the inside meat was dark purple: they had put it in the oven without defrosting it properly, and the inside was entirely raw.

I remember thinking, If I make a fuss about this, I will humiliate myself and my poor hosts who have been very nice; on the other hand I've already eaten half of this and I've either got food poisoning already or I'm not going to. So I ate the rest of it. Not one of us said a word.

No food poisoning, either :P

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