By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
I hope God will bless my Uncle Henry
Placeholder Image

My uncle once noted on his return from a fishing trip that he caught so many fish he couldn’t put them all in one pile.

That’s how I feel trying to keep up with all the causes and organizations that either require support groups or else they comprise support groups.

For many years we have heard about people’s rights to own guns, carry guns, shoot guns and maybe even cuddle with them. It’s all right there in the Second Amendment, one of the most quoted elements of our Constitution.

By the way, I own several guns. And I’m a better than average shot with most of them. I am not threatened by regulations that reasonably regulate my guns. I do not wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, having dreamed that men in dark suits, dark glasses and ear pieces have come to take away my guns. I have awakened in a cold sweat having dreamed that I owed my high school English teacher an essay, and she had returned to collect on my debt.

All that said, I didn’t know until yesterday that there is an organization that aims to protect my rights to my pocket knife, my hunting knife and that knife that slices tomatoes as well as cuts galvanized pipe. They call themselves Knife Rights, defending the right to own and use knives and edged tools.

Well, I didn’t know my Barlow and my Case were threatened. I didn’t know my Uncle Henry and my Old Timer needed a support group.

Like guns, I own a few knives. Most of them are memorabilia. My uncle Ed left me his Case. My dad left me his Barlow and his Schrade. My father-in-law left me his Old Timer. I’ve got a Queen Steel hunting knife that my sister gave me for Christmas when I was in the ninth grade.

I seldom carry a knife unless I’m hunting, fishing or I’m down on the farm. If I do, it’s a small pen knife. My Case is so heavy it would bag my pants. It was made for overall pockets.

I recall when a pocket knife was considered a tool, not a weapon. The only trouble we got into at school with a knife was when we carved a name on a desk. Often a teacher would ask, “Any of you boys got a knife I can borrow?” If that happened today, it would involve suspension and might even become national headlines.

Now I understand there must be new regulations as times change and people get nuttier. I have no problem with not being able to carry a knife onto an airplane, even a small pen knife. When I’m on a plane, I’m at the mercy of the pilot and his crew. I’m in total obedience to their commands. Being 30,000 feet off the ground has that effect on me. If the pilot decided a song would help keep that bird in the air and he pointed to me, I’d give him my best rendition of “A Country Boy Can Survive.”

And I didn’t know it, but Georgia has a Knife Preemption Law. I’ve never heard about it until now. Maybe it was a rider on that law that lets you use a silencer while deer hunting. I dunno.

But Knife Rights people point out that knives are more than just something to clean your finger nails with after you’ve changed oil in your car. An example was given of a father who saved his son from a mountain lion attack by fending off the beast with his pocket knife.

Anyways, Knife Rights is holding its annual Sharper Future Awards Breakfast in Atlanta very soon. The guest speaker is a woman, S.E. Cupp. Her speech is titled “Leave My Knives Alone! A New York Girl’s Reflections on Life, Liberty and the Lunacy of Anti-Knife Laws.”

I’m trying to determine now if I appreciate the efforts of this group and their bids to confront the major issues of the day. Maybe the next time I’m under the house sawing away at a water line with my Ronco multi-use kitchen knife, I’ll pause and give thanks.

Walden is the editor/publisher of the Moultrie Observer.

Sign up for our E-Newsletters