Beyond This Article

This column originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of BLADE. Click here to see what else is inside.

Many of you are responsible for it and, on behalf of the entire knife industry, thank you! Thank you for saving Americans’ right to own and carry knives, as well as scores of cutlery professionals’ jobs (including mine), as a result of H.R. 2892 becoming law, thus preventing assisted openers and other one-hand-opening knives from being reclassified as switchblades.

As much as it turns my bulbous tummy, I also must thank the conniving Customs cutthroats who came close to snatching our assisteds and one-handers away from us all. Why? Because without Customs’ brazen attempt to deprive Americans of the folders, the entire cutlery industry—pro-knife action groups and legislators, manufacturers, knifemakers and other cutlery professionals and, most importantly, knife users such as you—would not have united to both defeat the Customs con artists and enact the first-ever pro-knife law.

By its Machiavellian machinations and in its own behind-closed-doors, backhanded kind of way, Customs awakened the “sleeping giant,” so to speak, that is the U.S. knife community. In fact, rather than merely awakening American knife enthusiasts, Customs may have started a blade backlash the likes of which the country has never seen.



Case in point: A week before H.R. 2892 became law, Rep. Jenn Coffey introduced a bill (LSR 2010-2015) in the New Hampshire state legislature that would mandate for New Hampshire citizens what the U.S. Constitution mandates for all U.S. citizens—the right to keep and bear arms, in this case, knives.

According to Rep. Coffey, “In order to be criminally convicted under my bill, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt three elements of the law: a) You must use the knife! Merely carrying it is not enough; b) You must use the knife on another person. Use of it to gut a deer, cut a rope, open a box, or any other use (not on another person) is not enough; and c) You must use the knife on another person with the intent of committing a crime. Using the knife to cut a pinned person free from a safety belt, to defend oneself, or any other use on a person without the intent of committing a crime is not enough.” (Italics are the editor’s.)

At press time, LSR 2010-2015 was in the committee process, so if you live in New Hampshire, contact your state representatives and urge them to support it.

Meanwhile, the roll call of people and organizations who won the epic struggle with Customs to save our knives is long. I am sure to leave some out but, in alphabetical order, they include: John Belniak; Jan Billeb and Dave Kowalski of AKTI; Brian Boyd; Peggy and Rod Bremer; Pete Brownell; CJ Buck; Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms; Nicole Bivens Collinson; Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus; Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation; Jeffrey S. Crane; Cutlery News Journal; Drew Derco; Les de Asis; Jeff Freeman; Gil Hibben; Jack Igarishi; Nora Bomar Kahlil; Kevin Keegan; Doug Ritter of Knife Rights; Knife World; Knives Illustrated; Jason Kunkler; Jason Landmark; Dan Lawson; Michael Manrose; and Evan Nappen.

Also: the NRA; National Shooting Sports Foundation; Ken Onion; Bill Raczkowski; Goldie Russell; Safari Club International; Second Amendment Foundation; Larry E. Smith; Ned Steiner; Tactical Knives; Morgan Taylor; Andy York; all members of Congress who actively supported H.R. 2892 (Reps. Minnick, Latta, Olson, Obey, Price, Rush, Rangel, Levin and Waxman, and Sens. Cornyn, Pryor, Hatch, Vitter, Risch, Chambliss, Corker, Enzi, Barrasso, Graham, Roberts, Wyden, Merkley, Thune, Bennett, Collins, Inhofe, Nelson, Tester, Roberts and Crapo); and, most of all, the thousands of knife enthusiasts who wrote their federal legislators to defeat Customs’ most heinous of anti-knife initiatives.

Knife enthusiasts everywhere are indebted to them all!

Hugh Bartrug

Hugh Bartrug, loving husband to Joyce and devoted father of five, passed away Oct. 25. He was 76.

A pioneer in mosaic damascus who forged stunning blades—including ones of mosaic nickel damascus with “In God We Trust”—in his Ashley Forge named after his granddaughter, Ashley Jo, Hugh, along with Joyce, was a fixture at the early BLADE Shows in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Atlanta. Illness later prevented him from being as active in the knife business as he had been. The BLADE Show’s Hugh Bartrug Best In Show Award for custom knives is named in his honor.