Stiletto 2

I talked with CJ Buck, CEO/Chairman of Buck Knives about the whole principle of opening a pocket knife. Buck knives has made it so simple to get the blade out in the open. Flip the switch and out comes the blade which brought up the topic of the rumble scene in West side story where one of the combatants pulled out his stiletto. That scene and other episodes in history gave this kind of knife a little bit of a tough reputation. "They made it illegal to use the post office to ship a switchblade because that was within their jurisdiction and they made it unlawful to sell a switch blade across state lines. That is, except to a bona fide dealer that set some criteria so you couldn't just sell to somebody across state lines. Then each of the 50 states, some states never made switchblades illegal, switchblades have always been legal in Idaho. We are calling them automatic trying to get away from that connotation of switchblade. It's just another way to open a knife, it doesn't have anything to do with crime. Those states that have never made switchblades legal have crime rates that have remained the same. Some states made them illegal and have since made them legal again, knife crime stays exactly the same. States that have never made them illegal at all, crime rates stay exactly the same. It has no impact. It's just another way of opening a knife that got a really bad rap.