Diving knife - Weapon or not??

[PaulChristenson]

Did you ever look at your dining table and kitchen drawers? Most knives are for cutting, not killing - and this is what you're most likely to use a dive knife for. That and prying, sawing or occasionally hammering and poking. The last thing on a diver's mind (unless he's a Navy Seal or some other form of combat diver) is using a knife as a weapon.

"Your body is your weapon" from Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

 

[evilbacon]

well yeah, my previous statement about knives only meant for killing might have been directed only to combat knives, at the moment of the post i just didn't realize it.. sorry

 

[Bwanar]

Let's get this strait.....Guns and knives don't kill. People Kill.
I use my dive knive's for all kinds of things mentioned. I carry 2 all the time. I also use them to administer the Coue de Gras' on speared fish that need it, along with occassionally cleaning my catch. Knives are indespensible.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

Man I miss the good old days when divers were real divers and proved it by having a machete strapped to their calves...

 

[H2Andy]

Man I miss the good old days when divers were real divers and proved it by having a machete strapped to their calves...

bah... wimps

two calves, two machetes

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

bah... wimps

two calves, two machetes

You forget the backup third fastened to the 'aqualung'...


...and the home made spear gun you would naturally be holding - back then them thar seas was dangerous…

 

[AaronR103]

You forget the backup third fastened to the 'aqualung'...


...and the home made spear gun you would naturally be holding - back then them thar seas was dangerous…

Yup, back then a real diver wouldn't even carry a tank. He'd use his knife to cut open a passing dolphin and suck the air straight from its lungs.

A

 

[Vie]

I have talked to alot of divers that tell me that a "dive knife" is not a weapon. But from what i know about knives (which is alot) is that they were designed souly (sic) to kill.

My dive knife (Victorinox steak knife, with the pointy end broken off) is a tool.

Divers who perhaps need to kill would perhaps carry something similar to the product below:

http://www.hkpro.com/peleven.htm

 

[lowwall]

I have talked to alot of divers that tell me that a "dive knife" is not a weapon. But from what i know about knives (which is alot) is that they were designed souly to kill.

You know "alot" about knives then? I beg to differ.

The percentage of knives designed solely to kill is vanishingly small. The design considerations that make a knife ideal for one purpose tend to lessen its utility for all others. Since most knives are multipurpose tools, the designs are a compromise. Even so-called combat knives are usually designed to be multipurpose knives, the Ka-Bar is an obvious example.

A knife that was actually designed solely to kill like the Fairbairn-Sykes below isn't going to fit in your pocket, open cans, pound in tent stakes, cut your steak, pry off a lid, saw through cord or any of the standard things we expect a knife to do.

 

[pipedope]

A knife is a tool.
Sometimes the task is to kill and then the toll becomes a weapon.
If the primary task is to kill there are usually easier and better tools for that than knives.

A #2 pencil is a tool but can also be a weapon. Trust me, there are LOTS of easier to use, weapons but it CAN be used that way.

A dive knife is primarily a tool used to solve a problem underwater and the most common problem is entanglement of some kind.
I like to carry a knife and a pair of shears as there are situations where one is a lot better than the other.

If I carry only one cutting instrument underwater it is most likely to be the shears.
Unless the job is to kill something.