JAB

Yeah, my response to an active shooter if I am at, say, Walmart or at a restaurant with family or friends who are dear to me would be a little different than my response at work. The preferred option would still be to get me and mine to the nearest exit but in such a situation I would have other considerations. For one thing, it would be very likely that I would have a firearm on my person in the former situations (unless I am drinking at said restaurant which I rarely do anymore - too danged expensive, generally cheaper to drink better beer at home and I'd rather carry than drink in public.) If I were armed and had to shoot to protect myself and those with me I would. If I were armed and had a clear avenue to stop the shooter and protect others without unreasonably increasing the risk to myself and the people with me I would but our safety would still be top priority. Further, if necessary, I'd be much more willing to take a bullet for my loved ones. There is no one at my place of work whose life I value more than my own nor would I willingly take a bullet for any of my coworkers. I'm not going to trip anyone on the way to the door or anything like that but if I can get out they are on their own. Might sound harsh but in making a plan I have to be realistic and that is the reality. Conversely, I wouldn't expect them to put themselves in harms way for me.

Man, I thought I knew guns pretty well but have to admit I understood, "22 benchrest rifle", "barrel", "stock" and "scope" and the rest of your first statement might as well have been Swahili, to me. Honestly no idea what the heck a mid-barrel tuner is, either. I understood the part about a one-hole, ten shot group at fifty yards, though - nice shooting!

Are there procedures for impeachment or censure of mayors? If so, Rogero should at the very least face censure (because, like you, I know there won't be any criminal charges for violation of state law.)

You just have to love the bs claim that Chilhowee Park isn't a park. What I would really like to see is this whole thing absolutely bite Knoxville and other cities/counties/municipalities that are trying to pull this crap right on the tender part of their collective ass. Instead of, "We can ban guns at Chilhowee Park because that park isn't a park but instead is a, " public assembly, entertainment and educational venue used for civic events and by contractors for special events like the Tennessee Valley Fair," being allowed to fly wouldn't it be great if the state legislators said, "Okay, y'all want a pissing contest? Well, then, here you go..." and proceed to pass a law removing any and all restrictions from any and all facilities managed, funded, marketed or otherwise overseen by any city or county government or any other local municipality including public assembly, entertainment and educational venues used for civic events and by contractors for special events like the Tennessee Valley Fair (yeah, I think it would be awesome if the state legislature put their exact words in the new law.) In other words, saying, "Okay, if you want to be asshats about it by saying that Chilhowee Park isn't a park and you can ban guns just like at the Civic Coliseum then we'll simply remove your authority to ban at the Civic Coliseum and other, similar locations, as well. There, problem solved."

I can't tell you what to do, only what I would do. As long as there are no metal detectors or searches I would carry, anyway. Just remember that concealed means concealed. It pisses me off that these local yokels expect us to follow their asinine local laws and ordinances but think that they should be able to simply ignore any state law that they don't like and continue to enforce laws/rules that are in clear and direct violation of state law. What good does 'working within the system' do when any progress made within that system is in name only?

There was an officer from Oak Ridge present at the presentation yesterday. To my understanding, that officer has been through the full police training that is a 'companion' to this one and has probably had 'train the trainer' classes. He might well be the same officer who conducted your training. The presentation I attended didn't have a physical component and wasn't as in-depth as yours. There were loud, recorded gunshots as part of the presentation which, I assumed at the time, were largely there for the same reason as firing blanks in another room in the class you attended. Even for those of us who grew up around firearms and know what gunfire sounds like it may not be immediately identifiable in an unexpected situation. Example: While attending UTK back in the '90s I lived at my now late grandmother's house at 2314 East Fifth Avenue in Knoxville. There were gang conflicts in the area. One afternoon when I didn't have classes I was at home working on a paper when I heard a loud, repetitive banging that sounded like it was coming from one of the houses near us. My first thought (doubtless due to the 'denial' phase) was that someone was hammering. It took probably ten or fifteen seconds for my brain to really process what I had heard and switch to, "No, you idiot - that was semiautomatic gunfire." Sure enough there had been a drive-by shooting on a house across the street and one down from us. Seems the owner of that house was the mother of a member of an east side gang and some members of a west side gang were hitting the house in hopes of getting him. That was the second time such an attempt had been made (I didn't know about the first until I read about the second in the newspaper.)

Most folks here are probably already familiar with this presentation or, at the very least, with the concepts discussed. Still, a little review doesn't hurt and there might be something new to learn. I think it is also a pretty good presentation to show to friends and family members who might not be as 'in to' this kind of thing as many of us. Heck, just the information about the three stages of response in a stressful situation were interesting, to me. An outside organization rented one of the rooms where I work yesterday to have a presentation on active shooter situations. Staff here were invited to attend, as well, and so most of us sat in on the presentation. The presentation was done by a gentleman who works for the FBI and is designed to help non-police civilians know how to respond if they find themselves in an active shooter situation. Of course employing a firearm wasn't discussed but as many of us cannot carry at work in some ways that makes the presentation even more useful. I was also glad to see that this presentation didn't take the, "Just hide under a desk and hope they don't hurt you," approach to dealing with such situations. Even if people decide that their best option is to try to hide there was advice on things that can actively be done in order to make hiding from or avoiding an attacker more effective. I work on the second floor of a two-story building and there is an exit with a set of 'back' stairs that lead to a door on the first floor which exits outside the building. The funny thing is that, before the presentation started, I told my co-workers (who work downstairs), "Just so y'all know if I hear gunfire I am hitting the back stairs, getting out of the building, getting in my truck and I'm gone. I'll call 911 when I get on the road." The funny thing is that, once the presentation started, something similar was exactly what the presenter recommended. He said that the best response, if you can, is to get to the nearest exit and get as far away as possible and then call 911 rather than calling 911 and then trying to get out. He said, "Don't call 911 first because 911 will not save your life." He said that law enforcement response times to such situations have greatly improved over the past, couple of years but even in the short, three or four minute interval before police/SWAT, etc. can arrive a lot could happen - and you could be quite a distance away from the threat by that point if you get a chance to get out. That is the 'Avoid' part. Further, he went on to recommend against simply hiding under a desk, etc. Instead, in cases where getting away is not possible, he talked about locking/barricading doors, especially ones that open inward, doing a 'tactical cinch' (something I had not hear of or thought of) on doors that open outward and that have a hydraulic arm at the top of the door, and other such things. He said that there are actually only two recorded instances in a mass shooting of the shooters going through locked doors and in both cases they were specifically after someone in the room. Otherwise, shooters tend to move on to easier to access targets because they know their window of opportunity is short. Denying the attacker access is the 'Deny' part. Then, of course, there is the final 'D' - Defend. He discussed that people absolutely have the legal right to defend themselves by whatever means they can in such a situation. Of course, he didn't present an unrealistic idea that an unarmed person defending against a person armed with a gun should necessarily be the first option but made clear that it should certainly be considered as an option. For instance, he said that if the best option you have is to hide under a desk if the attacker is coming your direction don't just hide there and hope he passes you by. Instead, come out swinging when he gets close because a shooter in such a situation probably isn't going to expect anyone to attack him (or her) so you might be able to catch them off guard and knock them down/disarm them. The biggest thing he talked about was situational awareness. He discussed the night club fire at the Great White show several years back and the fact that most of the people in the crowd tried to use the one, main exit - likely because they weren't even aware that there were three other exits from the building. He pointed out that just having taken two minutes to walk around the building before the show started to find out where all the exits were might have saved a lot of people's lives. Instead, everyone tried to go out the front door and people became wedged in the door so tightly that people outside were trying to pull them out and couldn't. I think he said that 30 people died in the doorway. One of the videos he showed even mentioned the difference between 'cover' and 'concealment'. All in all, a pretty good, practical presentation. Anyhow, this is the website for the ADD program. The video that is linked there (available on YouTube) is one of the videos that we were shown. It is pretty good and I think he said it was done by or maybe in conjunction with Walmart because this is an issue of concern to Wally World. The video from the LA County Sheriff's Department at the bottom right of the main page wasn't shown during the presentation so even folks who have seen the presentation could get more info from the website. http://www.avoiddenydefend.org/

Skeleton watches are cool. I will have to see if I can find the first watch I had when I was a little kid and take pics of it for you. It is in a big, chunky, clear plastic case/body so you can see the gears - some of which are brightly colored plastic iirc. To make it even more cool, at the bottom of the watch face there is a little figure of a boy and girl on a see-saw (aka teeter totter) that rocks back and forth with the ticking of the watch. I am sure it didn't cost much and is just a little plastic thing but I am 45, wore it before I started school and the last time I saw/wound it the thing still worked. Dangit, now I want to know where it is. That was before I got upgraded to my second wrist watch - a Mickey Mouse watch where Mickey's hands/arms are the hour and minute hands of the watch. EDIT : I actually found a pic online of a watch like the one I had as a kid. The band on mine is long since gone:

Wow. At that price I will have to pass. Maybe I'll pick up a $5 watch at Walmart on clearance, put it against a good, strong back stop, shoot it with a .22 short and wear it with the bullet through it. Yeah, I know, the watch won't work after I shoot it but I use my cell phone to tell the time, anyway.

Heck, regarding the knife works, SMKW even had CCI .22 WMR ammo of one flavor or another when I was in there weekend before last!

In Knoxville, Academy seems to be better supplied than any of the other, large stores. For the last six months or so they have vacillated between having .22LR at the Customer Service counter or back at the gun counter - more at the customer service counter during the times I have been in there. The various Walmart locations in this area? Generally, forget it. Depending on which way I go home from work I pass both the Turkey Creek and Lenoir City locations. I don't stop every night nor do I go in specifically looking for .22 ammo but I do seem to end up in one or the other at least once every week or two. In the evenings when I stop they have had nothing. I did stop in to the LC location after a doctor's appt. last Thursday and when I walked back to Sporting Goods the lady at the counter (who is more knowledgeable about firearms than many Wally Sporting Goods folks and with whom I have discussed guns a little in the past) said, "Hey, I've got some .22 today." It was just one case of Remington Golden 100 round packs that she was getting ready to put out. The price was decent and I expect .22LR to completely disappear, again, within the next couple of months so as my onhand supply still isn't where I would like it to be I bought a couple of boxes. She did say that some other Wally locations are getting more .22LR than they are getting and that at least they don't have people lining up at the counter waiting for it any more. I am also in the Sweetwater Wally once a month or so (I often go to the Sweetwater Ingles and Save-A-Lot for groceries) and have only seen .22LR there once in the past year or so. Several months ago Gouger Mountain had the Federal Auto Match bulk packs (325?) but other than that Gouger has still been mostly a no-go except for the high dollar Eley match stuff when I have been in there. Admittedly, however, I don't go in there all that often. So, in my experience at least, it is still in short supply in the K-town area in most big box stores.

Okay, as long as everyone here is already offended I'll go ahead and pose a question: Do y'all think that 9-11-2001 would still be so alive and such a touchy subject in our nation's collective memory if the attacks had taken place in, say, Knoxville? Chattanooga? Memphis, even? I don't. In fact, I will go so far as to say that had the attacks taken place in any of those cities then folks from our surrounding neighbor states would have come to help out but certainly not masses of people from all over the country. I also don't think there would still be as much of a national 'remembrance' every year and certainly not after fifteen years. In short, if it had happened here then, after the initial reports, I believe that most people in other parts of the country - unless they lost people they knew in the attacks - wouldn't give it a second thought after fifteen years had passed. Think of the Oklahoma City bombings, for instance, as a case in point. That was a terrorist attack on American soil that killed innocent men, women and children - many of whom didn't even have anything to do with the Federal Government and just happened to work in offices that had space in the building. How much do we still hear about that? Yes, the scale wasn't as large but I think the real reason there is so little remembrance when compared to 9/11 is that 9/11 happened in New York City and, again, I doubt that the majority of New Yorkers today would give a tinker's damn if some buildings in downtown Nashville had been blown up fifteen years ago. How many New Yorkers do you think are even aware of the terrorist shootings in Chattanooga? Yes, I realize that not as many people died and no buildings were brought down but this happened last year, not fifteen years ago. I am not saying 9/11 wasn't a horrible tragedy or that it isn't a 'big deal' - of course it was and is - just trying to throw in a little perspective regarding other tragedies that do not get equal consideration and remembrance probably simply because the location was not 'The Big Apple.'.

Still not seeing any pics. Still not sure I want to .

Like KKing I can't go so far as to say I am thoroughly offended but I will say that the commercial was completely tasteless. I honestly would have been okay with the 'any mattress for the price of a twin' thing but the two guys knocking over the stacks of mattresses at the end was going too far. That part did turn my stomach a bit. I'll bet you a plug nickel that the person who came up with this ad is a 'millennial' who isn't old enough to actually remember 9/11/2001 as something they actually experienced and certainly not something they experienced as an adult. To them it is just something that happened in history and doing a commercial 'spoofing' 9/11 probably doesn't seem any more odd to them than doing a funny commercial about Visigoths sacking Rome. Keep in mind that many of the incoming High School freshmen this year probably weren't even born then and many 'young professionals' were likely no more than nine or ten years old. I am not saying that this makes it any better. What I am saying is that it appears that many millennials don't have the wherewithal to realize that their viewpoint on something isn't necessarily the same as everyone else, especially people not of their generation. The people appearing in the commercial seem to be fairly young, as well. Then, again, there have always been people willing to do anything if they thought they could make a buck off of it so my theory could be entirely bogus.

Couldn't really find a 'totally stunned' smiley so I will just say, "Wow. Beautiful."

Because there are fewer places for imperfections to hide simple designs like these require high quality work to look good and yours most definitely look good (for the record, I like simple designs so that isn't a criticism.) I also have a question about the fire steel loop on the Kabar sheath. Is the 'front' part of it a part of the welt and the 'back' part sewn on the outside of the back of the sheath? I want to do such a loop on a couple of personal use sheaths and that is the simplest way I can figure to do it so that it isn't too thick in the welt. Otherwise, I guess I could use a thinner piece of leather so that double over it would be about the same thickness as the welt but then that would require cutting a gap in the welt for the loop to fit into. I know what you mean about the 'life sentence'. I don't do leather to sell, just for myself and a couple of things for family or friends. I have a few, very simple and basic tools - stitch line cutter, burnisher, beveler and a couple of metal stamps - and it always feels like I am setting out to climb Kilimanjaro when I start a new leather project. This is especially true because my hands/wrists always seem to end up cramping for a day or two after I finish. I saddle stitch by hand because I like the way the stitches turn out but man that is a pain in the...wrist. Right now I am wanting to make a pancake holster for a couple of my revolvers (pretty simple process, really) and a scout sheath for one of my fixed blades in sort of a 'Hedgehog leatherworks' style (just for my own use - I'm not doing someone else's design to sell I just can't afford >$200 for a sheath even though it probably is worth it.) Those have a lot of elements to them and I have a couple of ideas for elements to add that even the originals don't have. I think I have figured out how I want to do the scout sheath but getting started is another thing, entirely. It doesn't help that once I actually start a project I don't usually want to stop until it is finished rather than setting it aside to let my hands rest then coming back to it.

I don't think the course requirement is mainly intended as 'corporate welfare for ranges and instructors.' Instead, I think it is there for an even more 'nefarious' reason - to make it even more difficult for someone who doesn't have a lot of money left after paying the bills to be able to afford to get an HCP. Honestly, the $115 initial fee is already ridiculous. I mean, really, what does the background check require in this day and age? Someone pressing a few keys on a keyboard? The fee should be something closer to $25. The HCP class, if it is to be a requirement, should be provided free of charge. Sound crazy? Well, consider the Hunter's Safety Course that is required before people born after a certain date (which is probably the majority of hunters in TN now) can get a hunting license. You take the course, have a test at the end, do a little shooting at the range and then one of the people responsible for the class signs off on a piece of paper saying you can legally get a hunting license. Sound familiar? Those courses - if attended in person - take several days, not hours, and are free. Further, there is an option to do most of the course work online and then attend a class that takes a few hours on a Saturday to get some information in person, take the test, do the range portion and get the signed certificate. Again, sound familiar? And, again, free of charge.

You hit my point exactly - just having an 'R' by their name doesn't mean they aren't really ultra-liberal idiots nor does it mean they are on our side. I believe that most politicians - especially at the federal level and largely at the level of state governors, as well - would like to see more gun control. I think that they are painfully aware that the real reason we have the Second Amendment is to keep them in line and give the People recourse if they turn tyrannical (or maybe I should say 'more tyrannical than the citizenry can stand') and, as such, I believe that most of them would like to see that ability stripped from us. Our own governor is a case in point. Heck, for that matter look at Ramsey - he trumpets gun rights when he wants to get re-elected but then when real legislation comes up that would benefit gun owners/legal carriers he guts the bill and sells us out. I will just mention, again, that the impetus for a lot of the gun control at the federal level came from legislation passed in California. Those laws were passed during the gubernatorial tenure of the lord high potentate of all Republicans, Ronald Reagan with his full support and his help to push the laws through. This was same Ronald Reagan who later in life wrote a letter in support of the Brady campaign. What I am saying is that if folks believe that most Republican politicians are really 'on the side of gun rights' then all that really means is that their BS and propaganda are working.

That was pretty much what I was thinking.

Yeah, those idiot liberal Dems like Mitt Romney who was governor of that state and pushed through yet more gun control during his term.

I know it won't happen but would like to see gun manufacturers fight back against this nonsense by banding together and saying, "Okay, if our products are so unwelcome in your state then none of us will sell our firearms or ammunition to anyone in your state. That includes all government agencies, law enforcement and the people assigned to be security for government officials. After all, if our products are so 'dangerous' for people in your state to own then that should include the entire state and everyone in it." I don't think that the citizens, police and so on in those states would really suffer for it nor do I really think it would cost the companies revenue because if the manufacturers did that, were serious about it and followed through on it my hunch is that it would take the politicians very long to back off and shut the hell up.

I wonder if there will be metal detectors. "Subject to search" doesn't sound like everyone entering will be searched. If any forum member goes to the fair early on maybe we can get some more details about their gate 'security'. Personally - if I even bother going this year - if they aren't doing detailed 'searches' or wanding I will carry, anyway. Their B.S. 'rules' do not in any way override state law. If I am expected to obey the law then I expect Knoxville and the fair to do so, as well. Honestly, the few times I have gone over the last, several years it has only been because I have friends who asked me to go with them - I have one friend who really enjoys the demolition derby so she often wants to go on that night. The fair has gone down the crapper and is a sad parody of what it was even when I was in high school back in the late '80s. It used to take up space on both sides of Magnolia and had plenty of entertaining and fun things to do even if you didn't want to ride the rides. Now there is much less going on and I am quite honestly very leery of getting on the rides. Of course, I was nearly killed on one of the rides back in high school even when the place was better. A friend and I were riding the 'pirate ship' and just when it swung up high enough that we were looking directly at the ground the security bar that holds you in the seat unlatched and swung open. I literally started falling forward out of the seat but managed to grab the bar and slam it closed. I slammed it so hard that when the ride stopped the tenders had to come out with tools and take the latch off so that we could get out. Many of the rides at Lake Winnie (where I went a couple of weeks ago) are old but seem well maintained. I rode a log-flume like ride there that is 100 years old and never felt nervous about it. I don't trust the ones at the fair which are largely tended by people who smell like they went swimming at a distillery and look like they are so drunk that they can't see straight.

I ordered that exact knife from Amazon early last year after seeing good reviews on YouTube. The M-Tech MT-151. It is something like $23 on Amazon, now but I think I paid under $20 for it when I ordered it. Yeah, big hunk of very hard steel. I predict that you will never get a really good edge on it with just the diamond stones or if you do your hands will be worn out. I kept trying to do it with my whetstones and even the most course stone - which has a texture more akin to a bench grinder stone than most whetstones - wasn't making much progress. Finally had to take a file to it to get things started and 'pull the edge down' as my uncle who taught me to sharpen knives would call it. I then went to the stones from most to least course then to a sharpening steel and finally to the old leather belt I use as a strop. It is wearing a pretty ridiculously sharp (for what it is), convexed edge now - yeah, I like convexed edges and if I ever feel confident enough to try my hand at making a knife from scratch I will probably attempt a full convex grind. It is not shaving sharp by any means but will slice the heck out of some paper. It holds the edge, too. I chopped through a semi-seasoned piece of apple wood that was about 2 1/2 to 3 inches or so in diameter with it, ran it across the leather belt a couple of times and it still sliced paper easily. The black coating didn't hold up so I took it off. Didn't have to strip it just hand sanded it off. I know those coatings help protect carbon steel knives from rust but IMO they make no sense on stainless steel blades, anyway, unless they are tactical blades and are coated to reduce or eliminate glare. The SCHF38 is pretty sharp now, too. I can do 'S' cuts in paper with it. I used a few grits of sandpaper, a couple of diamond stones, my old Schrade flat sharpening steel (old as in I inherited it from my grandfather) and that old leather belt on it. It isn't quite shaving sharp, either and I don't know that it ever will be. I can get knives that sharp by hand and have other knives that are - I am sporting a pretty good gash on my thumb where I wasn't paying close enough attention and just barely touched the edge on my edc Spyderco Resilience a week and a half ago - but with blade stock that thick it would be pretty difficult and, honestly, probably isn't really necessary or even all that useful to go that sharp on the MT-151 or the Schrade. With the uses these knives will see being that sharp would probably just lead to increased chipping of the edge. The MT-151 is certainly 'worth it', IMO which is what makes the Schrades so amazing at almost the same price point. Schrade made some of my favorite pocket knives back when they were Schrade-Imperial and based in New York. Seriously, I liked the three-bladed Schrade Old Timer pocket knives better than the Case three-blades (although Case Sodbuster and Sodbuster, Jr. were and remain a favorite, maybe even more than the Schrade three blade knives.) Even in my teens I could get a 'be careful how you hold it because the shadow might cut you' edge on those old Schrades with just a couple of pocket stones and a piece of old leather. The little Sharpfinger was also a favorite of mine for a small belt knife. When they went under and Taylor Brands picked them up the knives they made at first were pure junk, IMO and I bitterly swore off of them. In recent years I have decided to give them another shot. I have one or two of the old Sharpfingers because when I heard that Schrade was going under back in the early '90s I immediately went to Walmart and bought a couple. I recently picked up a couple of the Taylor Schrade versions and - while I still think the old ones are better - they are pretty nice. One of them and a cheap Mossy Oak hunting knife (one of the knives in a large and small Mossy Oak knife two-pack I got for $10 at Walmart) skinned and processed the heck out of a deer I was given last season without having to stop to touch up the edge or anything. The thing I really like about Schrade's Frontier line (the SCHF knives) is that not only are they 1/4 inch thick but they are made of 1095 steel and they sell for around $30. No matter how many stainless 'super steels' come along I will almost always prefer good, ol' carbon steel to stainless. That is just what I like. Taylor Brands - which makes Schrade, Old Timer, Uncle Henry, etc. has also been making the Smith and Wesson branded knives for years and now Smith and Wesson has actually acquired Taylor Brands (the announcement was just a couple of weeks ago.) It will be interesting to see if anything changes or if S&W pretty much just leaves them alone and lets them do their thing.

So, Saturday I went to Smoky Mountain Knife Works to look at a few knives. A few months back I decided I wanted another 'heavy use' belt knife that could serve as an all around utility and 'survival knife' which I could actually carry in public (I generally carry large fixed blades on weekends - can't carry them at work.) Now, I have to say that spending more than $50 on a knife still feels like a foreign concept to me (with $30 or under feeling much more 'natural') and that it probably won't be something I will do very often. For that reason, I have been looking at knife usage reviews on YouTube and elsewhere for months. I had my choices narrowed down to: Kabar Becker BK2 Kabar Becker BK7 Kabar Heavy Duty Warthog Ontario RD6 Schrade SCHF38 (just to have a lower cost option in there) Well, I didn't like the balance in hand of the Warthog. The RD6 was nice but, even though it starts out at about 1/4 inch thick at the spine it is as fine at the tip as my RAT 5. I like the RAT 5 a lot but one of the reasons I didn't just stick with it for the purpose (along with the cutting edge only being a little over four inches) is that, honestly, I kind of wanted to go into the 'sharpened pry bar' class of knives for this so the fine tip on the RD6 kind of took it out of the running, for me. I wanted to look at the SCHF38 because I like the blade profile - not too many 1/4 inch knives with that blade shape in the 'under $100' category. I already have a 37. Actually, it is my second 37. I broke my first one doing light batoning but Schrade, who admitted to having a heat treat issue with a batch of their knives late last year) replaced it quickly and with no hassle and the new one held up when I purposefully used it harder than the one that broke to test it out. I liked the Schrade a lot in person and it is a lot of knife for something like $27 but I really wanted something a little 'higher end' so I passed on it. Sort of (I'll come back to that.) In the end I was very torn between the BK7 and the BK2. I liked the extra blade length of the BK7 and it was the same price as the BK2. I really liked the thickness of the BK2, though, and I wasn't sure how comfortably I could carry something like the BK7 around as a 'weekend edc'. I already have longer blades for other uses (including the aforementioned SCHF37) so I ultimately went with the BK2 - although I wouldn't be surprised if I own a BK7 at some point in the future. Now to the pleasant surprise. The BK2 was priced at $89.99 so when I got to the counter it was just a little over $90 and the lady at the register said, "And you need $100 to get the 20% discount." Now, when I am in a knife shop and you say to me, "Spend $10 more and get a $20 discount," I hear, "Find a $20 and it will basically be free." So back to the Schrade counter I went. Of course, the $27 for the SCHF38 was beyond the $10 I needed but that also meant the 20% was a little more than $20. The final outcome, then, was that I got the Schrade - which was also on my list of 'possibles' - for about $14. Now, the BK2 is obviously an awesome knife but I think I am really going to enjoy the SCHF38, as well. I got rid of the factory edge over the weekend (a v-grind at the very edge of a knife that is 1/4 inch at the spine does not slice worth a crap but convex that edge and suddenly it slices pretty well.)

Nah, no need for individual numbers. Just need a big, rubber stamp that says, "DUD". That would work for all of them.