Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast. Your weekly dose of knife
news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your
host, Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this
edition of the show, I'm speaking with Doug Ritter of Knife Rights.
Doug is a founding member of the organization that is most likely
responsible for for you being able to carry the knives you carry where
you carry them. For instance, if it weren't for Doug and Knife Rights,
it would still be illegal for me to own or carry
automatic knives in the great Commonwealth of Virginia.
We'll catch up with Doug and find out who Knife Rights has liberated
lately. But first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the
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and turn your passion into a business. Doug, welcome back to the show.
It's great to see you my friend. Always, always a pleasure. Always a pleasure
Bob. Well, just before we get into some of the activities that
Knife Rights has been involved in lately, let's, let's just go
back through your history a little bit, let people know, remind
people who you are and how you got into the knife world.
I know most people know who you are and they've plenty of them have met
you at Blade Show. But let's talk about the
RSK and how you got into knives. First off,
how did I get into knives? Well, you know, unlike a lot of
current generation folks, I grew up with knives.
I got my first knife from my grandparents
grandfather. I don't know, I was like 6 or 7 years old,
grew up on a ranch. A knife was just part of what you did
and you know, fast forward eventually
end up becoming a survival
equipment authority throughout some of my
flying and aviation
work as a, as a
journalist. And in
2006, well, no, I
guess back up as part of
my survival stuff and my Equipped to survive website,
got to know all the manufacturers and
I would always end up recommending a knife and
it would be, you know, get this knife, but,
and there was always something on the, on the end of the butt. And
eventually it got to the point where I was able to
get a knife manufactured with, you know, my name
on it. And,
and about
the same time, you know, we launched knife rights
in. I launched knife rights in 2006
and by 2009 we participated
in our first legislative action at the US
Congress to help get the fifth exemption to
the federal switch right act passed. And the next year, in
2010, we passed our first two bills
through state legislatures. Getting rid of New
Hampshire's ban on switchblades,
dirks and daggers and then passing the nation's
first night claw preemption statute in Arizona.
You know, here we are in
2025 with like
58 wins. Knife laws
repeal preemption bans,
passed some other positive work for knife
owners in legislation
as well as winning a few court battles.
What is a journey? What is a preemption
ban? So preemption means that
no local jurisdictions, cities, counties, towns
can have a knife ban that's more
restrictive than the state ban. Sometimes
we get preemption passed and then go through and get the
state bans repealed. Sometimes we get the state bans repealed,
then get preemption. Every once in a while we get
it all done in, in one state session.
But the, the two pillars upon which
knife rights works are getting rid of knife
bands that have been in existence for 50
to 100 years and passing knife
law preemption so that, you know, yeah, you're in a state
with great law, but you pass a city line and suddenly
you're knife is illegal. So we don't want to do that.
Those are, those are the two things we focus on
mostly through legislation
and more and more these days through
litigation. We've got three federal
lawsuits currently running, so never a dull moment at
knife rights. Well, I want to get to those three federal
lawsuits, but before that, where did these hundred year old
restrictive knife bands come from?
Why were these laws enacted in the first place? So the
vast majority of knife bands that were busy
repealing came about either after
the civil war or in the 1950s.
After the Civil War, there was an effort to keep the recently
freed black from having
weapons. First they did firearms.
They couldn't own firearms Then they
started carrying big knives. So that's where we got our
bowie knife restrictions, length limits and, and
a bunch of that kind of stuff after the Civil War and then in
the 1950s, we saw the passage
of bans against switchblades
occur, you know, mostly for totally made up
reasons. And, and that was
another example of some
racist laws passed against Puerto Rican and
black gangs. Supposedly that,
that may or may not have existed in certainly
movies played a part in
spreading that message. West side Story,
that kind of thing. West side Story, it's
it there, there
it. Fake news
is nothing new, let's put it that way.
This was a problem that didn't exist. That was turned into a problem
that existed in the minds of a lot of politicians. It was
an opportunity to say, see, we're doing something about, you
know, nothing really. But you know,
50 years later we spend a good part of our time getting rid of
those bands on switchblades as well as Dirk
Staggers Bowie knives till we fixed it.
Most people don't believe that. Oh, in Texas
it was illegal to carry a boot. Yeah, yeah. Of
all places. Of all places. So there,
there are way more knife bands than there are firearm
bands, but there's a whole lot less
because of the work that we've done in the last 10 years.
15 years, I guess. 15 years. I remember in a
high school course studying the 1950s, we
watched Rebel Without a Cause and, and
I know that juvenile delinquency, like that term was a big
catchphrase in the 1950s and you know, fighting against
juvenile delinquency and you know, he used a
switchblade in Rebel Without a Cause. And I know
that that was a big scary thing. Well, the, the, the, the article
in a women's magazine that started all the switchblade
bans by a so called journalist
was titled the Toy that Kills. It was
all about, you know, juveniles
purchasing Swiss blades and going out and killing people. And there, there's not
a bit of factual evidence that that was occurring.
It was entirely made up. So
then, and then we started getting the, the
movies, we started getting the plays. It
just, it just steamrolled into something that
we've been living with for over 50 years, 60 years
now. Yeah, 12 angry men too. I remember seeing
that. So when you're
working on changing legislation in various
state legislative bodies, can you
leverage the, can you
leverage the, the term racism or, or
the fact that these are racist laws to, to kind of convince
legislators to make these changes? It certainly helps.
I, we are the only second Amendment organization that
gets support from the other side of the aisle, if you
will. And, and that, that is a
result of both the fact that most of these
laws we are repealing have some racist roots
and also the fact that all too often
it is those people who are being
charged with crimes involving knives just for carrying a
knife. You know, we're, we're,
we're not about decriminalizing the
illegal use of a knife to harm someone, but
carrying a knife, whether it's as a tool or
for self defense, that's, that's where we
draw the line, if you will. And criminal
justice reform is very important to both sides of the aisle.
And that is a major, that is a
major talking point for us for both.
Second Amendment serves us well on the right side of the aisle.
Criminal justice reform served us well on the left side of the aisle.
It's, it's a unique dynamic that
we get their support. We, we have
Democratic legislators who support
our efforts who are about as anti gun as you can
get. Our success
in Texas started out with a legislator
who decided purely for public
relations reasons to make a point
to sponsor a bill that would have
repealed their switch. Texas had a
possession and carry switchblade day. The total switchblade
day. And, and his point in this
press release and, and appearance on TV
stations was, okay, well if we're gonna allow these evil
AR15s, that we should at least allow switchblades.
And it, it was purely a stunt.
He didn't mean it. And,
and I sent our lobby, when I read that and saw
and, and saw the online video, I called our
lobbyist, said, you're going to Austin. And
he did. And he talked to the legislature and Harold
said, wow. And he's been our
sponsor in Texas getting rid of Texas night bands
fully but surely ever since,
and he still hates guns. There's
something very sweet about that. I, I love hearing that.
Warms the cockles in my heart. Because what started off as kind of a
cynical stunt has turned into something good.
Yes, look,
once you, there are, there is so much
bad feelings about switchblades and
daggers and things like that.
And as a result of this myth that's
built up about how evil these are, and when
we sit down with these legislators and we demonstrate
that, you know, they don't open any faster than, than any
other one hand opening knife, and they certainly don't open any faster than
a small fixed blade knife in your pocket.
You can see the light bulb go on and they're like, oh
yeah, and it's criminal justice that doesn't work
in some states. You know, that's not going to work in some place
like California or
Minnesota where it's just so
overwhelmingly anti everything,
which is why we're suing people in the Supreme Court, suing the state in those
cases. But it does work for us in the majority of states that
we work in. And, and that's been a huge
advantage for a little organization like us, you know,
basically three people in
getting all this done. Do you
think that the general
distaste for knives in terms of self defense
as opposed to guns has to do with the personal nature of
using a knife in a self defense? The closeness? I
don't know that it does. I, I, I think,
I think to a lot of the people that we deal with,
so legislators, judges,
they still have this west side image in their
head and they can't get rid of it.
It's amazing that 60 years after that movie
appeared that it still ends up in
conversation. It, you can still see that
the, the mindset of these people
is, it is the result of,
of this myth that, that they grew up with.
I don't, I don't, you know, the, the anti self defense
folks are anti self defense folks, but they
can seem to make it, some of them can see, make
it exception for knives
when they're, when, when you sit down with them and, and demonstrate and
explain it all to them. You know, the vast majority of knives are
used for tools. I mean you can say the same thing for
firearms, but that's different for these folks.
And I'm happy to take advantage of the fact that they're
willing to separate those two issues,
which is part of the reason we've been so successful. So
what is happening on the federal stage right now?
So on the federal stage we are back in court
with our lawsuit challenging
the federal Switchblade Act. With the exception of the import ban,
we're challenging it on second amendment grounds. We
lost the district court in one of the
oddest decisions that you could ever read
by a judge who clearly still has west side Story
in his mouth mind.
We're up on appeal. Our appeal is due
in 20 days.
First draft looks good. The attorneys are,
we're going over that. It's a process. I think we're going to win
eventually. That is,
the government argued that they don't enforce it, but we have proof that they
have and they've certainly not
decreed not enforcing it in the future.
So you know, we've won on this
issue, for example, against Philadelphia
and we will continue Pounding it after Bruin. After
the Bruin decision, we have,
we have good arguments.
We still have judges in both
this issue and many others who decided
that they're not going to listen to the Supreme Court
or they're going to try to find ways to weasel out of what the Supreme
Court said. But
knives are one of the most commonly owned arms in America, if
not the most commonly owned arm in America.
You know, our, our, our logo says
essential tools, essential rights. And when you go to
court, we're talking about Second Amendment rights. And
they're arms, they're common. They're just another
version of a folding knife. They're legal now as
a result of our work in
47 states to one degree or another.
They're legal to carry in 39
states. Some states have some
length limitations, and we've been working on that. But
they are overwhelmingly common. And if they're a common
arm, there really is, and, and they're not unusually
dangerous or, or anything which we could show they're not,
then they're legal under the Bruin decision. And so
it's frustrating to have to go through
district courts who seem to be uniformly opposed
to this. By the luck of the draw we
get, we've gotten those judges in California and
in, in Texas where we're suing on the
Federal Social Blade Act. But eventually we will get to where
we want to be and we're going to win this. It's just going to
take years and a ridiculous
amount of money. And
we'll see what happens with the Department of Justice when they
respond to our appeal brief,
whether they're going to actually uphold
the President and the, and,
and, and the DOJ's
commitment to the Second Amendment like they say they will,
or they're going to revert back to,
to something else and oppose us. And, and we all know that
for. Couple months you mentioned that that
federal judge made the oddest decision
you've heard. What was odd about it? There were a lot
of odd things about it, including completely
ignoring our plaintiff, who is a
Native American who moved from Arizona
to a home
where he lives on a Native American reservation and
therefore cannot, could not take his, could
not legally take his switchblade with him when he moved.
That is the clearest case of a prohibition under Bruin
in terms of plaintiffs that he
literally ignored.
He raised some standing issues on some
parts of our,
some parts of the Federal Switch Blade act
for just like.
No, we're not going to consider. You're, you have standing on this issue,
which I don't really want. He literally said basically in as many
words, I don't want to give you standing because I don't like
this, but I have to give you standing on this, this one
section. But you know, the Federal Social Aid act has
multiple sections and I'm not going to give you standing on this other section,
which is just bizarre. And, and then his ultimate
rationale we're finding against us was
that, well, the fact that you
cannot have
interstate commerce doesn't matter because all
these states make it legal and
intra state within the state commerce is legal. Which
completely ignores the entire point of the, the entire
lawsuit. It was
reading it for the first time. It was, you know, bizarre and
scratching your head like what? But
you know, the. Just as we found in
California with our judge there at the district court
level. And, and now here
they know we
are right, but they're grasping at straws
and coming up with utterly ridiculous
theories on why. Yeah, but it doesn't
matter. And
you know, that's the way our system works. The good news is,
you know, I think we're, we're going to win. I mean, I wouldn't be spending
this money and time if I didn't think we could win. But
it's frustrating to have to go through the
years of effort to get to that
point. It's like they're being willfully oblique
and pretending they don't understand. Yeah,
well, yeah, pretending. Well, like what
they're doing is, is saying, yeah, Brun says
this, but you lose on this basis, which has
no, no standing.
When you actually look at Bruin decisions. So they come up with stuff,
weaseling out with theories that make no sense.
So something recently happened in your state of Arizona.
Tell us about that. So a number of
years ago actually in the, in the town that I live
in, a young man was brutally attacked and almost
killed by somebody who used brass knuckles.
And he survived. They've been
prosecuted. They actually did kill one individual,
though not with brass knuckles.
And the mother of this young man has made it
a campaign to try to outlaw brass knuckles. She's
tried at the legislative level for a couple
years, which we have been able to defeat. And then
she turned her sights onto individual
towns to try to get them to
illegally ban brass knuckles. And, and that's
an issue for us because of karambits and trench knives
and, and D guard buoys and that sort of thing.
And, and we have been able to convince
a number of towns that if you want to do this
for miners, we
have no legal standing to oppose you. But if
you do these for adults, then
that is a violation of both
the Second Amendment, Arizona's constitution, which
has the equivalent of the Second Amendment in it, Article
2, Section 26, and
Arizona's knife law preemption statute.
That as I mentioned, was first in the nation.
And, and they've listened to us and they listened to us until we got to
Tempe. Tempe is a
significantly sized city in the Valley and in the,
in the Phoenix metro area is
home for Arizona State University. And,
and we had the conversation with them and they said yet
tough. And last year
they passed a, a very broad
brass knuckles ban. And, and we've been working
towards fighting it ever since. There's a
process in Arizona that you can
go through when someone unconstitutionally
does something. And the, the
just this week the chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee sent a notice
to the city of Tempe basically saying,
you guys are breaking the law. This is
unconstitutional. You might want to
rethink this. And that's the first step in a
process that under Arizona law
exists for un. Unconstit
unconstitutional violations of law. So
it's a process. This is the first step. We'll see what
happens. A lot of cities and towns, when
presented with these sorts of letters for legislators,
see the light and, and, and either
eliminate or change their statute to conform. And that's all
we really want. I mean I never, I never thought that
knife rights would become knuckles rights. Yeah, but,
but, but here we are. And especially
being my own state, it, it's annoying. So
I know recently in Delaware they had
a large action with their Switchblade Act, I believe it was.
And actually friends of the show from Willie Knives where they're
testifying. Yeah, they were, they were, the
Willie Knives folks were a big part of getting this done,
pushing their own legislator to,
to file the, the repeal bill.
And we were happy to get
involved in this, send our lobbyists to
the capital to testify
and ultimately the result was that
you can now carry a, a
switchblade. In Delaware. There are some limitations.
We'll eventually work towards getting rid of those, but
that, that's huge. Delaware was, you know, like Illinois
and some other states where people never
expected the law to be repealed, where
we've been successful and as often
happens, it starts out with someone in the state
saying can't we get rid of this? And going to their legislator
or coming to us and working with their
legislator. And, and we are,
we, we are very happy when someone
in the state wants to make a difference. We've been
there We've done that. We know how to do it
and we're happy to step in and help when we can and
we're happy to make it happen because
of the expertise we bring to the party.
Well, I think it's very, very important to know your state
laws. Actually, I didn't think that for a long time. Actually I was kind of
like, well, I don't get in trouble, you know, I'm fine. But then after
talking with you a few times, I realized, you know, you could really
be, you really be sent up the river for nothing
or for, for carrying something that you have no intent to use
in a harmful way. The, the vast majority of states
we work in, there are
lots of people illegally carrying, whether it's switchblades,
dirt, staggers, long knife longer than
allowed. And it's not a problem
right up until it becomes a problem. And
that's the issue. There are a lot of places that these
laws are not enforced on a regular
basis, but when they are enforced, it's bad
news for that person. And all it takes is
a traffic stop or a law enforcement
officer who's having a bad day or, you know,
doesn't take much to turn
your day upside down
when all you're doing is carrying a tool or an arm for
self defense. And it's never
been a problem until it's a problem and it's a big problem. That's
when we, that's when we get the phone call. That's when I get the phone
call, that's when I get the email.
I was just arrested, what do I do now?
And it's
depressing when you talk to these folks and see how
these normally law abiding citizens have been
caught up in something that oftentimes they had no
idea that they were breaking the law. I mean, it wasn't even a
case of well, I'm going to carry a swift blade. Screw it. It's a case
of I had no idea or
I feel for these folks. And that's, those are the sorts
of things that caused me to continue
to work on this issue
when I could sensibly retire.
And, and, but, but you can't do
this without a passion for what you're doing. And I'm
passionate about the issue because I've seen how
badly lives are affected when things go
wrong. It's, it's especially irksome
to, to, you know, to say the least when so many actual
violent criminals get a pass or are, oh,
he had a, you know, he had a rough childhood. So
let's let him off essentially and
then some regular, like you said, law abiding
citizen gets caught up and we're going to make an example of this guy.
That's, that's really what gets under my skin.
Unfortunately it happens every day. We're, we're seeing a little bit of
the tide turning with the current administration in, in terms
of actually prosecuting criminals for doing criminal acts
and not prosecuting honest law abiding
citizens who are just going about their day.
You know, if anyone's interested in what the law is
in their state, we have our Legal
Blade app. In fact,
literally yesterday the latest update to
the Legal Blade was finally finished by our
app controller, our app.
Guy. He, it's live currently on
the App store. For those with apples, it will be live
shortly. For those with Android.
It's got the laws of all 50
states and the District of Columbia. It
includes links which are also on our website to
articles about what to do if you're arrested, what to do
if you unfortunately are forced to use your knife in self
defense. It has links to
where you can find local knife laws. We can't list the
knife laws of every city and town and the US but we can tell
you how to easily find those and provide links
to websites that will allow you to find them.
I think it's important, especially if you're traveling
from out into a state you're not familiar with,
to check and see what the knife laws are. There's no
sense asking for trouble by carrying a
knife when you're traveling. That is illegal where you're going.
I do that every time I leave the state. I have Legal App right on,
you know, first page of my phone. And the thing that's
awesome about, about Legal blade or yeah, Legal
blade up is how easy it is to interpret
on a, on a quick, you know, on a, on the, on
the fly what you can carry where you're going. I live it,
you know, in Virginia, near D.C. and
Maryland and I'm always checking this or we went to Delaware
recently actually and you can just tell, you can
see very easily just from looking at it and looking at the color coding what
you can carry. Sword cane. You can't carry that anywhere. Ballistic.
Yeah, there are a lot of places you can carry a sword. Can I live
in Arizona you can carry a sword. I mean you can
carry a Cortana. In fact, we had an instance
a couple of years ago where a gentleman on our light
rail defended someone who's being attacked with the
katana that he happened to be carrying. So
not, not every state is as free as Arizona,
but we're working on it. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So
I, I highly recommend Legal Blade. It's a great
app. It's very easy to see, is very easy to interpret, you
know, especially if you're not a lawyer in your,
it's hard to read laws oftentimes and,
and to really have a good handle on it. So Legal Blade makes it easy.
What do you think about self defense insurance
or, or, or that kind of thing?
Well, we, we have partnered with U.S. law Shield
when I started looking at the issue of
what happens in self defense cases
with any weapon. But you know, firearms come to the
fore. You know, it turns out that you can be on
the right, it can be a totally righteous
self defense case and particularly in some states,
um, you're the one who's going to get prosecuted
and the legal bill
for that can get huge. And you,
you, you know, there are a lot of good
court appointed attorneys, legal aid attorneys,
but niFlaw and the Second Amendment are
not their strong points. And, and so we teamed
with US Law Shield who cover the use of
any arm in self defense, including your, your
hands, as a way to give our members
for a pretty inexpensive amount of money per year
to protect themselves and their family. If, if you own,
if you own anything, whether it's a firearm, a
knife, a machete, a sword
or a baseball bat with the intent to possibly
use that to defend yourself whether you're at home or
away from home, then you owe yourself and your
family to carry the
insurance that's going to protect your assets.
If something like that happens, I mean there, it's, it's
insane that it does happen. But
to defend
yourself and then find yourself
arrested and prosecuted
because the DA
doesn't like you or doesn't like knives or doesn't like
self defense, you know
that, that, that is unfair and
it's annoying that you
should pay 20 or 30 bucks a year so you have the insurance
to save your assets,
save your family from, from going broke.
But we have, we have that solution for
folks. It helps us a little. We get, we get a few
bucks every time someone signs up
and, and it's always nice to get money but, but we did it
primarily because
knife owners and, and all people who
carry any kind of weapon in self defense, you know, need
to protect themselves. It's unfortunate, but
it's a whole lot better than the alternative and it doesn't cost much.
After our last conversation a couple years back
on this show, I signed My wife and myself up for
a US Law shield. And yeah, I mean,
it does bring peace of mind. I don't mean to sound like a commercial, but
it really does bring peace of mind because I mean, heaven forbid
we have to defend ourselves. I mean, but look at what happened with
Daniel Penny in New York City on the subway, you know, saving
a, a car, a subway car full of people
using jiu jitsu from, from someone who was ready to,
to go all the way and start, you know, he was obviously a
mentally imbalanced person and Daniel Penny
did, did a noble thing and was, was
taken to task by New York City for it. Yeah.
And, and I have people who say,
well, I don't live in New York City or I don't live in
Chicago and that's
great. But you know, there's also civil
actions that U.S. law shield protects you against.
You know, even if the prose prosecutor in the area
decides it was righteous and they're not going to charge you, that doesn't mean that
the, the perp's family isn't going to charge you
or go after you. So
I just, you know, if, if you are of the mindset
that you're going to fight back in self defense,
even if you're using some martial arts,
I just think it's prudent to do so. And it does give
peace of mind. You know, it's, it's the same sort of thing I talk
about when I'm talking about survival stuff.
It's a positive state of mind because, you
know, you're prepared and that
may mean carrying the right survival gear or that may
mean carrying insurance so that God forbid you have to
protect, protect your life.
You're not going to get room because of that. So you
mentioned before we started rolling here that you
will be attending Knife Rights, will be attending the Gun Rights Policy Conference.
What's that and what's the knife rights involvement there? So Gun
Rights Policy Conference is a
event that's held every year. It goes around the country.
This year it's in Salt Lake city, the
like 27th, 26th, 8th, 29th of
September. We
go because we are a second amendment organization.
And while the vast majority of people
think of the Second Amendment as being firearms, the Second Amendment
doesn't include firearms. It says arms.
We go there because we get a lot of, from these
organizations, we work closely with them in a lot of instances.
We sometimes do amicus briefs in some of their cases
where a positive result
would help us. In our cases
we bring something unique to the party because we aren't
firearms. So we go, we go. And I have often
spoken at Gun Rights Policy Conference
because it's important to be there and remind people that the Second Amendment
doesn't just say firearms. And we make great contact.
We've met some of our
most generous individual donors at
this event. So we go every year.
So we'll be in Salt Lake the end of this month and then back again
for Blade West. So,
but, but if anyone is in the Salt Lake area
and would like to spend a day listening to
some of the most knowledgeable
people in the Second amendment community talk about the fight,
it, it is a, a really fun
couple days. If, if you have any
interest at all and, and it's absolutely 100
free. Just, just look up
Gun Rights Policy Conference in, in your search engine
and, and sign up and come and you know, stop by the
table and say. Hi, you know, some of our
listeners and viewers are in the UK
and you know, obviously they don't have a second amendment and
they have, you know, extremely restrictive
knife laws. In your opinion, for what? From
what you know about that situation, what do you think it would take
for the UK to turn that ship?
So bear in mind that one of the reasons I started
knife rights was that I had once
worked for a British company. I had spent time in the uk. I
spent time time in the UK doing some of
my survival work, survival equipment work.
And, and I saw what had happened there and I
did not want my country to
turn into the uk. I don't think there's a
snowball's chance in hell that the UK's attitude
towards knives is ever going to turn around. I mean,
hate to say it, but that's the least of their problems right now. I
mean, you can't tweet something that somebody somewhere
finds objectional lest you end up in,
in jail. It,
it, it's they, they have
lost the concept of liberty, of
free speech.
Self defense is often considered a
violation. It's you, not the perp who is
arrested and charged for defending your home. Even.
We're not even talking about situations where someone has to defend
themselves on the street. People are being
raped, women are being raped, people
are being beat up by gangs and, and
illegal aliens in, in the country
and, and they're the ones, if they fight back,
who are arrested. It's in the news
on a regular basis.
Knife rates exist. So we don't end up like the uk.
Whereas I like to call it the formerly Great
Britain. Yeah, formerly Great Britain is right. I
love we have a Lot of friends there, especially
through my wife who lived there for a while. And it's, it's sad
for me to see, it's sad for me to
see. You know, there was that recent case with the Irish comedian
who was actually in your state and tweeted something and when
he flew back to London he was snatched right at the airport
for a mean tweet. And, and then there was that case in
Scotland with that, with that girl who was that 14 year old girl
who was defending her 12 year old sister and had a kitchen knife
and a hatchet from someone you know, from some scumbag
who was following her around and now she's the one who's in trouble for it.
Yeah. So Niprite is
determined that the United States is not going to follow in Great
Britain's footsteps. And luckily
we, we have a second amendment and
implementation may not be perfect and
there's a lot of people who oppose it, but it's there. And, and
we're going to fight for it because ultimately
these are tools that most of us use every day.
Work, play, sports, recreation,
hiking, camping, whatever.
But it is the second amendment that allows us to
challenge
jurisdictions who wish to treat
them as illegal weapons when they are not
and the use of them as being illegal when it is not.
So how do Americans, how do people support
knife rights? I know there are a lot of different ways, but
kind of run down some of the ways people can support
you. Well, unfortunately what we do
costs money and it costs a lot of money.
Especially post Covid
travel expenses have increased. I mean the fact of the matter is it
costs money and the best way folks can support
us is to make donations whether they donate to
knife rights or they donate to knife rights Foundation.
That is certainly the best way when we put out a call for
action for people in a particular state
where we are working legislatively.
Please click on the links we give you,
put in your name and address and speak
up in favor of getting rid of these knife bands.
Those, those really are the two primary
ways we do it. I mean we just finished up our first,
our, our annual, I should say Ultimate
Steel Spectacular fundraiser.
And, and, but the fact is people
donate, do donate and we appreciate the donations
year round. We have the ability for you to make
a modest donation on a monthly basis
which a lot of members do join, become a
member. Donate
takes money. That's just bottom line, it takes money.
It takes money to travel to events, to
travel to legislatures.
Unfortunately, when Todd or I have to go
testify before a legislative committee,
it inevitably we get maybe two days
notice, maybe three, sometimes 24 hours.
Those plane tickets are expensive.
Prior to Covid, Maybe it was 700 bucks
for a middle seat in economy.
Today it's. I, I can't remember the last time we
saw a ticket for one of
us go Wabi under a thousand bucks. Because it's last
minute and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
just about whether it's rental cars or whatever,
even Uber has gotten more expensive. I mean, everything's gotten more
expensive. Yeah. And you know, if we
want to continue this fight, we have to raise the money to do it. I,
I spend the vast majority of my time working on fundraising.
Unfortunately, I hate having to
do it, but I can't do the rest that I enjoy,
which is getting these bans repealed
without doing that, without asking people to make
an investment in the future. I like to say I'm the beggar in
chief at knife rights, but the fact is
that when you help us, you are indeed making an
investment. You're making an investment in a freer America.
You are known for the RSK knives,
originally made by Benchmade and now for the last,
I don't know, seven or eight years, made by
Hogue. Awesome. By
the way, I love the automatic. My favorite. I've given
away two RSK that I've had the full size with
the ambidextrous fire lock, the able lock, and I also
gave away the fixed blade, the Mark five, I think it is.
Little one. No, no, the larger one. The Mark
three. Mark three. I'm sorry to, to friends
and, and I love this knife, but, but
my favorite is actually the automatic. I love this thing.
Magnacut. Does this help support?
I mean, how does, how does this help support? So, so
the knives keep a roof over my head. Okay. Without
sales of knives, without, without
the Doug Ritter knife line, I could not afford to
spend all the time I do on knife rights. I mean,
it, it's just, it would be impossible.
So while it's not a question of buy a
knife in a percentage goes knife rights. It's buy a knife so Doug
can continue to do knife rights. Right, Right. You know,
the knives have been very well received.
I am very lucky to, to
be working originally with Benchmade and now Hogue, who are building
incredible knife for me.
It is humbling
to be sitting in a restaurant somewhere and have someone
come up and thank me not just for knife rights,
but they love the knife and they show me their, their knife
that they've got. And, you know, more and more it's the auto. I
Mean, the auto is cool with, with the, with
the able lock, I was like,
for, for me, as a keep it simple,
survival sort of guy, the able
lock worked great. And
more and more people were like, why don't you do an
auto? And I'm like, I don't know that I need an
auto. But
we got together with Hogue. You know, they make some awesome
autos. Their mechanism is bulletproof.
Their springs are made by one of the best spring companies
in the country who. People pay a lot of money
to have their springs in their firearms.
And so we came out with the
auto, what, last year?
Something like that. And it's just,
you know, it's certainly fun,
but it's also practical. And
I would encourage people to go to Knife Works, which is my
exclusive dealer, and take a
look at the, at the knives you can get. For me, it's,
I don't, I don't, I don't really get complaints from
people. Mostly I get people saying, hey, I bought a
mini and now I bought a full size and now I bought an auto and
I really like it. It's
habit forming. I will warn people that.
But it, when you support
me by buying my knives, I really appreciate it because I
can't do knife, I can't do knife rights without
the dug rotor knives being sold. I mean, that's just the bottom
line. I think it makes sense that you do that. You
came out with an automatic because you've cleared the way in so many
places for them to exist.
And that, and that's true. And that was one of the arguments
to do it. It's like, okay, so you've gotten rid of all these bands. Why
don't you have an auto in your life? And, and so
we've, you know, we've got a basic auto. All,
all the folding knives are, are made with Magnacut.
We've got a basic auto with G10. And then we have the
upgraded with carbon fiber and the, and the
violet hardware. Show us, show us
that. Because this one is the standard with E10, by the way. I
love the contouring on the handle and the, and the radial pattern.
You can, you can see the carbon fiber in the violet hardware.
Yeah, it, it, it really is. I think they're
a very good value. Check them
out@Knifeworks.com and support
me so I can support knife rights.
Well, absolutely. I can't say anymore. And, and
before I let you go, you also, they also come in
really cool colors. I love the purple, black and gray version. I think you
held up an orange one, Is that right? Yep.
Okay. I think, you know, October is in the offing here
and I think I might have to get one in orange, you know,
just to be seasonal, you know. Yeah, well, you know,
it's also a good way not to use lose your knife because
when you drop it on the forest floor, it stands out. Yeah.
Yeah, that's true. Well, Doug, thank you so much for coming
back on the Knife Junkie podcast. It's always awesome to talk to you. It was,
it was great seeing you at Blade show this year, as always. I think I
missed you the year before because you're constantly buzzing around
and. I guess, pressing, begging for knives. Begging
for knives for the ultimate steel. Steel. I'm sorry we didn't get you on here
before the Ultimate Steel wrapped this year. Oh, you
got, you got me on at the beginning and I appreciate that.
It's. I love
the nice shows because at this point I
know so many people there. I may only see them once
or twice, maybe three times a year.
And knife makers are so generous to knife rights,
but it's the people. It's always the people. The people in this
community, with rare exception, are just
the most awesome folks. Agreed. Doug. Thanks again for
coming on, sir. It's been a pleasure. Appreciate it.
There
he goes ladies and gentlemen, Doug Ritter fighting for our knife rights
every day. Don't forget to go to Knife Works and pick up an RSK Mark
1 or Mark 3 or Mark 5, whichever is your
pleasure and help support them that way. But also go to Knife Rights
and donate there. Don't forget about US Law shield or your
self defense rights. And by all means
download the legal blade app from Knife
Rights because, well, it could save your.
Save your bacon. So thanks again for joining us on the Knife
Junkie podcast and well, for Jim working
his magic behind the switcher. I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time,
don't take dull for an answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife
Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and
review@reviewthepodcast.com for show notes for today's
episode, additional resources and to listen to past episodes, Visit our
website thenifejunkie.com you can also watch our latest
videos on YouTube@thenif junkie.com YouTube.