Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

The knife pictured above is a 12-inch Cold Steel Sax machete (no longer in production). It is a working knife, and legal to carry most places in Texas as a weapon or tool. This sample is shaving sharp, but not quite smooth enough, you will draw blood shaving with it. It is patterned on the seax, the “every day carry knife” (EDCK) of the Germanic people of Northern Europe getting through the Middle ages. Some seax were up to 20 inches long, almost qualifying as short swords.

The Saxons get their name from the seax, their name means People of the Seax. Up through the 11th Century free men in what is now England went armed with seaxes, the very name of the main ethnic group, the Saxons (Sassenach), proclaiming this.

Free men in Medieval England carried knives.

In 1689 the English Bill of Rights guaranteed the right of Protestants to keep and bear arms. As time passed and religious toleration became the law of the land this guarantee was extended to other religious groups. Getting up into World War I all free Englishmen enjoyed the right to keep and bear arms to do defends themselves, their freedom, and their nation.

Free men in England enjoyed the right to carry knives into the 20th century as weapons.

Knives are tools, possibly one of the first tools invented by clawless, fangless naked apes. Some years back, this author argued that knives are one of the things that make us human. Like many others he relies on all sorts of knives for his daily tasks, everything from little Swiss Army knives meant to keep your nails clean to machetes used for yard maintenance. God is kind, this author has not had to use his knives as weapons, but the century is young.

This author does not live in London, again God is kind. He lives in El Paso, Texas where the murder rate is exceedingly low and it is legal to own and carry any knife that doesn’t come with a knuckle duster. So, as he reads the news with several knives on his person, waiting for the start of Forged in Fire, he is shocked that the Mayor of London proclaims "There is never a reason to carry a knife". Everything in this author’s experience demonstrates otherwise. He is living freely, safely, and with several knives on his person.

The Mayor of London can’t get crime under control on his streets. What he can do, what he does do, is proclaim "There is never a reason to carry a knife’ on the streets of London.

Unable to protect his people he demands that the honest folk of London give up the tool that proclaims their freedom and humanity. He has achieved the epitome of tyranny, he has enslaved and dehumanized the people he was elected to protect.

“Democracy” as we know it was invented in England. It appears that is where its death has begun.