I make my living with one of these razor knives. I always have one in my back pocket, looks like nothing more than a pen. I have carried one of these in my carryon bag on every flight I've taken. I have thought many times about how nasty it would be to be purposely slashed with one. Lord knows how many times I have cut myself with it. Not much for penetrating layers of clothing, but across a forehead, or through a nostril, maybe fillet a nice big hunk off the back of a hand. Yeeesh.

YEP !!!!! or slit his bag and run his leg thru it. Then push him off the bridge.

We'll, I'm not too proud of this story, as my situational awareness was not working at all that day, but I have defended myself with a knife. Didn't slash the guy's throat, but I did manage to put him in the hospital with some pretty serious injuries.

I was 18 or 19, and one of the neighborhood kids I had grown up with was a druggie loser. He got it into his head that I had done him wrong at some point, and called my house to announce that he was on his way over to settle the matter. He also informed me that he was bringing his best friend to help him out. Mind you, both of them were about 6 foot tall, and I was lucky to hit 5'7" wearing thick soled shoes!

Here is where my situational awareness was on vacation. Said miscreant, having announced his intentions, gave me all the opportunity in the world to just fort up and ignore him. Maybe call the cops when he showed up.

Instead, I went outside to talk sense into him and defuse the situation. My parents were home, we were getting ready for dinner, and I wanted to spare them the indignity of the event. My mom was home from the hospital, being in the throes of her final days with a bout of cancer, and I didn't want them upset with this low-life intruding into our lives.

So I'm outside, like an idiot, when up strolls this other idiot. Before I can say much, he lashes out with a remarkable jab, and manages to break my glasses, come near to breaking my nose, and completely takes me by surprise. At this point I am bleeding profusely from the nose and from facial lacerations where my glasses broke and slashed my nose, forehead, and cheeks. I am also startled beyond measure, as I just didn't expect this fool to do anything of the sort. He comes in with a couple more slugs to the head and body, and I decide Mrs. Aveni's boy is going to join the fray (finally)!

Since he has the advantage of both reach and height, my option is to backpedal and whip out a Gerber LST. I wave it around in my best "We are the Jets" approved fashion, and shout at him to stop or I was "gonna cut chew up". Sadly, his drugged fog of a brain didn't allow him much more common sense than I had exhibited, so he shouts out that he is going to take the knife and cut me. I quickly realized that was probably in the stars, as once he got his hands on me he could easily overwhelm me. Time to fish or, ahem, cut bait!

He advances, throwing a flurry of punches that are connecting, apparently thinking I wasn't doing much more than showboating, and I manage to dodge one of his final punches, reach in, and slash him right across the forehead. In the interest of full disclosure, some of this was accomplished while simultaneously trying to run away, close my eyes, and shout at the other guy to drag this fool away. In other words, lucky shot.

Unfortunately, the desired results, while momentarily satisfying, did nothing more than send this guy into overdrive. Now he was pretty much blinded from blood flowing in his eyes (scalp cuts bleed alarmingly well!) and shouting that he was going to kill me. So far, my attempts at defusing things were going, um, poorly.

After various high jinks that mostly involved circling my car, we ended up in a clinch, struggling over the knife. Hey! I already admitted to not being ready to defend myself. The real reality of the situation was that I wasn't really interested in doing so! In the back of my mind, I was still hoping that this would all go away, and yeah, pulling the knife was really more brandishing than self defense. Events conspired to make me step up to the plate...reluctantly.

So here we are, in best B-grade movie fashion, with all hands involved in twisting the knife one way or another, when our graceful dance of combat gets tripped over someone's foot, and we hit the ground in a heap, him on top. He proceeds to start punching the dog snot out of me, and I decide to finally get angry and do something with the tools available. I reach around, and proceed to stab him in the back a couple of times, which amazingly takes the starch right out of him. He sort of sags down on top of me, and thrashes around about as ineffectually as I had been a few minutes earlier. Much groaning prevailed, mostly him. About this time, the police show up, having been alerted by an alarmed neighbor.

They haul him up, and clap him into irons, throw him in a patrol car, and then amaze me by doing the same to me! All the way to the station I am talking like a Dutch Uncle, explaining what happened, that I was assaulted, caught unawares (duh), and just defending myself. I don't recall if I mentioned he had called ahead, but I sort of doubt that I would have pointed that out too strenuously. Taken by surprise was my main point, and not too terribly far off from the truth.

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I think I could and say I could, but hope I never have to find out! I carry a pocket knife every day and use it several times a day. If I'm working I carry a small fixed blade as well. If I'm not working, I have a pistol of some sort on me. I don't buy into having a 'fighting knife' that you never use. I feel better carrying a knife I draw and cut with several times a day. Even though it may not have the sharpest edge or the best design for slashing a bad guy, I feel that I'll be better able to use it if need be.

I think if you have to get into a life and death fight, and honestly, once you leave your teenage or early twenties, I think (with my lifestyle anyways) that any fight I will get into is a life and death fight, you have to be ready to do whatever it takes to come out on top. If that takes turning the bad guy into stew meat, so be it!

I have been ready and very willing to shoot someone that was in position to pose a genuine threat. It was surprising to me after the fact in that it wasn't a panic or fear driven response it was a almost dead calm matter of fact feeling of if they cross "that" line they are going to get shot multiple times.
I carry a 3½ inch "assisted opening knife" as part of my daily wardrobe (legal in Texas since last Sept 1). Without a lot of false bravado, I do believe I would use what ever means at hand to protect myself or especially a family member be it knife hammer, baseball bat, machete, fencing pliers or what ever is at hand. I have short legs, short arms, and I am 60 years old, slugging it out and winning is not an option.

Yes, but that's pretty near the last thing I would want to do.

My story is nowhere as cool as Otony's and I never had to make contact, but I did use a fixed blade Gerber to chase some little brown folk off from a US asset once. Apparently they thought the guns weren't real, or more likely, they figured no one was really going to fire on them just yet (true). Apparently they were fully convinced I really would stab them and ran away on their short little legs.

When Rob collected knives to send overseas for the troops way back when, I sent that very Gerber. I put my name and address in the sheath and asked whoever got it to contact me. Never heard a word, and I have often hoped they got through everything OK.

My last encounter that could be called a fight took place about ten years ago. It was a fair fight, so I was losing. At about the point he decided he was going to break my arm, I decided to knife him. One good slash that sent the blood spurting convinced him to change his mind about my arm.

I came to realize that while I had regrets about what I did, I was mostly regretting I had been foolish enough to let the situation escalate without either leaving or doing something overwhelming early on to stop the situation cold. Actually using the knife on him didn't really bother me a bit.

I have the same Spyderco in my pocket as I type this, and have no qualms about using it if justified.

BTW, my antagonist was killed by somebody else less than a year later, in self defense.

but I would do it if that is what it took to save my life or the life of another. Once you have decided to do such a thing, it doesn't matter much how it is done.

I have had my life threatened a few times by idiots with knives or firearms. So far have been able to avoid any bloodshed but try to always be prepared to defend myself if necessary. The most dangerous situation was while working downtown, with my attention diverted and having a miscreant manage to get too close with a sawed off shotgun. Even with a 1911 stuck in my waistband there was little I could do but depend on my ability to talk my way out of it. I had no ability to satisfy his demands for cash or valuable goods, since I had neither in my possession, and trying to draw while staring down the barrel of a shotgun six feet away would've been suicide. I make definite efforts to minimize chances of getting caught in such situations again, and always have multiple contingency plans just in case.