6 Aug
2004
6 Aug
'04
9:32 p.m.
I doubt you could do much damage with a metal
toothpick. Maybe a
small scratch or a minor puncture wound at worst. Probably not
enough to incapacitate someone.
I routinely carry a small blade with no handle - a piece of metal maybe
four inches long altogether, with no good way to get a grip on it. It
doesn't even have much of an edge or point - it's got maybe as sharp an
edge as a letter opener, and I once used its point on myself, when it
took a good deal of effort to draw any blood at all from someone who
was holding still for it. (Blooding it was the whole point.)
Even under ideal circumstances - say, held against a wall and someone
thrown onto it - it could hardly do more than a small and fairly
shallow puncture wound. A tiger's-paw strike to the throat, for which
I need no equipment, would be much more lethal.
Yet this was rejected by airport "security", once, when I was careless
enough to neglect to pack it. (The same people rejected a roll of
ordinary packing tape too, even sillier!)
That sort of thing is why I support the "BS" labeling.
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