Not a good news...

[gustophersmob]

Gotta agree with you GTMB - Vic got the rhetoric very badly wrong

If course they cannot challenge and take on dumb governments with unreasonable rules and directly say
"You got it all wrong guys - SAK (blades) are tools not weapons "
That would do the corporate reputation no good ...... it's not Vic's style and the world is not heading that way!!

But they could say something along the lines of
"We are building a set of SAKs for countries/places/jurisdictions where local laws do not allow a blade to be carried"
Then it just acknowledges what is happening in some places in the world - and  ....... as a good  product development and customer service company they are responding to that need!!  (But not necessarily agreeing with the rules.          )

Actually they maybe could even preface it with something like:
"A blade has been an essential tool for generations, and still is for many people, in many roles and situations around the world,   however........ etc etc"

That sentence even uses one of their catch phrases....
https://sakwiki.com/tiki-browse_image.php?imageId=1391

Well put, and this is exactly what I’m driving at. They can satisfy the knife less demand without veering into the political. 

[ThundahBeagle]

To be clear, I do not have a problem with bladeless tools in their own right.

My disagreement is more nuanced. The issue is being framed such that a SAK is a weapon, and it appears that victorinox is responding within that narrative frame. This is the quote that concerned me: “In some markets, the blade creates an image of a weapon.“

The “blade” isn’t creating the image, a narrative is being constructed (by dishonest people, imo) and that is what creates the image.

I think Vic would be better served long term to try and educate why a knife, especially a SAK, is a tool and not a weapon. And if they want to have bladeless models to meet demand, fine. Just not as an apparent capitulation to the crazies. They will never be satisfied anyway.

Victorinox is just being like water.  It goes around the rock to regroup on the other side and continue on it's way.  Vic is not saying the knife is a weapon, the GOVERNMENT is saying so.  Vic is just trying to continue to sell tools.

By the way, I agree with you and the other poster a ove who makes the "civilization" argument.   People should be trusted in polite society, not suspected.

Leatherman makes (made?) a bladeless Rebar.  Did we have this same argument back then?  Probably, now that I think of it