Stigma, noun: 1. a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one's reputation.

I carry knives for work, as well as self-defense. People never seem to notice them at first, although unconcealed they be, even when I wear the largest working knife I have in my collection, but more often than not, when they notice that I have a knife they turn from the average customer or friendly passerby into the suspicious grandma one always sees sneaking around the neighborhood with the police on speed dial. Carrying any weapon in public does this: it causes a stigma. No one likes a bad guy, and if you are carrying a weapon of any type, no matter how harmless you are, you are the bad guy.

The saying goes, the weapon doesn't kill the victim, the person pulling the trigger (or pushing the point, or swinging the blade) does, but then why does the average person assume the weapon is evil? The average customer at a dollar store sees an employee with a large-ish knife on his belt and instantly thinks, "I have to stay away from that guy, he has a knife and is therefore dangerous, because he has something that could be dangerous if used against me." Worse, that same customer sees the same employee using that knife to, say, open a box, and it becomes, "I have to leave now, because I am in danger. That man has an open blade and therefore could hurt me." Why is the customer in danger because there is a blade out, even though he is standing possibly ten, twenty feet away? Mister average customer needs to consider the fact that the employee, in the first case, has a good reason to carry the knife (for work), and in the second case, has a good reason to be using it (for work). Instead, the customer is irrational and assumes that the only reason that knife is there is to kill him.

From the employee's perspective this is all ludicrous. He is carrying a knife on his belt, which he brought in order to make his job easier. He's carrying a box into the aisle to stock onto a shelf when he sees a customer moving down from the other end, paying no attention, as does the customer likewise. As the employee turns to put his box down the customer sees his knife on his belt, and stops moving down the aisle. This could be all that happens from this perspective, or it could get to the point where the customer doesn't notice the knife until the employee snaps it open to cut the box open as a display. As soon as this happens the customer visibly jumps and hurries off to another part of the store, leaving the employee wondering why the customer would be so scared of a man only doing his job with the tools he requires.

The culprit is always the one carrying the weapon of course, no matter how hard he may try to do it legally and safely, no matter his intentions. A friend of mine recently related a story to me about a time he carried a knife into a mall, unconcealed. In short, a security officer told him that the mall had a no weapons rule, and thus he would have to illegally conceal his knife in his boot and take it out to his car or be escorted out of the mall.

I suppose that all of us that want to exercise our constitutional right to bear arms are expected to bend backwards for the general public, to make them feel safe and secure and comfortable, right? That's wrong. The general public needs to learn that just because one is unfamiliar with another doesn't mean he's going to kill that person.

I carry a knife, so that makes me a bad guy, right? But get to know me and I'm really a just a nice guy. Still with a knife, though.