Why you should carry pocket knife in the country

[texasjohn]

Will try to pull this thread together...

Monday I saw and shot a rattlesnake on my ranch with my 9mm pocket carry and cut off his head with my pocket knife. ... a hollow point 9mm bullet is a little extreme for a rattlesnake but that is what I was loaded with. Body shot...his head was just in front of concrete and I didn't want it to bounce back to get me. Second rattlesnake in 2 weeks....may be a big snake year.:licking:

I now carry both pistol (ccl) and knife everywhere. Have carried knife regularly since high school.

 

[dcyrilc]

I saw a story a couple weeks back where a young kid in school gave a classmate a Jolly Roger candy at lunch time. And was suspended from school.

I know two people who should be looking for a new job, the teacher and the principal.

Later,
Dan

We just had a story on the news the other day of a child being suspended for a week because their mother packed a piece of candy in their lunch. The school has a zero tolerance - No junk food policy.

Personally, I think the school should be sued. I feel that the school is overstepping their authority when they start telling the parents what they can and can't feed their kids.

 

[Mudfarmer]

"I had an Irish setter one time and she was running out in the pasture and came home and her nose was the size of a football...she could hardly breathe ..I rushed her to the Vet...and he gave her a shot and said she had been bitten by a highland Mocassin...and she would be fine..The Vet further said ...that bite woud have killed a human because of fear..we would have been scared and caused our hearts to pump faster and he assured me the same bite on a human would have meant death. I guess based on this if you get bit...get a tounaquet on it and try hard to remain calm and hurry to a hospital."

There is long-standing folklore that dogs are immune, or less reactive to pit viper venom than humans are. My theory having watched my dogs with snakes is that the dogs reflex response is to go for the snake to kill it. Which results in a nose bite that the dog "slips" by going forward and reducing envenomation. Snakes are basically stupid and really aren't that good at envenomating in defense (as opposed to when hunting). But since the natural human reaction is to withdraw a hand from a bite, envenomation is much more likely as the fangs are set deeper by that motion. Obviously the solution is to attack!!!


On another note. 911 and ambulances naturally take a while to respond in the country. My first job as a country doctor was in Tonopah, Nevada. The nearest wide spot in the road was 40 miles away, the next real town 100. Ambulances from our little hospital responded 50 miles north, 100 miles south and 150 miles east. Took a while to get there even at Nevada speeds. Helicopters from Las Vegas and or Reno couldn't repond since the distances were too far for fuel tanks. The natives took it in stride - just one of the prices you paid for living in the country.

Mf

 

[czechsonofagun]

"I had an Irish setter one time and she was running out in the pasture and came home and her nose was the size of a football...she could hardly breathe ..I rushed her to the Vet...and he gave her a shot and said she had been bitten by a highland Mocassin...and she would be fine..The Vet further said ...that bite woud have killed a human because of fear..we would have been scared and caused our hearts to pump faster and he assured me the same bite on a human would have meant death. I guess based on this if you get bit...get a tounaquet on it and try hard to remain calm and hurry to a hospital."

Now that's really interesting and I believe he was right.

 

[MossRoad]

We just had a story on the news the other day of a child being suspended for a week because their mother packed a piece of candy in their lunch. The school has a zero tolerance - No junk food policy.

Personally, I think the school should be sued. I feel that the school is overstepping their authority when they start telling the parents what they can and can't feed their kids.

I'll bet if they check the teacher's purses they'll find some emergency chocolate or lifesavers. :laughing:

 

[Tractor Factor]

I've mentioned before that the real sadness in my heart is that my kids can't carry a pocket knife without looking like a criminal. They'd get expelled from school. Straight A students. Honorable kids. Socially responsible. But can't carry a Cub Scout knife to whittle a stick at recess, or, as Egon suggested, make a whistle. Very sad.

I've got even sadder news for you. Today a kid will be suspended from school if he's caught even doodling a picture of a knife. Where are we headed?

 

[czechsonofagun]

I've got even sadder news for you. Today a kid will be suspended from school if he's caught even doodling a picture of a knife. Where are we headed?

Next step is mind scanning - if you are thinking knife, you are suspended. And we are headed to 1984, where else?

 

[dmccarty]

Next step is mind scanning - if you are thinking knife, you are suspended. And we are headed to 1984, where else?

I don't want to go back to 1984! I worked too hard to get to 2010!

The problem is that 1984 seems like it was just yesterday.... Well, the day before yesterday.

I can't imagine what would happen to me and some of my friends if we were in school today.

Regarding the kid being suspended for the violating the junk food rule there should be a lawsuit. The school has stepped way over the line. They seem to do that more and more these days.

Our kids are in a Charter school. Our county school system seems to be pretty good. But in the Charter school the kids will be in the same place for 13 years. To get in takes effort on the PARENTS part which minimizes the parent that just views school as a free daycare. The parents at the school are very involved and it is required. Not sure if the teachers always like the involvement.

The school is run by the parents. Period. The school board is the parents. The principal reports to the parents. There is a very short chain of command. In the county, the Board of Education might contain parents but it is so far removed from the day to day activities in ALL of the schools. In our school the board is only dealing with one school. Not dozens.

We have had a couple of safety concerns and the school jump right on the issues and solved them ASAP. Course both problems were caused by parents.

So far I don't see the school having a big case of the stupids. And thankfully I don't see it in our county schools either. Somehow our schools have managed to stay away from some of this nonsense.

Later,
Dan

 

[2manyrocks]

I've already seen more snakes than usual this year. There is also some thinking that we'll see even more in Tennessee because of the recent flooding.

Last year I had a post about a canebreak rattler in my yard. I only knew it was there because it got in the dog fence and had a standoff with the dogs barking and it rattling it's rattlers. I made a poor shot and it crawled back into my yard. I'm still amazed at how well it blended into the grass before I was finally able to dispatch it.

If the rest of life was like they ran the school systems what would that be like?

 

[John H. Thompson Jr.]

Other than "hello" this is my first post. Could not let the thread on the rattlesnake bite pass without telling two personal stories involving both rattlesnakes and tractors. Back when I was still using a John Deere G to plow with a trailing disc plow, the kind where one tractor wheel is in the furrow, between rounds a good sized rattlesnake got in the furrow. One second I saw it and the next second it flashed right by me, having got mashed into the tractor tire and the dirt on the plow. It fell off when it hit the ground at the next revolution and then was covered up by the plow. Another time I was clearing some brush using a Gravely Garden Tractor with a circular saw on the front. Some of the brush was real bushy. After using the tractor awhile I would go back and stack the brush. One time I found a large rattlesnake, in a couple of neatly sliced pieces, under a bush. I had cut him up with the Gravely without even knowing it. These two events happened over 30 years ago. We have lots of rattlesnakes in South Texas. I killed a five footer a few weeks ago in the barn. I was fueling my Kubota when I heard him rattle.