Reasons to Get a Butterfly Knife

In the 1984 movie "Red Dawn," C. Thomas Howell and Powers Boothe have a scene showing Howell carving notches in the stock of his rifle with a butterfly knife --- marking his kills. Boothe flatly says, "All that hate's gonna burn you up, kid." Howell replies smiling, as he fancily closes the butterfly knife with a smooth, one-handed motion, "It keeps me warm." The beauty of the movement would give most knife enthusiasts at least one reason to get one. Self-protection might be another, but that's doubtful. Butterfly knives are weapons that must be mastered, not just used.

  1. Origins

    • A butterfly knife is also known as a balisong, and its origins are in much debate. Many believe that the knife was created in the Philippines around A.D. 800. Balisong is tagalong, a Filipino dialect, for "broken horn," the material sometimes used to make the knives. Others maintain that because the first rendering appeared in a French book from 1710, "La Perret," the French invented it. Whatever the case, the balisong has been increasing in popularity since the 1970s and now has fans whose allegiance borders on religious fervor.

    Function

    • For the sake of completeness, a butterfly knife is exactly what it sounds like. It is considered a pocketknife because the two handles enclose the blade. The handles freely open via a hinge or "tang." A latch holds the handles together when not in use. With one hand, an experienced user can unlock the latch and in a flipping motion completely open the knife like the wings of a butterfly.

    Artisanal Value

    • An expert wanting to buy a handmade butterfly knife would only refer to it as a balisong. It would be like walking into Jimmy Lile's knife shop and asking for a hunting knife. (Lile is famous for hand making the knife used by Sylvester Stallone in the 1982 movie, "First Blood.") "Handmade" doesn't always mean forged by hand, but rather the making of a consistently high-quality product. The artisanal value is less about function than it is about quality and collectibility. Benchmade Knife Company is a prominent producer of butterfly knives in the United States. Its trademarked 46DM Bali-Song model sports a double plain edge/ Damascus blade with satin finish stainless steel handles with G10 inserts and mother-of-pearl inlays. This is not a toy. The popularity has grown to such that there are even "flipping" competitions that showcase a user's skill with the knife.

    Legality

    • Many adolescent boys during the 1980s had the "flea market" version of a butterfly knife because they were being mass-produced and imported from parts of Asia. The United States prohibited these imports in the mid-1980s, but they still continue to some degree. Every state has different laws concerning knives, and the balisong is no different. Sometimes the butterfly knife is even categorized the same as a "switch-blade" because of the quickness that the blade can be produced. According to Detective Alvaro Zabaleta of the Miami-Dade County Police Department, "Everything is considered a threat and therefore a possible weapon." Miami-Dade County, Florida, is the eighth largest county in the United States. That would be a quick admonition to the casual user of the balisong to NOT walk around with it as a showpiece.