We bought one of those for my mother. It turned out to be a pain in the ass. Some cans it simply wouldn’t open. We couldn’t figure out what was different about those cans but it was consistently the same products that were a problem.
I’d blame the opener. The first side-piercing can opener that I bought snapped the first time I used it; the plastic hand-crank part just cracked and came off the metal shaft it was supposed to be turning. Garbage.
The second one I bought, a Good Cook model like this one, has worked flawlessly for about 15 years now. I love that thing.
The only limitation of my favorite manual can opener is, your forearm muscles get tired if you have to open a bunch of cans in a row for a huge pot of chili or something. So my wife keeps an electric can opener around for that, which she pretty much uses exclusively. I hate electric openers, I think they’re a waste of valuable counter space.
I literally finished my last bite of tuna then opened this thread.
Yes, a superior side-cut can opener. They’re not new though, been around since the 1980s apparently.
I actually own several. My favorite is the one that takes off the whole top of the can.
Where are the 30 somethings supposed to go nowadays? I feel too young here and too old on Reddit.
I think we’re just supposed to not quite fit in anywhere. It’s a millennial thing, really.
I’d guess a large part of the reason that younger people are eating less tuna is environmental reasons. If this thread was full of my age and younger (I’m right at the oldest end of millennial by most definitions), unsustainable fishing would probably have popped up in the first 10 posts or so.
Bring in more 30-somethings.
I share all the best threads to Facebook.
No-one’s on Facebook any more grandpa. 
I’m in the 30-39 bucket.
But yeah, I’m not sure how one should integrate something like the SDMB into Snapchat or other platforms like that…
I’ll bet millennials are killing the pocket knife industry, too.
[obthreemeninaboatreference] Trying to open a tin of pineapple, are we? [/obthreemeninaboatreference]
As I have pointed out over the years here, I am somewhat of a freakazoid. I have always found that the old reliable P-38 leaves a cleaner edge that I don’t cut myself on (unlike the crank or electric modern openers) and I’ve just used the darn things so long that I am abnormally fast with one. I can open a 3lb coffee can (which isn’t three pounds anymore but that’s another thread somewhere I am sure) in about a minute or less. My wife has several more modern can openers; this one for small cans, that one for large, the other for tough rims. By the time she selects which one she wants I and the P-38 already have it open and done. 
Patience. In due time you’ll be an old fart like me.
The smooth edge openers do not cut into the side of the can. They pry the lid off the can. No metal is cut. I’ve never seen an opener that cuts into the side of the can, but several people in this thread have mentioned them so I guess they exist. I have the type that pries the lid off, although I’ll agree with davidm that sometimes it fails to get the whole lid off and I have to resort to a different can opener to finish the job.
Of course you need a can opener because what if the pull tab snaps off? Then you’ll be sitting there with a sealed can in your hand murmuring, “That’s not fair.” Like the weedy guy with the broken glasses in the library after the Bomb.
Zowie. I was starting to think only my mom and me called those things “church keys”.
Um.
You’re not my mom are you?
No but maybe I am? I always called them that as well AND I have been called a mother more than once as well. 
Yeah, for the one I have it’s not a sharp blade, more like a rough surfaced wheel. The main disadvantages are that it might take an extra rotation to get it off fully, and the top cut ones make draining liquid easier. In every other respect though, they’re superior to those that cut.
Edit: well they do slightly cut into the rim, making it easier to separate the lid. But you can’t hurt yourself with it.
When the power goes it is quite useful. Luckily doesn’t often.
Do you have many hands to go along with those can openers.