# Would "totin' chips" work in schools? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 22, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245 "2018-01-22T21:22:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/21 "2018-01-23T00:57:51Z")
I’m a knife guy. I carry a Spyderco that I keep sharp with a stone and strop. It will whittle a single hair in two when it’s freshly sharpened. I probably used it 20 times today. Knives don’t bother me. I carried a knife everywhere as a kid too. Except school. Not because there was any rule that I was aware of (until later in high school), but because school was the one place it was pretty much guaranteed that I’d never need one. The only thing a knife would have been useful for were cutting paper or sharpening pencils and there were better tools for that. When it came to special projects or classes, we had knives, box cutters, power saws or whatever else we needed. The girls chopped food with meat cleavers in Home Economics. But other than those special uses, knives would have been useless. Occasionally there would be a need to cut off a shoelace or poke a hole in a bottle or something. We used whatever was available. In my 13 years from K-12, I can’t recall seeing anyone ever being unable to do something for lack of a knife. My daughter is in 6th grade now and tells me about school every day. Not once has the lack of a knife been a part of her day’s story. I’m glad kids can’t take knives to her school. I’m not really worried about knife violence, but carelessness. I can’t count the times she’s been accidentally hit by someone or something while at school. If kids all had knives, she surely would have been accidentally stabbed or cut by now. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/22 "2018-01-23T03:32:08Z")
When I was in primary school I always carried my lunch to school and my grandmother always included a kitchen knife for me to cut fruit and things with. We all thought it was idiotic when they made me quit. My grandmother was from an older generation (obviously) who assumed that an 8-year-old who cut themselves with a knife had just learned a valuable lesson in being more careful with a knife. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/23 "2018-01-23T04:17:35Z")
Fuck a pussy-ass pocketnife, students - at least those from proper families - should be required to wear a small sabre or rapier at all times, and encouraged to settle their disputes by dueling. For students of commoner stock, an ax or machete will suffice. Students shall also be given a daily ration of grog. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/24 "2018-01-23T05:04:54Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > A kid can learn how to safely use a knife, swear an oath he’ll never use it to harm anyone, and still snap when provoked. Then I guess we shouldn’t allow teenagers to drive cars, either. After all, they might get angry, and impulsively use the car to kill someone. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/25 "2018-01-23T06:55:45Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Then I guess we shouldn’t allow teenagers to drive cars, either. After all, they might get angry, and impulsively use the car to kill someone. I’m not arguing that kids shouldn’t be allowed to carry knives ever because some of them might snap and attack someone. I’m talking about school policy and the liability of schools. You’re shooting the messenger. I was around when schools first implemented zero-tolerance policies on knives and other “weapons,” and I now how ridiculous some of those rules got. Example: When I taught Romeo and Juliet, students understood how Mercutio received a fatal injury if they acted out the sword fight in slow motion. A kid volunteered to bring plastic swords. I asked the administration: nope. Plastic swords would violate the weapons policy. We made do with yardsticks. Mercutio died of a fatal splinter. Edited to add: I didn’t make it clear I was speaking of policies and liabilities. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/26 "2018-01-23T08:02:17Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Really? I think it would depend a bit on the facts. IANAL, so my knowledge comes strictly from what I and the rest of the faculty were told by the district’s attorneys: If the school has no policy in place, it’s liable. (Schools are put to a higher standard of “premises liability,” we were told.) If a school has a policy in place, and the policy isn’t clearly communicated to staff and students in writing, the school is liable. If the school has clearly-communicated policies in place but doesn’t enforce them, it’s liable. If it does all that but a teacher doesn’t enforce the policy, the school may or may not be held liable, but the teacher probably will be if an injury occurs because of the teacher’s neglect. (That one was emphasized.) While naturally schools are concerned about student safety, liability and the fear thereof has been a driving force behind school policy. If a school were to allow certain students to carry knives in school merely because they’d completed a knife-safety course, and a chip-totin’ student snapped and attacked another kid, I’m quite confident the school would be found liable for not investigating whether or not the chip-toter was volatile (no psychological testing) and maybe because teen-agers tend to be a volatile group. The facts of the case–the reasons why the kid snapped–wouldn’t matter to liability because the school allowed the student to have a knife. I’m not arguing whether or not schools should or shouldn’t allow students to carry knives. I’m simply stating that in litigious times, schools, which are held to a high safety standard (and for good reason), are going to be held liable if they allow students to have them based only on a safety course. Personally, I wasn’t too worried about students carrying knives. It was kids having guns in backpacks that worried me. But that’s another topic. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/27 "2018-01-23T13:41:22Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Right now its illegal for a student to carry a knife in a public school. Even a small folding pocket knife one carries for small tasks such as cutting open a package. > > One idea: In the Boy Scouts they have what’s called the ["totin’ chip](https://www.scouting.org/Home/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges/totin.aspx)". There just isn’t any good reason why a kid needs to carry a knife in school. A “totin’ chip” doesn’t change that and doesn’t make any difference to the security issue. I’m not advocating zero tolerance rules here - consequences should be intelligently, proportionately applied - but kids shouldn’t carry knives at school. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/28 "2018-01-23T13:53:17Z")
And if a kid attacks another kid with a pencil, or a backpack, is the school held liable because they didn’t have policies about those things? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/29 "2018-01-23T14:13:41Z")
There is no practical way to avoid to use of writing implements in a school; it would be an immense problem to ban pointy writing devices. There is no measurable downside at all to kids not carrying knives in school. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that one would hope common sense kicks in at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/30 "2018-01-23T14:16:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Well, let’s see: In my personal experience, I’ve used my pocketknife in school to unjam staplers, unclog and otherwise repair pencil sharpeners, cut a snag off of a spiral notebook that was catching on things, open packages, loosen models from the platform of a 3d printer, and open battery compartments on calculators, just off the top of my head. I’ve taught students who were using knives to cut cardboard for a project they were working on, and my mom (who was also a teacher) used one to cut up an apple for a kid whose parents kept packing them in his lunch even though he was missing his incisors at the time. When I think about the state of American education, I think we can all agree that many problems would be solved if pupils could simply open the battery compartments on calculators on their own. I’m pretty sure this would allow the US to challenge Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea as the best performers on standardized math tests. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/31 "2018-01-23T15:20:40Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Right now its illegal for a student to carry a knife in a public school. Even a small folding pocket knife one carries for small tasks such as cutting open a package… We discussed this the other night at dinner with my two public high school students. Their answer matched this one: > [@nelliebly](#): > > They couldn’t bring anything to school with a blade over 3" long. To their best knowledge no one has gotten into trouble with them. This is a suburban Midwest high school with about 1200 students. They are on a weather delay, still at home, and I just verified this with them. ---
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/32 "2018-01-23T16:01:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As **Voyager** mentioned, scissors are allowed. Why are knives allowed when you have two of them connected by a hinge, but not when you only have one of them? Try taking apart a pair of scissors and sharpening each half on a knife sharpener. You’ll ruin the scissors, because scissors aren’t knives. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/33 "2018-01-23T16:16:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And if a kid attacks another kid with a pencil, or a backpack, is the school held liable because they didn’t have policies about those things? Let’s not pretend there’s no psychological component here. Much like CCW permit holders seem to adopt an “I’m one of the _good guys_” attitude, I’m sure giving a kids knife and a literal chip [on their shoulder] is going to have an affect on some of them. Add in a typical dose of bullying and you’re going to see some stabbings. How many stabbings is this policy worth, and why? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/34 "2018-01-23T16:45:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And if a kid attacks another kid with a pencil, or a backpack, is the school held liable because they didn’t have policies about those things? Also, a compass has a nice sharp point on it. (Unless they have replaced it with a rubber too or something, which now that I think of it wouldn’t surprise me.) ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/35 "2018-01-23T17:52:09Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Then I guess we shouldn’t allow teenagers to drive cars, either. After all, they might get angry, and impulsively use the car to kill someone. …or they might just be, yanno, [del]idiots[/del] teenagers. > [@http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/teenagers/fatalityfacts/teenagers](#): > > …the fatal crash rate per mile driven for 16-19 year-olds is nearly 3 times the rate for drivers ages 20 and over. Risk is highest at ages 16-17. In fact, the fatal crash rate per mile driven is nearly twice as high for 16-17 year-olds as it is for 18-19 year-olds. Just sayin. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/36 "2018-01-23T18:34:15Z")
Why can’t we give kids CCW permits and let them bring handguns to school? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/37 "2018-01-23T18:38:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Why can’t we give kids CCW permits and let them bring handguns to school? No way, gun grabber! Constitutional carry or death! Concealed carry permits are a far-left plot to have the UN black helicopters run our schools! ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/38 "2018-01-23T19:42:10Z")
I agree with many of the posters above. I just don’t see what problem this solves? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/39 "2018-01-23T19:43:26Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > Students shall also be given a daily ration of grog. Most of the students would probably agree with this. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245/40 "2018-01-23T19:58:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > None of this presents a compelling case for students to carry personal knives. The burden of making a compelling case should be on those wishing to ban them. I haven’t seen one yet. Care to try? > [@RickJay](#): > > There is no practical way to avoid to use of writing implements in a school; it would be an immense problem to ban pointy writing devices. Keyboards exist. And if sharp objects like scissors and pencils aren’t actually a problem, then just what _is_ the problem with knives? Seriously. I’m not seeing the case here. It sounds like a policy based on emotion rather than logic. Knives have that symbolic significance as a “weapon” whereas equally dangerous items like pencils and scissors don’t? Is it really just virtue signalling? > [@RickJay](#): > > There is no measurable downside at all to kids not carrying knives in school. You mean no downsides _besides_ the lack of knives? Knives are useful tools with hundreds of day to day uses. Their absence is a huge downside all by itself. I’ve yet to see any upside from banning them to overcome that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-totin-chips-work-in-schools/807245.md?page=3)