You are absolutely spot on in noting that there is a close relationship between the anti-gun advocates and the anti-knife advocates, they are one and the same. However, the NRA has its hands full with its own battles and it is specifically firearms oriented and until recently hasn’t seen the need to take on knife issues.
That stance changed when we went up against Customs and the NRA became an integral part of the coalition that was formed to oppose Customs. That involvement was the culmination of years of effort on the part of Knife Rights to engage the NRA on knife rights issues. One of our earliest supporters and a Cornerstone Founding Member was then President of the NRA, Sandra Froman. The NRA has been supportive of Knife Rights’ legislative efforts ever since and supported Knife Rights with resources and funds in the launch of our National Knife Law Preemption Campaign in Arizona. However, with regards to knives, it is Knife Rights that leads and the NRA lends their much welcome support.
I think it’s safe to say that most firearms owners also own and carry knives and we anticipate that the majority of our membership as we grow the organization will also be NRA members because they already understand what this fight for our freedoms is all about. However, there are millions more knife owners than there are gun owners and many of those couldn’t care less about guns and aren’t about to join the NRA. Knife owners need their own grassroots organization.
Having said that, gun owners should note that the recent success of the NRA and the NSSF in opposing anti-gun legislation and in passing pro-gun legislation has tremendously frustrated the anti-gun forces. Still, those anti-Second Amendment forces and organizations need to continue their battle to continue to reap the millions of dollars of contributions they solicit from the public and from their extremely wealthy international gun control proponents. Attacking knives is just another gambit in their strategy and a way they hope to gain some “easy” victories that will help them down the road with their ultimate goal, banning guns.
The gun control forces are quite willing to take the long view and one avenue towards their ends is to make progress in restricting other “weapons” where they perceive that opposition may not be so great. If they succeed in restricting knife ownership and carry, then a few more years down the road they can argue more convincingly that having removed these relatively less dangerous weapons from society, it’s about time to do the same for ever so more deadly firearms. So, the reality is that it’s the same war, just a different battle ground. We like to say that “Knife Rights is the Second Front in the Battle in Defense of the Second Amendment™”.