There’s an interesting tool that has migrated from the bushcraft and outdoor theater to urban concealed carry in the form of scaled-down axes and tomahawks. These mini axes may look very different from that 3-inch folding knife sitting in your pocket, but people use them much in the same manner.
These definitely aren’t the axes Paul Bunyan hefted in tall tales from the 19th century, and they’re not particularly effective for felling trees. Instead, you have a relatively compact hatchet that can be used for camping, bushcraft, hunting, and other tasks. But some people carry and use them instead of a knife.
By choking up on the handle, you have a handy cutting edge and in certain European countries where knife carry is forbidden or strongly restricted, variations of these axes are not.
They can make effective self-defense tools, too, but their place is mostly when you need something different than a traditional knife and not quite a full-sized ax or tomahawk. Unlike
