Most of those things were not allowed on airplanes before 2001 as well. Not sure what you are getting at really if this is an attempt to justify what TSA does.
Not to mention the "pocket knives" and "lighters" plots are foiled by the new policy of "beat the shit out of terrorists and then sit on them, or you all die".
This is one aspect of the security situation that I haven't been able to wrap my mind around: if someone were to attempt to hijack a plane with a pen knife/nail clipper/etc in any year past 2001, they'd get their shit stomped in. The public is well aware of the fact that terrorists don't always merely force landings and take hostages like they did before 9/11. Why do we continue to ban the most trivial shit?
Before September 2001, I routinely flew with my Leatherman on my person. I'd simply remove it from its sheath and drop it in the little plastic basket for your keys and change and such, or hand it to the uniformed person manning the metal detector before passing through. I was never once questioned, or even looked at twice for doing this, and I flew fairly regularly.
That's the one thing I really miss. It's almost inevitable that I find myself needing a Leatherman at my destination (after all, you're away from all your other tools).
I've even resorted to buying one at my destination and giving it to someone as a gift when I leave.
I once bought a cheap soldering iron, hookup wire, and solder in Cambridge, MA and left it behind in the hotel room 'cause I didn't want the security hassle of taking it home on the plane.
A pocket knife is a rather absurd weapon anyways to anyone with common sense. Sure it could be used as a weapon, but it's not something that would keep passengers from stopping a terrorist in 2013. I don't know if pocket knives were technically allowed or just overlooked because of the above reason. My reference was in regards to the obvious (guns, swords, explosives, etc). I was at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix in the late 90s and the entire airport was shut down when someone went through security with a gun.
Pedantics aside, airport security used to have common sense. Now, it's been tossed out the window for zero tolerance "no need to think" policy. It doesn't mean we should return exactly to the laws of the 1990s for airport security in the US, but the "security theater" for the sake of making people think they're safer by inconveniencing at best and harassment/theft/groping at worse is ridiculous.
That would all depend on the model in question[1]. 2-3" blade is pocket knife size. If going by wiki[2], it defines pocket knife as 2-6". 6" is pretty big for a what one would define as a pocket knife though.
