Yes, you can take cutters in your checked baggage, but surprise, surprise, TSA has come up with a new one to thwart all us red-blooded American Terrorists...er, Tourists...you can't take a lighter or matches with you...not in your luggage, and definitely not in a carry-on...they also tell you that you can't lock your luggage but I still do...occasionally they cut off a lock and look in my bags but I just replace the lock...they're only a few $$$ and mostly it keeps the contents from spilling on the tarmac, or in the possesion of some grubby-handed baggage-handler thief, which there are plenty of regardless of all the "extra" security precautions...now for the lighter episode...I had a nice NIBO 3-jet in my checked luggage and a cheapy 3-jet in my backpack...fortunately my baggage didn't get opened, as they must havwe seen the cigars on the x-ray and let the lighter in it pass, however, they sure made a spectacle about confiscating the lighter in my backpack...this was at La Guardia btw...it was rather obvious I was a cigar smoker, aside from the fact that I'm not a kid...other smoking type materials & cigar mags in my backpack but they not only confiscated the lighter but made me give them my driver's license and recoreded it in some kind of journal...now I'm sure I'm gonna be hassled everytime I go though airport security check-in...what a joke...it's not like I was gonna light my shoe-bomb on fire with the lighter...they make you take off your shoes and they run them through the x-ray, anyway.. .