Perhaps to an extent but imho a legitimate extent. Knife bans do serve as a useful if not perfectly one-to-one analogy, and allow both sides of the debate to take a step back: people aren’t as freaked about knives as they are guns, while knife bans may be considered stupid or pointless without rising to the level of disarmament.
From talking to my friend’s father who was a cop, back when I was a teenagers, the rationale (at least in Canada) for banning knives like switchblades, that could be opened with one hand, was that they were most useful in “sneak-attack” scenarios. Most such knives, when folded, are small enough to be easily concealed in a pocket, or in the palm of your hand, and yet, can deploy the blade in a fraction of a second.
So the fear was, someone could be palming their knife, keeping it hidden from view, until they were within sudden striking range, and then open the knife and stab you with virtually no warning. I suppose this was considered “unsportsmanlike” or something.
So make of that what you will.
When I was young buck, I ran with a rough herd and when we were rutting we’d often time rumble with our rivals. Those switchblades came in handy against the Whitetails. Those dudes could rumble.
The primary difference I see between “knife control” and “gun control” is that a 4.5" switchblade or butterfly knife or ‘combat’ knife or filleting knife are all basically the same once you start stabbing. That’s not the case for various firearms with varying capacity, range, accuracy, reload speeds, etc.
So, while I might think that a “butterfly knife” ban is fairly pointless at preventing knife attacks, I won’t necessarily carry that opinion to various firearm restrictions. Apples and many different oranges.
Yes, but other factors must be considered with regard to self-dense, including:
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How many times is a lethal weapon the best choice for an average citizen to defend themselves on the street, or in the home, as opposed to non-lethal methods, like bear spray? Bear spray creates a cloud with a range of 30-40 feet. It stops bears, it stops people, too. I don’t believe the average citizen, under duress, would be accurate with a gun at that distance. And, a knife wouldn’t do anything at that range.
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How often are average citizens (or friends, family, or innocent bystanders) harmed by lethal weapons they carry, or keep in the home? Bear spray will temporarily blind you and cause much pain, but it won’t kill you, or anyone else.
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How many times are people killed by handguns (or knives) because they are drunk, high, aggravated, or just careless? They go lethal when lethal isn’t needed, and usually regret it after the fact, when it’s too late.
Case in point is my 22yo daughter. Against my advice, she carries a knife on her person, because she sometimes has to travel in rough neighborhoods. I always advised her to carry a can of bear spray, instead. Last year, a large man who was clearly mentally ill and/or high on something strong, jumped into the backseat of her car, while she was parking on the street. She grabbed her knife, swung it around toward the man, and screamed for him to get out! He grabbed her purse and took off.
That sounds like a success story, but it could have gone horribly wrong. He may have wrestled the knife away from her and cut her.
I believe it would have been less risky, and just as effective, if she used bear spray (or just regular pepper spray) instead of a knife (or a gun). As a bonus, the guy would probably have been in too much pain to have taken off with her purse.
I go so far as to believe the police shouldn’t carry firearms on their person. They should keep a long gun secured in their squad car, and they should be severely reprimanded if they un-secure the firearm without a legitimate reason (e.g. an active shooter situation). I understand the police face considerable risk as they approach stopped cars. But, instead of keeping their hand on a holstered pistol, wouldn’t having their hand on a taser, or bear spray be just as effective at mitigating the risk?
I would be in favor of having more well-trained law enforcement snipers available quickly, in most jurisdictions, for situations that require lethal force.
It’s a complicated problem, with no easy answers. There are too many lethal weapons in too many hands, in too many societies. Dis-arming citizens, while criminals can still access firearms is a problem. But, we should continue to get illegal firearms off the street as quickly as we can. It should be more of a priority than it is. And, we should impose stiffer penalties for people in possession of them.
Maybe there are high-tech answers on the horizon. I’m just spit-balling, but perhaps more accurate metal detector/scanners can be developed to scan the streets for guns and knives. Perhaps gun manufacturers could be required to install GPS chips into the barrel of legal guns in such a way that tampering with them would incapacitate the firearm, and send out a signal that can be scanned by law enforcement. Make all guns bulky and brightly colored.
I’m less convinced of the utility of bear spray. It’s an option but not to the extent of being a phaser-on-stun replacement for lethal weapons.
That’s not a knife… this is a knife.
Anyone ever “play” with a butterfly (balisong) knife, doing the fancy moves? I’ve played around with a butterfly knife trainer (the blade isn’t sharp). I’d be nicknamed ScarHands if the blade had been real.
#LearningCurve
Some states are softening or eliminating switchblade bans.
In London my favorite Swiss Army Knife was taken away from me. I carry this every day, and have for years, the SAK Nomad. I find it useful and I use it practically every day. I usually carry this and a Leatherman.
These are stupid laws.
To be fair, a gun tends to bring a fair amount of attention when used, it’s hard to shoot someone without being noticed.
A knife is quieter, and being stabbed doesn’t necessarily even hurt at first. You may be walking along in a crowd, and just feel a few cold spots spring up in your back, and not realize that you are bleeding out until your assaulter is long gone.
This is an excellent example of the perfect being an enemy of the good. If we can’t eliminate every single method of harming others, there’s no reason to address it at all.
It’s like saying that people still die in car accidents, so what’s the point of all the safety features that only save some of those involved in accidents. An airbag isn’t going to do you any good if you drive off the side of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, so why have one at all?
Sometimes the perfect as the enemy of the good fallacy is a mistake that well meaning people do in the search for a better solution. But all too often it is a tactic used to try to shut down discussion about potential solutions by those who don’t want the problem addressed at all.
So, down with the First Amendment. Ban the press from reporting on stories of violence in our society, ban individuals from commenting on the violence in their community.
That’s more of an individual choice. Some parents teach their children assault tactics and provide them access to weapons. While I’d rather they not, how are you proposing to interpose and tell parents what they can and cannot do with their children?
Yeah, we’ve tried that, it doesn’t work. I mean, is there really less that can be done than offering thoughts and prayers after a massacre? No, doing nothing is a perfected art, and I don’t think that it is possible to do even less than is done.
Yeah, but we all know that that will never happen, the same ilk that promote individuals walking around armed to the teeth are the same ones that refuse to fund mental health research and treatment.
The people that I vote for both want better mental health and less violence in the streets. Unfortunately, there is an entire party that is diametrically opposed to both of those goals, and for some reason, lots of people vote for them, those are the ones that are in need of your lecture.
In an enclosed vehicle? I’d almost certainly be affected by the pepper spray perhaps rendering me helpless to escape or ward off the attacker in my car. No method of self-defense is fool proof, a bear spray, pepper spray, chemical irritants aren’t always effective.
When it comes to self-defense, it’s not always easy to pinpoint what was effective. Many years ago a couple of people were trying to force their way into my home in broad daylight through the sliding glass door to the kitchen. When I confronted them they froze for a moment and bolted. Did they flee simply because of my presence? Maybe. Or perhaps made a hasty retreat because I had a revolver pointed at them.
On the other hand, there’s an opposite fallacy which might be termed “hey, at least we’re trying”. Sometimes a solution not only will never be perfect, it isn’t really that good and has no realistic way to be improved. A local minima in the phase space of possible conditions which is far from optimum.
I’ll admit that I have a bit of a dog in the fight; I carry a Boker Damascus Lord knife in my pocket all the time. 3.62" blade, and is a lock-back knife. Granted, I ended up with this knife because of an Amazon listing mistake (it showed the picture and stats of the “Duke”, which has a 2.44" blade), but said “Lord”, and I didn’t catch it when I put it on my Christmas list.
I’d have to be VERY desperate to think that this is a legitimate weapon. It’s a big pocketknife, but it’s a long, long way from any sort of combat knife.
I tend to think that the vast majority of bans like this are more due to paranoia than good analysis of the actual data. I mean, how many deliberate knife deaths or injuries are there, and how many are done using folding pocketknives? I suspect someone looked at how deep a knife would have to penetrate to kill someone reliably and back-tracked from there to what size knives to ban.
Which sounds reasonable at a very superficial level, except that it’s completely absurd if you get into it any deeper- it’s curtailing the rights of a whole lot of people based on the fear that something very unlikely would happen. Which isn’t a good reason to do so, if you ask me. Better a few knifings along the way, than banning something that is harmless in 99.999% of people who carry them.
The attacker that is also suffering from the bear spray?
Guns and knives aren’t always effective either. Guns can miss, and in an enclosed space like a car, are going to cause such shock that you won’t get another effective shot and will be at best firing blindly.
Knives are going to be pretty useless in fending off someone in that back seat.
I suppose that’s a possibility, but it’s hard to tell when it’s never even tried. People will say, “That won’t do any good.” without actually citing anything, and ignoring the fact that others who tried it did find that it did good.
The argument that we can’t solve everything so nothing should be done is fallacious. The argument that once someone tried something and it didn’t work so we shouldn’t try anything else is also fallacious.
Point is, is that it certainly seems as those who want there to be more implements of violence on our streets fall back to those fallacies immediately, rather than discussing the actual proposals in question.
Yes, a small pepper spray canister in an enclosed car would be less irritating to the sprayer than a big canister of bear spray. Even so, the sprayer should close her eyes, hold her breath and escape from the car as soon as she sprays. Bear spray would be best for on-the-street, or in-the-home self defense.
I still maintain that spray is a better choice than knives or guns for self defense for the average person. As I posted in the bear vs. chainsaw thread, experts recommend using bear spray instead of guns to defend against charging brown bears, and studies bear 
this out.
I see little difference between a charging bear, and a charging madman/criminal…except the bear probably doesn’t smell as bad.
The whole point of self-defense is that there should be more implements of violence, in the hands of people who are using a socially sanctioned degree and kind of violence not only to counter attack but also hopefully to deter it in the first place. Which is where the whole debate bogs down between those who favor self-defense and those who claim that retaining even “just in case” weapons perpetuates a mindset of aggression.
Disarmament seems like a natural solution to people with pacifist outlooks; but that group isn’t going to include the criminal and the sociopathic who by definition are the people who our society’s acculturation process has failed.
Generally speaking, I’m not keep on using a weapon that’s likely to leave me disabled. What if he has a friend outside the vehicle? At any rate, I’ve in an enclosed space with a dude who has the advantage because he’s behind me and getting leverage to fight against him is going to be tough. An enclosed area is the worst place to use bear spray.
You are correct, guns aren’t magical wands that ward off harm. The best self-defense is to avoid danger in the first place or get the hell out of Dodge at the first sign of trouble. But bear spray in an enclosed area? Bad idea.
Mainly that a brown bear is a lot bigger; so unless your wilderness gun is a .460 Magnum or bigger you’re not going to be “loaded for bear”. Whereas 9mm is going to be adequate for any human attacker other than maybe Andre the Giant on bath salts.
I hold no compassion for a violent attacker, and wouldn’t shed a tear if he ended up dead as a result of his actions. My only concern is for the safety of those attacked (and innocent bystanders), and I don’t believe knives or guns are the most effective, least risky self-defense to use. If you wish to eliminate the attacker from society, spray him first, then shoot him. But, get a good attorney.