Apparently the idea is that if you ban everything even the least reminiscent of violence, you will create a society of pacifists, like something from the SF movie “Demolition Man”. :rolleyes:
Hasn’t this been discredited yet, by sociological studies if not by observation and common sense?
Buy quality and you need buy only once. Anything Randall makes is a better tool, better weapon, and more beautiful objet d’art than those POS flea market zombie knives.
dayum - I don’t know if I love you or hate you right now…
I bought a #14 with carbon steel blade back in 1992. A #1 will be arriving in November after several years of patient waiting. Go ahead and hate me. Randalls aren’t cheap and now you want one.
Right. But they aren’t removing knives; they’re just removing knives with certain words printed on them. The alternative to that, presumably, is another knife; say a chef’s knife from the kitchen.
Did the rounded end effort make a noticeable dent in knife violence?
Just found out what a “push dagger” is and that they are illegal in GB.
I found that because I just found out an ulu is illegal in GB. Which means it sucks to cook like an Eskimo.
I found that out because Fante’s Food Equipment Supply sells mezzalunas, which I was originally looking for and which by the same reasoning (hand held blade where handle is perpendicular) should also be illegal, but aren’t, as far as I know, in GB. Fante’s says it stocks ulus.
The total homicide rate is of that order. But I’m surprised at the notion that “a few hundred” a year seems to be considered something to shrug at.
There is a problem of an upsurge of gang-related violence between young men using knives, mostly concentrated in a relatively few areas, but occasionally springing up in unexpected places. Whether this type of knife is a specific problem or not, it doesn’t have to be actually capable of some specific level of lethality to be effective as a threat of violence, or a provocation to retaliation. Maybe there is an element of “legislate in haste” about it, given the public concern about knife crime in general; but if it closes a loophole that allowed someone to throw their weight about with a knife in their hand, why not?
I don’t think that is really the driving force behind this sort of ban - this seems to be more about trying to impact a segment of youth culture where it is considered cool to carry a badass knife. We’re a very urbanised country - and the idea seems to be to try to get people to behave in a civilised-urbanised way - carrying a big scary knife isn’t really part of that. It’s not really all that different to banning, say, public urination in that respect.
It would probably be a better idea just to get them jobs.
Often they are still (nominally) at school. It’s doubly distressing to read the details of the cases that come to court - all so young and the spark of the quarrel so petty in many cases. Some may well be in work; but the jobs on offer don’t have the status and glamour they crave, or the only work they can get is quick cash peddling drugs, which does give some sort of status, but that tends to need reinforcement by violence.
In general it’s a truism that young offenders do mostly grow out of it, settle down into a more regular way of life, job, family and all the rest of it - but the trick is at least to keep them alive until then.
OK, banning ulus is definitely an overreaction. They’re a very practical kitchen knife, and if anything, it seems like an ulu would be less effective as a weapon than a knife with an inline handle.
Yes, and it discriminates against flensers.
I would guess that in a country of over 50 million people you have a couple hundred dying each year from just falling off ladders or choking on toothpicks. That’s a very small number of people, especially compared to the 10’s of thousands who die each year in the UK from alcohol or even coal fired power plants or other air borne smog issues. How many people die in the UK every year from lung cancer?
It seems like a vast overreaction to me, but then I live in a country that allows it’s citizens to own guns, so obviously my risk yard stick is calibrated differently than yours. If the citizens of the UK are good with banning ‘zombie’ knives, well, more power to them. Crack on. 
It so happens they’re working on that too.
That’s pretty cool. I had heard something about the records but thanks for the article! I hope they can go coal free permanently…it’s a great goal to shoot for!
AFAIK it’s already illegal to carry around a knife as a weapon or without good reason (you’re a chef/SCUBA diver—OK with the chef’s knife or diver’s knife. Taking the same knife down the boozer? Not so much, unless you were planning to do some cooking or diving there.)
How much more illegal does banning particular types or brands of knives make it? Extra-tough ASBOs?
“ASBO”?
Anti social behavior order
Which is? Besides an Orwell reference?
I’m in the US and carry a knife for assorted and varied tasks; opening boxes, cutting rope, opening letters, etc. Thus the abbreviation EDC (every day carry). Is that considered a “good reason” in the UK?
And boozer? I thought y’all called them pubs.