Pardon my ignorance, but this doesn’t look like new legislation. Is it new or has it been around for some years and folks are just now getting around to being concerned?
It’s not new. It’s basically the laws that were in place since before the GQ thread on this. As several UK posters have said, there is no new legislature at this point on this.
Flick knives have been banned for decades, I know that.
Pointed kitchen knives aren’t banned at all, but were you to be hanging around a street corner with a full set of steak knives hidden on your person - then you’ve got some questions to answer. I’m sure that’s not a purely UK thing though.
I think, to answer the question of “or has it been around for some years and folks are just now getting around to being concerned?”, it’s more like political theater. It’s become a hot topic, again, in some circles, as I think the Church of England has come out in favor of the pointy ban. There are also some politicians who have come out in favor of various bans. I posted the link I did because there are already plenty of restrictions on knives, and the pointy ban thingy would just go on the list (if I understand correctly, it would only be for new knives being sold, not existing ones that would, presumably be grandfathered in, or whatever the Brits call it). Whether it actually happens or not (I doubt it) is irrelevant to the fun we are having discussing it.
Have you considered that it’s both – that it’s lives lost, but also the fundamental differences between the causes? You can surely see that there is a fundamental difference between the self-inflicted harm of something like cigarette smoking that affects no one but the smoker, and dangerous weapons that pose a threat to all of society? In the latter case, the government absolutely has an obligation to act in the interests of public safety. In the former case, the government morally should only strive to educate and discourage, such as by banning advertising or attractive displays in stores that may influence young people or prompt impulse purchases.
No, it’s not hard at all. The most recent statistics I saw showed 37,000 gun deaths in the US in 2017, the most recent year available. Of those, nearly 15,000 were homicides. Most of the rest were suicides – there were also a substantial number of accidents included in that total.
The thing about suicides is that the easy availability of guns makes suicide easy, and easy to do on impulse, and almost invariably fatal. There are no second chances, as with other means where people have been rescued and gone on to lead normal and productive lives. Suicide fatalities are yet another curse of gun proliferation.
And there’s another aspect, too, where gun proliferation leads to greatly increased gun violence, and that’s shootings by police, who, relative to other countries, naturally adopt a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later since the natural assumption is that everybody is probably armed. Hence the kid with a water pistol who gets shot dead, or the recent story of the woman in Fort Worth who was playing video games late at night with her nephew. A neighbor called police because the front door was open. Police arrived, noticed a gun in the front room of the house, and shot the woman dead when she appeared at the window. In no other country outside of war zones and mobster hideouts would a gun just be casually hanging around like that.
Police are naturally trigger-happy in a country that is saturated with guns, and you can’t really blame them. I’m always amused by the stories of what you have to do when pulled over by a cop in the US – hands clearly visible on the steering wheel, etc. No one ever heard of such nonsense in Canada. Meanwhile in Toronto some years ago, a lunatic drove his van into pedestrians on a sidewalk, and when confronted by police, attempted suicide-by-cop by refusing to obey orders and acting in a threatening manner. He failed, and the arresting officers were commended for their restraint in taking the perp into custody without any shootings. Now, one might not be very sympathetic with this particular lunatic, but that culture of police restraint undoubtedly saves many lives – mostly measured in the relative absence of the kinds of police-shooting stories that dominate the US media, despite crime rates that are only marginally lower on average.
Works just fine in Europe. Works somewhat less well in Canada because of the flow of guns across the US border, despite it being a controlled international border. How well do you expect it to work in individual US states with no border controls at all?
I don’t actually see the difference. Dead is dead. And this doesn’t even take into account things like second hand smoke killing those who don’t smoke at all, or alcohol killing those who aren’t the ones drinking. I think it’s an artificial distinction that some want to make, that somehow weapons are different than other things that society allows but that also kill. To me, there is no distinction, it’s about what a society wants weighed against what society will or won’t tolerate…a cost to (perceived) benefit.
I also don’t see the distinction between what the government does have to ‘absolutely’ have to engage on, and what they can let slide, as I see this as, again, what the society at large THINKS their government should or shouldn’t engage on. I don’t see this as a moral issue, but then, I’m not into the whole moral thingy anyway. I know you don’t agree, and never will, as we’ve been over this ground before, but that’s how I see it and I’ve seen nothing presented to show why there is some distinction (except obviously in some people’s heads) or what should or shouldn’t be acted on because of some ‘moral’…I don’t think that real life works that way. Certainly it doesn’t seem to actually be about saving lives when it comes to what societies do or don’t tolerate, as often things that actually cause more death are ok for some societies, while things that cause less aren’t. Or to individuals. Such as yourself. Or me.
That’s just simply ridiculous. A person taking an action – whether wise or unwise – that affects only himself is exercising the fundamental right of self-determination, of freedom, if you will. A person taking an action that endangers others is a threat to everyone. This is not just a basic distinction, it’s really the foundational basis of the rule of law and the foundational basis of a safe, just, and peaceful society.
The problem with lax weapons laws where weapons laws are justified is that it confuses the former principle with the latter, and in doing so it subverts the principle of law and order and a safe and peaceful society to the dogma of individualism and unbridled personal freedoms even when such freedoms put everyone else at risk.
And I find your position both ridiculous and, oddly aligning with your own personal prejudices. You aren’t, after all, interested in lives…you are interested in a single focus, regardless of what the cost is in lives, based on an artificial distinction in your own mind. Hell, you aren’t even consistent in your own artificial construct. I mean, someone choosing to drink can and often does affect others, killing innocents. Someone choosing to smoke can and does affect others, often killing others who don’t smoke. And at rates higher in both cases than the homicides you quote. Also, though you never seem, oddly, to mention it, alcohol is often involved in both gun homicides AND suicides, yet those figures are never quoted so fervently.
It’s not about the deaths, basically. If it were, then the logical conclusion is we should focus on things that kill more people each year. It’s about your aversion to weapons, specifically guns, and that’s all that really matters to you. You find it ridiculous when someone doesn’t see it the way you do. Well, I do as well…I honestly don’t get it. Dead is dead. Whether they are dead because they chose to smoke or were just unfortunate enough to breath in someone else’s smoke, whether they choose to drink or are killed by someone who chose to drink and drive, whether they are dead because some idiot chose to shoot them, they are all dead…and we, as a society, choose in all these cases to accept this. Or not. We often make stupid, from my perspective, decisions, collectively. I think the war on drugs is a good case in point. But if we chose to accept that it would STILL cost lives…just fewer than it currently does.
At any rate, even though you seem to again want to go into another dull gun debate I’m thinking I’ve said what I wanted to wrt that subject. If you want to talk about the merits of the UK trying to ban pointy knives and how that will save people, I’m game. If you want to talk broadly about society and what they find acceptable or not, that’s cool too. I’m not going to change your mind on gun control or how you make artificial distinctions to justify your stance, and you aren’t going to change my mind either on thinking that or being ridiculous, in your mind. C’est la vie.
Yes, I was the first to use the term “nanny state”, so what? :rolleyes:
But it wasn’t my “assessment” you are putting words in my mouth. I clearly said “IF”, and IF they banned acetaminophen and pointed knives- but they have done neither, so it’s not a “nanny state”. :dubious:
If I said "IF Trump does such and such, we will be a nazi dictatorship, I am not saying we *are *a nazi dictatorship. :rolleyes:
We were discussing “risk based” law making. If you are gonna have risk based law, then clearly, you hit the biggest risks first.
So, in a discussion of “risk based” law making, it is perfectly OK to point out that risks with a* hundredfold danger level *have been ignored in favor of a much lower risk.
No one called any nation a “nanny state”. You really have to get off that horse, it’s dead.
*"Lock knives
Lock knives are not classed as folding knives and are illegal to carry in public without good reason. Lock knives:
have blades that can be locked and refolded only by pressing a button
can include multi-tool knives - tools that also contain other devices such as a screwdriver or can opener"*
This covers quite a few Swiss army knives. :rolleyes:
Maybe “nanny state” is the right term.
Wait, you’re claiming that secondhand cigarette smoke is a greater killer than knives? Got data?
I mean, I’m of the opinion that this panic theater is all stupid and they should just bring police funding back to its previous levels, but just because this knife panic is stupid doesn’t make any and all theoretical arguments opposing it smart.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Well, there were, to be fair, blade length restrictions/parameters that probably make Swiss Army knives, at least smaller ones at least quasi legal. It’s going to be one of those things that I’d check with the police about, and probably just not carry one when I am in the UK. Shouldn’t be an issue, as I’d be flying there anyway, so my standard multi-tool which does have a blade would be left at home, as well as most if not all of my tools in my laptop bag.
Well, in Japan there are no guns at all, and yet a considerably higher suicide rate. So guns dont see to be the issue.
Europe has no borders to speak of and several nations there have quite a lot of guns and fairly lax gun laws (altho true, not as many as the uSA).
How does Western Europe keep guns from Montenegro and Serbia (for example) from coming into Western Europe?
Incidentally canada has the 6th most guns per person in the world. Canada has a lot of guns.
In the UK? Not really. It’s around (estimate) 41k in the US (as opposed to the 480k from direct smoking), so my guestimate for the UK would be maybe 4-8k? I can almost certainly guarantee it’s more than 282 though.
Certainly, in the VERY violent US, second hand smoking at 41k is more than the 6-7k from knife deaths, so seems like it’s not that ridiculous a call. Unless the Brits for some reason are immune to second hand smoke a hell of a lot more than us weak Americans.
Ok, I was curious and bored, and also it seemed a harder search than for anything (bad) involving the US, but I did manage to track down the stats on second hand smoke deaths in the UK. From here:
So, 11k (estimate), give or take. I’m not sure, but I think that’s higher than 282.
Lol, are you mocking the idea that America is a violent country? Compared to your peers, you certainly are.
Anyway, your argument is stupid. The government doesn’t set their legislative agenda on “what gets banned first because saving lives is the concern”. They deal with problems people are worried about and generally implement policies that don’t get big pushback.
Actually, no…I was totally serious that the US is a violent country. Note the fact that the US has thousands of knife deaths and hardly anyone bats an eye, while that 282 figure in the UK is seen as a major issue.
As to the stupidity of my argument, you actually seem to be saying the same thing I am, just in a different way, so…
