Glad you think it’s funny
They caught Col. Mustard.
The information on that site is very outdated and, hence, wrong.
Switchblades are legal in most states. In my state [Wisconsin] knives have been removed from the list of dangerous weapons and can be carried openly or concealed with no permit or license required. And the hogwash that some municipalities had about blade size has been abolished.
The more I read the OP’s cite the more I think it’s a British version of the Onion.
The UK is what happens when a problem is identified and attempts are made to address it, rather than simply repeating the words “thoughts and prayers” as mass shootings continue on a regular basis. Guns are extremely difficult to obtain, and so gun crime is very low. The police were then able to focus on knife crime and were running anti-knife initiatives, and knife crime began to fall year-on-year. Let me make that clear: controlling access to weaponry was working.
Then the Conservatives came to power and decided to massively cut police funding, with the result of a loss of 20,000 police officers… and knife crime began to rise again. Imagine that - a correlation between an increase in crime and a fall in police numbers. Who could have predicted it?
I have no views on this new “no points” initiative or how much actual traction it has. I will point out, however, that the Republican narrative about how “the UK banned guns and now everyone is getting stabbed” is deliberately and fundamentally misleading. The current issue isn’t the lack of guns; it’s the lack of police. And I’m going to say this again: THE GUN BAN WORKS. And the majority of British people, right and left, look at the US and say “Thank god we’re not that stupid.”
But if you want to call it “baby-proofing”, go right ahead. You know who baby-proof things? Responsible adults. You know who cry and throw tantrums if they’re not allowed to have things they want, even if they’re overtly bad for them or even dangerous? Babies.
Probably fewer than white rental vans being driven into crowds. Although no one knows if Ms. Peacock had her license.
You win the Internet for the day. I’m stealing this.
When I fillet a fish I typically start with the point, when I cut into a large round fruit (watermelon) I typically start by piercing it with the tip, I’ll use the tip of a paring knife to de-vein shrimp, remove the stems from strawberries, and and the seeds from peppers. While I might not always need to use the tip of my knife I use it frequently enough that I would miss it. I have plenty of kitchen knives that don’t need a tip including a bread knife, cleaver, my fancy carver, and all of my table knives.
The gun ban does work in the UK. And it works in the UK because the vast majority of UK citizens want a gun ban and feel it’s a good policy and one that they should be doing. Anyone who is saying that the current knife crisis is because of the gun ban basically doesn’t fundamentally understand the attitude of the UK citizens.
The trouble is, a lot of folks, especially on this board, make the exact same mistake. They try and say that because the UK gun ban works that the US could or should do the same. Demonstrating that, fundamentally THEY don’t get it either. A gun ban works (or doesn’t work) based on the citizens in the country proposing it (or, in cases like China, on how strong and ruthless the government is in preventing it). A gun ban similar to what they have in the UK wouldn’t work in the US because a large percentage…possibly a majority…of citizens would not feel the same way the majority of people in the UK feel about it. Probably, and I know this is going to seem wacky, but probably because, you know, there is a slight difference in attitude and outlook between the majority of American citizens and the majority of UK citizens, probably because we haven’t got that one world government and we are all the same thingy down yet.
I’d say, instead of try and relate this knife ban to a US gun ban, we should just discuss the knife ban in isolation and as a subject all it’s own. What are it’s root causes? Lack of police? Is the lack of police systemic or is it in specific areas? Is the knife issue systemic or in specific areas? Is there a correlation? If so, then ISTM that perhaps looking into adding more police would be a better way to address the issue than banning knives. If not, then maybe look into other factors and other mitigation strategies. Maybe a knife ban is the only way, but such a thing is going to be pretty difficult. I assume this won’t be an across the board ban, but there have got to be millions of knives on the list, so that’s going to be tough to do and enforce. Or, maybe not…if the UK citizens are in agreement on this one, they will happily and voluntarily bring their knives in for either de-tipping or to be melted down to something less dangerous.
I heard the lack of billiard rooms, observatories, and libraries in new construction has really reduced the incidences of candlestick and lead pipe crime.
You’re right. They should immediately flood the entire country with guns. THAT will reduce crime. :rolleyes:
I had no idea and will remember this in the future.
It’s just a political ploy to gain supporters. Anyone could make a stiletto out of something as simple as a metal fingernail file. If you want something sharp and pointy, you’re going to have something sharp and pointy, whether they sell it as such or not.
Shh! We don’t want the criminals to find out about that.
It’s absolutely absurd. Unless they also ban grinding wheels, they’re just engaging in security theater, as a few minutes with a grinder and you can put a point back on a knife no problem.
And I did think of a category of uses that absolutely require knife points- cleaning/gutting/butchering fish and game. You have to stick the point in to actually start the cuts. So fishermen, hunters and anyone who buys a whole fish or bird would need a pointy knife (usually a boning knife of some kind) to do the job properly.
And five minutes with that same grinder and a largeish screwdriver makes a ghetto poniard that would be just as effective as a 8" chef’s knife at injuring someone.
I agree that these are different countries with different issues. My main concern at the moment is debunking the blatantly false propaganda being spread by pro-gun advocates that somehow the UK gun ban hasn’t made the country any safer and instead has led to gangs of knife-wielding maniacs roaming the streets of London and if only they’d let the decent god-fearing populace have guns none of this would be happening. (You may recall our own illustrious president repeating this same base canard, complete with a “stab stab stab” demonstration.) As I said, it’s made a huge difference. There is still violent crime - there is even gun crime - but it’s sufficiently rare that I don’t worry that my child is going to be gunned down in her schoolroom.
The UK’s story also debunks the wider narrative that gun bans don’t ever work. Gun bans can and do work when implemented properly. Implementing one in the US would have unique problems due to the federal vs states issue, the sheer size of the country, the attitude of the citizens and of course the Second Amendment (which I am not trivializing here). But it’s impossible to have a serious conversation on the subject with this sort of crap being promulgated.
I think the immediate issue is police numbers - as I said, there’s a direct correlation to falling police numbers and rising crime, and earlier initiatives to reduce knife crimes were working.
But the UK also tends to be proactive about other potential harms. I may have previously mentioned the example of aspirin - there was a problem years ago with people trying to commit suicide by overdosing on aspirin, which often failed but destroyed their livers which then put added strain on the liver transplant system. So they now sell aspiring in foil packs of no more than 16. No more opening the bottle and gulping them down in a rash moment; you would need to buy several boxes and pop every pill out one at a time. This isn’t a problem if you just need two aspirin for a headache, but makes trying to overdose a major planned undertaking. And the number of attempted overdoses plummeted. Sometimes government intervention works.
Again, I don’t know how serious this “pointy knife” thing is or whether there’s any serious data behind it. Maybe nothing will come of it, or maybe they’ll move pointy kitchen knives behind the sales counter or something else. But if you don’t have the conversation, you never find the solution.
I don’t want to hijack this into yet another gun ban, as this is about knives in the UK, not guns in the US, but one last thing:
Gun bans do clearly work. In countries where the majority of the citizens want them, or in countries with draconian totalitarian governments that can enforce them despite what the population wants. Trying to implement one in the US would run counter to either of these, however, which is why until and unless you change the majority of the public’s attitude and outlook on this it would fail here. This isn’t about federal verse state as much as it’s about a mindset that a large percentage of the population of the US hold…which isn’t the case in, say, the UK. And never was. Guns were never the same thing with the same percentage of the population in the UK, or Australia, or Japan or any other country that has successfully banned them by a voluntary population. Canada is probably the closest to the US attitude, and they haven’t banned guns…they have just restricted some guns in some areas.
Anyway, don’t want to hijack this and, really, I’m sure neither of us wants to do another gun debate, so I’ll leave it there. A knife ban in the UK could very well work out fine…if the majority of the folks in the UK support it and feel that it’s the right thing to do. If they don’t, then we’ll get a first hand view of how attempting to ban something when the large majority of the population doesn’t want it or think it’s necessary actually works out. My prediction in the case of the later is that it won’t work out as the folks who want to do the ban are anticipating.
Why do we even need sharpened knives in the kitchen? Surely you can buy pre-cut/pre-chopped vegetables and ground meat (assuming you need to eat meat at all). And if criminals try to sharpen knives themselves, the government can prohibit the sale and possession of grinding tools.
U.K knife ban advocates are missing the point when it comes to other sharp objects that can be used to commit homicidal violence. Haven’t they seen “Dial ‘M’ For Murder” and “Obsession”?
They really aren’t missing the point, you know (pun not intended). You may be, however.
I don’t think anyone’s missing the point… but I think a lot of us think that the degree of safety engendered by such absurd things isn’t worth the trouble or cost. I mean non-pointy knives? Packages of no more than 16 blister-packaged acetaminophen? To save how many people?
It seems to me that the amount of effort and money spent working on trivial stuff like this could be better spent elsewhere.
For pills, a couple thousand a year deliberate overdoses, and another order of magnitude accidental overdoses. There were over 22,000 cases of children overdosing on OTC painkillers between 1996 and 1999 alone. Still seem absurd?
nervously touches toothbrush shiv secreted in sock