Back in my less sophisticated days (shocking as it may seem, I wasn’t always the mature, statesmanlike figure I am today), I sometimes resorted to silly arguments when debating gun control, such as, “does this mean you want to ban knives since they also can be used to kill people?”
Smarter opponents would scoff and accuse me of knocking down straw men, assuming a non-existent slippery slope, or engaging in reductio ad absurdum.
I wasn’t even sure what the last one meant, but I secretly felt chagrined because I also thought the argument was nonsense. But it’s not like we had the Internet back in those days so I could quickly peruse the writings of John Lott or David Kopel.
Well, I no longer need to feel shame. It turns out that my straw man came to life and he’s sliding down a slope into a big pool of whatever that reductio thing is.
I kid you not. There’s a supposedly civilized nation that is seriously talking about banning long kitchen knives.
I’ll give you a couple of hints to help you figure out what country is considering this bizarre policy.
- It’s the country that wanted to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
- It’s the country that arrested a man for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
- It’s the country that imposed a prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.
Yes, I’m talking about our friends in the United Kingdom.
They make some decent movies and they have cute accents, but they seem totally clueless about how to fight crime and the notion of individual rights appears to be a totally alien concept.
So the nation that once ruled half the world actually has contemplated whether to ban certain kitchen knives. Here are some details from a 2005 BBC report.
A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing. …The research is published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all. …The researchers say legislation to ban the sale of long pointed knives would be a key step in the fight against violent crime. …Home Office spokesperson said there were already extensive restrictions in place to control the sale and possession of knives. “The law already prohibits the possession of offensive weapons in a public place, and the possession of knives in public without good reason or lawful authority, with the exception of a folding pocket knife with a blade not exceeding three inches. … A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: “ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes.”
Given my low opinion of and low expectations for Britain’s political class, I’m impressed that pocket knives are still legal. It’s probably just a matter of time before than changes. After that, the next step will be fingernail clippers.
And I’m glad that the ACPO person warned that there might be problems enforcing such a silly law.
But I fully expect to see that foolish proposal get enacted at some point. After all, this is the country where a women who was being threatened by thugs got in trouble with the police for brandishing a knife in her own home.
I studied in England from ’69-’73 – back then the English were still men. How the mighty are fallen.
Compare and contrast with the movie Iron Clad (available on Netflix for instant down load) that tells the tale of what happened after King John signed the Magna Carta. The history isn’t perfect but the tale hits home that you are only as free as you can enforce your freedom.
J.K. Rowling captured this government fussiness perfectly when she had Percy nattering on about government mandated cauldron thicknesses.
In any case I wish you and your readers a happy New Year.
[...] STORY HERE [...]
Collectivism, more precisely, the totalitarianism of mandatory collectivism, has killed orders of magnitude more people than American civil guns have, or ever will. Does banning guns, in itself, constitute the feared pivotal transition to the totalitarianism of mandatory collectivism ? Probably not. But it constitutes enough of a step in that direction that American society should resist the temptation to emulate the mandatory collectivism, and sub-par prosperity, that the remainder of the less free world is subject to.
Every year, thousands of people, even children, are killed because some unrelated third party is taking a frivolous recreational trip in an automobile. A car with two retirees going to Yosemite, or three young punks with mountain bikes on rooftop going to Moab Utah, rams Ms John’s SUV taking her children to school. How can a civilized society live with that? Shouldn’t the frivolous trips be banned, or at least curtailed?
P.S. Not that the Sierra Club needed any more reasons to ban your next trip to Yosemite.
P.P.S. You can always buy those Sierra Club produced Ansel Adams photos. Ansel Adams has already disturbed nature for you, no need to keep doing it over and over. Stay in the city park, next to the high density apartment you’ve been stuffed into. What? You haven’t yet? Oh well, HopNChange has not completed its European emulation project quite yet. Your children will finish the job.
Zorba. You are THE MAN.
[...] « When Gun Control Satire Becomes British Reality [...]
[...] I wrote yesterday about a silly proposal in the United Kingdom to ban long kitchen knives. [...]
Dan, two words: Knives Scar Lives
Google it.
You’re gonna love this:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:70f4Bkrjxb4J:www.police.vic.gov.au/retrievemedia.asp%3Fmedia_id%3D58121%26status%3Dactive+&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiqPA-BYc0r9GJ66vQDditPxqKU3YayS6EMnVxz55T43RqFRRynb0wnh43sL1Yn4KnNWfdy5JiHxhTzSSP2nfLQ0ktogAUuvza2P1-Twh-oc_WOznSn6WdRXO2sq_wn4DmvKEGQ&sig=AHIEtbRLgB0G73QBtsBOpBjAePQfB-aR1A
Is considering?.
You got a time machine, Daniel?. Because theis story is from 2005!. And the British never ‘considered’ it for a second, it was a silly call from a tiny group of doctors. Which nobody took a blind bit of notice of.
‘It’s the country that wanted to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
It’s the country that arrested a man for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
It’s the country that imposed a prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.
But I fully expect to see that foolish proposal get enacted at some point. After all, this is the country where a women who was being threatened by thugs got in trouble with the police for brandishing a knife in her own home.’
1–Which got overturned within hours due to the public backlash.
2–There was far more to that story, but never mind.
3–It was one idiot at one race meeting.
4–Erm, one young stupid policeman told the lady. It wasnt and isnt police policy to tell people such rubbish. The police later apologised to Ms Klass for the PC’s stupidity.
The UK has Oxford and Cambridge and I thought the Brits were intelligent people. Do they think that this excessve disarmament will leave them safe from the Islamic attempt to take over their country? They have very little violent crime when compared with the USA
“James Murray
Is considering?.
You got a time machine, Daniel?. Because theis story is from 2005!. And the British never ‘considered’ it for a second, it was a silly call from a tiny group of doctors. Which nobody took a blind bit of notice of.”
that’s exactly how it starts.
[...] There have been calls for knife bans. [...]
[...] There have been calls for knife bans. [...]
[…] his yard and turning it over to the police. ♦ Starting pistols ♦ There have been calls for knife bans. ♦ A man was arrested for shooting a […]
[…] Though I fear our left-wing friends will misinterpret this one and demand to regulate box cutters (just as some left-wing Brits have advocated knife control). […]