Outlawing weapons doesn't stop crime, it just changes the methods. Killing people is illegal, that hasn't stopped them but outlawing their knives will because...yeah, no.
If you outlaw knives only knives will have outlaws. Or something like that.
Maybe you guys need to have an assault knife ban to get rid of the ones with black handles and bayonet lugs.
Slightly related, an acquaintance got into deep shit at Uni for having a baseball bat in his car. Apparently it constitutes a weapon unless there are other baseball paraphernalia.
Of course, him sprinting around hitting the walls and trashcans with the bat whille saying "NEED A TELEPORTER HERE NEED A TELEPORTER HERE NEED A TELEPORTER HERE" didn't help his case.
I'd say make it illegal for people below 18 to buy knives and make knives a couple times more expensive with taxes.
That's a great idea. Those poor folks shouldn't be able to cut their sandwiches in half anyway.
I've never seen a ban/higher taxation stop much of anything. Just makes it harder and more expensive for someone looking for a legitimate use.
If someone's looking to cause someone bodily harm, they're going to do it with anything they can find, whether it be illegal or legal, or hand-crafted. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Flint knives floating around after a complete knife ban.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Maybe you guys need to have an assault knife ban to get rid of the ones with black handles and bayonet lugs.
That mental image nearly made me fall over.
But seriously: measures to further restrict the availability of the weapon, in this case specifically, are basically doomed to failure as practically everyone has access to a knife of some description. It's one of the oldest and most used tools in the entire history of humanity.
The problem with knife violence isn't the knives, it's the violence.
- Kid came at me with a flat-head screwdriver, 2nd grade. Got nicked, but avoid real damage.
- Kid tried to stab me in the eye with a pen, blocked only by my glasses, first day of 3rd grade.
- Kid and his buddies, after randomly assaulting me, realized that they couldn't actually hurt me, so RAN HOME, and then found me again later, with a pocket knife, further problems prevented by my finding a huge piece of wood and threatening them until a random store clerk showed up, 6th grade.
I am not especially impressed with banning giant knives.
So your argument is... 'i've been able to fend off kids who have smaller, legal weapons, so why ban BIGGER BLADES' - bigger blades which you may not have been able to fend off as easily.
I'd certainly feel better going toe to toe with a guy and his pocket knife than a guy and his meat cleaver thankee very much
Outlawing weapons doesn't stop crime, it just changes the methods. Killing people is illegal, that hasn't stopped them but outlawing their knives will because...yeah, no.
You could remove every weapon from the planet and people would be beating each other to death with rakes and hoes.
it's a lot easier to kill or maim someone in public with a knife than with any other legal non projectile weapon.
The point is simply not used in home-cooking. Only chefs need that part.
I filleted a fish last week, that would have been rather awkward without a point.
Unless you were filleting a manatee, you could have done that pretty easily with a smaller knife. Such as.. a fillet knife. No bones about it.
All the "olol why not ban blunt instruments" posts are pretty sad.
Why?
The problem is, the number of knife deaths seems to be so low as to be nearly inconsequential, and knifes are so useful as to be ubiquitous. The knife is involved because it was the closest available deadly weapon, but it's almost literally impossible to make knives harder to acquire, without crossing the line into absolute retardedness. Making it so that no one outside of a liscensed chef can purchase a pointy knife would be a ridiculous step that pays for the few, if any, lives it would save by instigating ridiculous level of inconvience, and potential for, 'shit, we don't want to prosecute this case, but we really can't just selectively apply the law because this one case is 'oops, they really didn't mean to break it, and it was just a silly accident." (meant in terms of girl brough butter knife to school to cut birthday brownies, but bringing a knife onto campus is a felony, no matter the age or type of knife).
Just in case I wandered I bit too much there, what I mean is there are so few deaths, so that it's unlikely that the lack of a knife would've prevented many, if any of them. If not a knife, then it would've been a screwdriver, or a pipe, and the only way to regulate possession to the point where the murder would've been prevented would be to make it illegal for anyone to go anywhere without limbs so well padded that no matter how murderous the rage, or lethal the intent, the killer will literally drop of exhaustion before managing to hurt anyone.
At a certain point, making weapons harder to acquire will do nothing to solve the problem, because it's not the availability of the weapon causing the problem, but rather the underlying instigation of the violence, which will be expressed no matter the weapon at hand is.
Gabriel_Pitt on
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
The point is simply not used in home-cooking. Only chefs need that part.
I filleted a fish last week, that would have been rather awkward without a point.
Unless you were filleting a manatee, you could have done that pretty easily with a smaller knife. Such as.. a fillet knife. No bones about it.
All the "olol why not ban blunt instruments" posts are pretty sad.
Why?
The problem is, the number of knife deaths seems to be so low as to be nearly inconsequential, and knifes are so useful as to be ubiquitous. The knife is involved because it was the closest available deadly weapon, but it's almost literally impossible to make knives harder to acquire, without crossing the line into absolute retardedness. Making it so that no one outside of a liscensed chef can purchase a pointy knife would be a ridiculous step that pays for the few, if any, lives it would save by instigating ridiculous level of inconvience, and potential for, 'shit, we don't want to prosecute this case, but we really can't just selectively apply the law because this one case is 'oops, they really didn't mean to break it, and it was just a silly accident." (meant in terms of girl brough butter knife to school to cut birthday brownies, but bringing a knife onto campus is a felony, no matter the age or type of knife).
Just in case I wandered I bit too much there, what I mean is there are so few deaths, so that it's unlikely that the lack of a knife would've prevented many, if any of them. If not a knife, then it would've been a screwdriver, or a pipe, and the only way to regulate possession to the point where the murder would've been prevented would be to make it illegal for anyone to go anywhere without limbs so well padded that no matter how murderous the rage, or lethal the intent, the killer will literally drop of exhaustion before managing to hurt anyone.
At a certain point, making weapons harder to acquire will do nothing to solve the problem, because it's not the availability of the weapon causing the problem, but rather the underlying instigation of the violence, which will be expressed no matter the weapon at hand is.
- Kid came at me with a flat-head screwdriver, 2nd grade. Got nicked, but avoid real damage.
- Kid tried to stab me in the eye with a pen, blocked only by my glasses, first day of 3rd grade.
- Kid and his buddies, after randomly assaulting me, realized that they couldn't actually hurt me, so RAN HOME, and then found me again later, with a pocket knife, further problems prevented by my finding a huge piece of wood and threatening them until a random store clerk showed up, 6th grade.
I am not especially impressed with banning giant knives.
So your argument is... 'i've been able to fend off kids who have smaller, legal weapons, so why ban BIGGER BLADES' - bigger blades which you may not have been able to fend off as easily.
I'd certainly feel better going toe to toe with a guy and his pocket knife than a guy and his meat cleaver thankee very much
I think his point was that if someone wants to stab you, they're not restricted to big knives. So restricting the big knives is only going to encourage creativity in stabbing implements, not reduce the amount of stabbings.
Note that in none of his rounds as stabbee did the stabber use what could be considered a big knife. In only one case was a knife actually involved.
It's also worth pointing out that Strathclyde region has a population of less than half that of Greater London. These aren't unusual stats, either. Scotland's had hideous levels of knife crime for decades. We've also had crusading politicians, zero-tolerance schemes, crackdowns, amnesties, etc.
None of it's worked, because none of it's addressed the root cause, which is pretty commonly understood to be urban deprivation.
I am an American, a Democrat, and liberal on most economic issues. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of "root cause of crime" explanations, which frequently are used to excuse criminal behavior. In the U.S. poverty declined during the 1960's through a declining unemployment rate and a welfare system that was becoming more generous and easier to qualify for. Nevertheless, the crime rate doubled during this decade. Finally, we started putting more people in prison and keeping them longer. The crime rate went down. During the past two years, however, crime has gone up in the U.S.
A number of factors influence the crime rate. One of them, admittedly, is the extent and severity of poverty. Another is the percentage of young people in the population. In the U.S. in the 1960's the percentage of young people was higher than it is now. A third factor is the liklihood and severity of punishment.
Whenever I leave my apartment, even to go to my mail box, I carry pepper foam. It has greater range than a knive, and does not cause permanent injury. There are enough squirts in my cannister to deal with several assailants. During the past three years I have used my pepper foam to thwart three mugging attempts. Twice the mugger left me alone as soon as I pulled out my foam. Once I sprayed the mugger. The foam worked just fine.
The only thing pepper foam won't beat is a gun. I do not like guns. Nevertheless, if I could get a permit to carry a concealed hand gun I would get the permit.
It's also worth pointing out that Strathclyde region has a population of less than half that of Greater London. These aren't unusual stats, either. Scotland's had hideous levels of knife crime for decades. We've also had crusading politicians, zero-tolerance schemes, crackdowns, amnesties, etc.
None of it's worked, because none of it's addressed the root cause, which is pretty commonly understood to be urban deprivation.
I am an American, a Democrat, and liberal on most economic issues. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of "root cause of crime" explanations, which frequently are used to excuse criminal behavior. In the U.S. poverty declined during the 1960's through a declining unemployment rate and a welfare system that was becoming more generous and easier to qualify for. Nevertheless, the crime rate doubled during this decade. Finally, we started putting more people in prison and keeping them longer. The crime rate went down. During the past two years, however, crime has gone up in the U.S.
A number of factors influence the crime rate. One of them, admittedly, is the extent and severity of poverty. Another is the percentage of young people in the population. In the U.S. in the 1960's the percentage of young people was higher than it is now. A third factor is the liklihood and severity of punishment.
Honestly I`m getting a little tired of hearing the phrase "Root Cause TM" myself. It just seems like a catch all, or a way to explain a problem that may just not have a explanation. Right now in Alberta unemployment's like zero. Company's need to fill another 200,000 positions wages are very high, people have money.
Yet crime has been on the rise very sharply. Gang violence is through the roof, shootings are up,assault, domestic violence, robbery, muggings. But every specialist they drag out on the news says the root cause is poverty....even though none of the people were poor.
Here I have the root cause, people are fucking bored.
Knifes right now may just be a fad like furbys Next year it could be small bats, maces, tasers, brass knuckles, a ferret on a stick.
It's also worth pointing out that Strathclyde region has a population of less than half that of Greater London. These aren't unusual stats, either. Scotland's had hideous levels of knife crime for decades. We've also had crusading politicians, zero-tolerance schemes, crackdowns, amnesties, etc.
None of it's worked, because none of it's addressed the root cause, which is pretty commonly understood to be urban deprivation.
I am an American, a Democrat, and liberal on most economic issues. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of "root cause of crime" explanations, which frequently are used to excuse criminal behavior. In the U.S. poverty declined during the 1960's through a declining unemployment rate and a welfare system that was becoming more generous and easier to qualify for. Nevertheless, the crime rate doubled during this decade. Finally, we started putting more people in prison and keeping them longer. The crime rate went down. During the past two years, however, crime has gone up in the U.S.
A number of factors influence the crime rate. One of them, admittedly, is the extent and severity of poverty. Another is the percentage of young people in the population. In the U.S. in the 1960's the percentage of young people was higher than it is now. A third factor is the liklihood and severity of punishment.
I worded it clumsily above, but I do agree with you to an extent. Basically I see it as stemming from a variety of cultural factors (from gangs to a general "big man" macho ideal, binge drinking as the definition of a good time, the perception that carrying weapons "for self defence" is acceptable, etc.), coupled with the fact that the people involved are often third of fourth generation unemployed, an aspect of ghettoisation stemming mostly from Glasgow Housing Association's tendency to build grim repetitve rows of poor quality housing, which are usually arranged with clearly defined boundaries between one area and the next (there was a fad in the sixties and seventies based on the idea that doing this leads to the formation of communities, what it actually seems to do is to lead to "us vs. them" mentalities) and , as you say, the complete lack of anything to discourage anti-social behaviour.
None of these are causes, but they do create an environment where their is ample opportunity for criminal behaviour, and a lack of consequence for the same.
The point is simply not used in home-cooking. Only chefs need that part.
I filleted a fish last week, that would have been rather awkward without a point.
Unless you were filleting a manatee, you could have done that pretty easily with a smaller knife. Such as.. a fillet knife. No bones about it.
All the "olol why not ban blunt instruments" posts are pretty sad.
Why?
'cause every single person here agrees with the principle of banning certain weapons, yet mysteriously doesn't apply the same logic to their own cut-off point.
Making it so that no one outside of a liscensed chef can purchase a pointy knife would be a ridiculous step
Yes, it would. Do you know what a "kitchen knife" is? It's the really large one all houses have one of. Barely anyone uses the pointed end of it; just take it off. Would cut out a lot of crimes of passion.
After that they better ban any metals or plastics that can be molded into something sharp. If someone wants to hurt someone else, I doubt they're going to be deterred by having all their kitchen knives turned into cleavers. Where there's a will, there's a way.
It's always funny, on a plane, when they ban box cutters but oh hey here is a can of soda you can crush, rip in half, and make TWO horribly jagged knives out of.
I wonder how long until they ban fondue tools and kabob sticks.
It's always funny, on a plane, when they ban box cutters but oh hey here is a can of soda you can crush, rip in half, and make TWO horribly jagged knives out of.
I wonder how long until they ban fondue tools and kabob sticks.
But hey, at least they're making you pay for that soda-can weapon.
I mean putting aside the questionable act of making what can genuinely be used as a tool illegal, far too close reminiscent of thought crime.
In the same way that a DUI is a thought crime? You don't have to hit someone with a car to get arrested for drunk driving. And I sure as hell don't want to get fucking stabbed before the police arrest a guy with a bigass knife on his belt. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
I mean putting aside the questionable act of making what can genuinely be used as a tool illegal, far too close reminiscent of thought crime.
In the same way that a DUI is a thought crime? You don't have to hit someone with a car to get arrested for drunk driving. And I sure as hell don't want to get fucking stabbed before the police arrest a guy with a bigass knife on his belt. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Well a DUI has you engaging in dangerous behaviour, you’re driving with your senses impaired which puts others at risk. I mean you can't be arrested for being drunk and holding keys, which would seem like a much more apt analogy?
The point is simply not used in home-cooking. Only chefs need that part.
I filleted a fish last week, that would have been rather awkward without a point.
Unless you were filleting a manatee, you could have done that pretty easily with a smaller knife. Such as.. a fillet knife. No bones about it.
All the "olol why not ban blunt instruments" posts are pretty sad.
Why?
'cause every single person here agrees with the principle of banning certain weapons, yet mysteriously doesn't apply the same logic to their own cut-off point.
Making it so that no one outside of a liscensed chef can purchase a pointy knife would be a ridiculous step
Yes, it would. Do you know what a "kitchen knife" is? It's the really large one all houses have one of. Barely anyone uses the pointed end of it; just take it off. Would cut out a lot of crimes of passion.
Yeah, that's pretty absurd. Let me clue you in on something: unless you're talking about quantity, there's basically nothing that a professional chef does that somebody, somewhere, probably me at some point, never does with home cooking. Just because you buy every meal from the frozen food section doesn't mean everyone should be required to. I mean, what the fuck.
I mean putting aside the questionable act of making what can genuinely be used as a tool illegal, far too close reminiscent of thought crime.
In the same way that a DUI is a thought crime? You don't have to hit someone with a car to get arrested for drunk driving. And I sure as hell don't want to get fucking stabbed before the police arrest a guy with a bigass knife on his belt. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Well a DUI has you engaging in dangerous behaviour, you’re driving with your senses impaired which puts others at risk. I mean you can't be arrested for being drunk and holding keys, which would seem like a much more apt analogy?
In the states you can be arrested for a DUI by being inside your car with your keys within a certain distance of you and your car (something like 30 feet). So yes, it's entirely possible to be drunk and not driving and still get a DUI.
I mean putting aside the questionable act of making what can genuinely be used as a tool illegal, far too close reminiscent of thought crime.
In the same way that a DUI is a thought crime? You don't have to hit someone with a car to get arrested for drunk driving. And I sure as hell don't want to get fucking stabbed before the police arrest a guy with a bigass knife on his belt. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Well a DUI has you engaging in dangerous behaviour, you’re driving with your senses impaired which puts others at risk. I mean you can't be arrested for being drunk and holding keys, which would seem like a much more apt analogy?
You can be arrested for being drunk and having your keys in the ignition, even if you have no intentions of moving the vehicle. It's ridiculous to think it's a thought crime when a random guy in the middle of the street is walking around with a kitchen knife. What the hell is he going to do with it, wait for vegetables to randomly fall from the sky so he can chop them up?
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
I mean putting aside the questionable act of making what can genuinely be used as a tool illegal, far too close reminiscent of thought crime.
In the same way that a DUI is a thought crime? You don't have to hit someone with a car to get arrested for drunk driving. And I sure as hell don't want to get fucking stabbed before the police arrest a guy with a bigass knife on his belt. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Well a DUI has you engaging in dangerous behaviour, you’re driving with your senses impaired which puts others at risk. I mean you can't be arrested for being drunk and holding keys, which would seem like a much more apt analogy?
Actually, you can. The law says you can be arrested for being drunk "in charge" of a motor vehicle, the interpretation of "in charge" is left to the discretion of the police.
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
At the risk of sounding like Thanatos (or summoning him), I think those of us living in the US have very little reason to trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
At the risk of sounding like Thanatos (or summoning him), I think those of us living in the US have very little reason to trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Well we don't have to worry about it, so I guess it doesn't matter. But I doubt an officer with moderate intelligence is going to arrest everybody with a knife and throw them in jail for 3 years.
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
At the risk of sounding like Thanatos (or summoning him), I think those of us living in the US have very little reason to trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Well we don't have to worry about it, so I guess it doesn't matter. But I doubt an officer with moderate intelligence is going to arrest everybody with a knife and throw them in jail for 3 years.
I personally know at least one person who was thrown in jail for 24 hours, though, for carrying a gun legally. As in, he was clearly breaking no law (and, in fact, had looked up the law beforehand and clearly stated it to the officer). The prosecutor actually tried to pursue the charges as well...again, even after being informed of the law.
Luckily the judge threw it out (because again, no law was broken). He then spent a couple weeks trying to get his property (the gun) back.
Again, I don't trust the police to enforce such an ordinance rationally, fairly, or even according to the law. Maybe British police are better about such things. But I'm just saying that a lot of people in the US have plenty of reason not to trust cops not to go throwing people in jail all willy-nilly...because over here that's what they do. That and taser some motherfuckers.
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
At the risk of sounding like Thanatos (or summoning him), I think those of us living in the US have very little reason to trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Well we don't have to worry about it, so I guess it doesn't matter. But I doubt an officer with moderate intelligence is going to arrest everybody with a knife and throw them in jail for 3 years.
I personally know at least one person who was thrown in jail for 24 hours, though, for carrying a gun legally. As in, he was clearly breaking no law (and, in fact, had looked up the law beforehand and clearly stated it to the officer). The prosecutor actually tried to pursue the charges as well...again, even after being informed of the law.
Luckily the judge threw it out (because again, no law was broken). He then spent a couple weeks trying to get his property (the gun) back.
Again, I don't trust the police to enforce such an ordinance rationally, fairly, or even according to the law. Maybe British police are better about such things. But I'm just saying that a lot of people in the US have plenty of reason not to trust cops not to go throwing people in jail all willy-nilly...because over here that's what they do. That and taser some motherfuckers.
TBH if I were a cop, I'd try to taser as much as I could. It looks fun.
Eh, I live in a place where the police will arrest you for just about anything, and they'll follow you for looking different. Still, I have some faith that after passing a law like this, they'll closely monitor how it is carried out. There's not enough room in prison for 15,000 teenagers carrying pocket knives.
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
At the risk of sounding like Thanatos (or summoning him), I think those of us living in the US have very little reason to trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Well we don't have to worry about it, so I guess it doesn't matter. But I doubt an officer with moderate intelligence is going to arrest everybody with a knife and throw them in jail for 3 years.
Given our government's obsession with setting targets to measure the effectiveness of people in public roles, I have no difficulty believing that they'd at the very least be under pressure to make the arrest and worry about it later than to exercise a reasonable amount of discretion over it.
Eh, I live in a place where the police will arrest you for just about anything, and they'll follow you for looking different. Still, I have some faith that after passing a law like this, they'll closely monitor how it is carried out. There's not enough room in prison for 15,000 teenagers carrying pocket knives.
That seems like a really illogical position: Oh, we know the police do lots of bad shit, but this time it's going to be different.
If they can't be trusted to properly enforce the laws that already exist, creating more laws for them to abuse is the stupidest idea ever.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Eh, I live in a place where the police will arrest you for just about anything, and they'll follow you for looking different. Still, I have some faith that after passing a law like this, they'll closely monitor how it is carried out. There's not enough room in prison for 15,000 teenagers carrying pocket knives.
That seems like a really illogical position: Oh, we know the police do lots of bad shit, but this time it's going to be different.
If they can't be trusted to properly enforce the laws that already exist, creating more laws for them to abuse is the stupidest idea ever.
This is a law in the UK, not the US. I have a strong feeling that there police are slightly better at their job than ours.
Eh, I live in a place where the police will arrest you for just about anything, and they'll follow you for looking different. Still, I have some faith that after passing a law like this, they'll closely monitor how it is carried out. There's not enough room in prison for 15,000 teenagers carrying pocket knives.
That seems like a really illogical position: Oh, we know the police do lots of bad shit, but this time it's going to be different.
If they can't be trusted to properly enforce the laws that already exist, creating more laws for them to abuse is the stupidest idea ever.
This is a law in the UK, not the US. I have a strong feeling that there police are slightly better at their job than ours.
Ah, I assumed that you lived somewhere in the UK. Nevermind then.
Still, what I've heard about UK policing has not generall impressed me either. In fact I was just reading something in the Economist about how sucky they are.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Eh, I live in a place where the police will arrest you for just about anything, and they'll follow you for looking different. Still, I have some faith that after passing a law like this, they'll closely monitor how it is carried out. There's not enough room in prison for 15,000 teenagers carrying pocket knives.
That seems like a really illogical position: Oh, we know the police do lots of bad shit, but this time it's going to be different.
If they can't be trusted to properly enforce the laws that already exist, creating more laws for them to abuse is the stupidest idea ever.
This is a law in the UK, not the US. I have a strong feeling that there police are slightly better at their job than ours.
Ah, I assumed that you lived somewhere in the UK. Nevermind then.
Still, what I've heard about UK policing has not generall impressed me either. In fact I was just reading something in the Economist about how sucky they are.
Well, perhaps I'm totally wrong. But we'll find out pretty soon I'm sure.
Posts
Maybe you guys need to have an assault knife ban to get rid of the ones with black handles and bayonet lugs.
Until you have zero-tolerance policies when you learn that people are still stabbing each other despite a ban.
Of course, him sprinting around hitting the walls and trashcans with the bat whille saying "NEED A TELEPORTER HERE NEED A TELEPORTER HERE NEED A TELEPORTER HERE" didn't help his case.
That's a great idea. Those poor folks shouldn't be able to cut their sandwiches in half anyway.
They can hammer a sandwich in half like God intended.
I've never seen a ban/higher taxation stop much of anything. Just makes it harder and more expensive for someone looking for a legitimate use.
If someone's looking to cause someone bodily harm, they're going to do it with anything they can find, whether it be illegal or legal, or hand-crafted. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Flint knives floating around after a complete knife ban.
But seriously: measures to further restrict the availability of the weapon, in this case specifically, are basically doomed to failure as practically everyone has access to a knife of some description. It's one of the oldest and most used tools in the entire history of humanity.
The problem with knife violence isn't the knives, it's the violence.
So your argument is... 'i've been able to fend off kids who have smaller, legal weapons, so why ban BIGGER BLADES' - bigger blades which you may not have been able to fend off as easily.
I'd certainly feel better going toe to toe with a guy and his pocket knife than a guy and his meat cleaver thankee very much
it's a lot easier to kill or maim someone in public with a knife than with any other legal non projectile weapon.
Unless you were filleting a manatee, you could have done that pretty easily with a smaller knife. Such as.. a fillet knife. No bones about it.
All the "olol why not ban blunt instruments" posts are pretty sad.
Do you not ever go to the hardware store or kitchen aisle or crafts section or the woods?
I mean hell, just get a bottle of SoBe.
I don't really see much of a difference between banning blunt instruments and banning sharp instruments. Blunt instruments can be just as deadly.
The problem is, the number of knife deaths seems to be so low as to be nearly inconsequential, and knifes are so useful as to be ubiquitous. The knife is involved because it was the closest available deadly weapon, but it's almost literally impossible to make knives harder to acquire, without crossing the line into absolute retardedness. Making it so that no one outside of a liscensed chef can purchase a pointy knife would be a ridiculous step that pays for the few, if any, lives it would save by instigating ridiculous level of inconvience, and potential for, 'shit, we don't want to prosecute this case, but we really can't just selectively apply the law because this one case is 'oops, they really didn't mean to break it, and it was just a silly accident." (meant in terms of girl brough butter knife to school to cut birthday brownies, but bringing a knife onto campus is a felony, no matter the age or type of knife).
Just in case I wandered I bit too much there, what I mean is there are so few deaths, so that it's unlikely that the lack of a knife would've prevented many, if any of them. If not a knife, then it would've been a screwdriver, or a pipe, and the only way to regulate possession to the point where the murder would've been prevented would be to make it illegal for anyone to go anywhere without limbs so well padded that no matter how murderous the rage, or lethal the intent, the killer will literally drop of exhaustion before managing to hurt anyone.
At a certain point, making weapons harder to acquire will do nothing to solve the problem, because it's not the availability of the weapon causing the problem, but rather the underlying instigation of the violence, which will be expressed no matter the weapon at hand is.
Aww, you sigged my quote
a well shaped log or nailgun can do some fucked up shit, but neither are as easily concealable or commonplace as knives.
Still, I don't think your average kitchen knife can stab as well as a dagger, but then again I've never been stabbed.
Note that in none of his rounds as stabbee did the stabber use what could be considered a big knife. In only one case was a knife actually involved.
I am an American, a Democrat, and liberal on most economic issues. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of "root cause of crime" explanations, which frequently are used to excuse criminal behavior. In the U.S. poverty declined during the 1960's through a declining unemployment rate and a welfare system that was becoming more generous and easier to qualify for. Nevertheless, the crime rate doubled during this decade. Finally, we started putting more people in prison and keeping them longer. The crime rate went down. During the past two years, however, crime has gone up in the U.S.
A number of factors influence the crime rate. One of them, admittedly, is the extent and severity of poverty. Another is the percentage of young people in the population. In the U.S. in the 1960's the percentage of young people was higher than it is now. A third factor is the liklihood and severity of punishment.
The only thing pepper foam won't beat is a gun. I do not like guns. Nevertheless, if I could get a permit to carry a concealed hand gun I would get the permit.
Honestly I`m getting a little tired of hearing the phrase "Root Cause TM" myself. It just seems like a catch all, or a way to explain a problem that may just not have a explanation. Right now in Alberta unemployment's like zero. Company's need to fill another 200,000 positions wages are very high, people have money.
Yet crime has been on the rise very sharply. Gang violence is through the roof, shootings are up,assault, domestic violence, robbery, muggings. But every specialist they drag out on the news says the root cause is poverty....even though none of the people were poor.
Here I have the root cause, people are fucking bored.
Knifes right now may just be a fad like furbys
I worded it clumsily above, but I do agree with you to an extent. Basically I see it as stemming from a variety of cultural factors (from gangs to a general "big man" macho ideal, binge drinking as the definition of a good time, the perception that carrying weapons "for self defence" is acceptable, etc.), coupled with the fact that the people involved are often third of fourth generation unemployed, an aspect of ghettoisation stemming mostly from Glasgow Housing Association's tendency to build grim repetitve rows of poor quality housing, which are usually arranged with clearly defined boundaries between one area and the next (there was a fad in the sixties and seventies based on the idea that doing this leads to the formation of communities, what it actually seems to do is to lead to "us vs. them" mentalities) and , as you say, the complete lack of anything to discourage anti-social behaviour.
None of these are causes, but they do create an environment where their is ample opportunity for criminal behaviour, and a lack of consequence for the same.
'cause every single person here agrees with the principle of banning certain weapons, yet mysteriously doesn't apply the same logic to their own cut-off point.
Yes, it would. Do you know what a "kitchen knife" is? It's the really large one all houses have one of. Barely anyone uses the pointed end of it; just take it off. Would cut out a lot of crimes of passion.
I wonder how long until they ban fondue tools and kabob sticks.
But hey, at least they're making you pay for that soda-can weapon.
In the same way that a DUI is a thought crime? You don't have to hit someone with a car to get arrested for drunk driving. And I sure as hell don't want to get fucking stabbed before the police arrest a guy with a bigass knife on his belt. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Well a DUI has you engaging in dangerous behaviour, you’re driving with your senses impaired which puts others at risk. I mean you can't be arrested for being drunk and holding keys, which would seem like a much more apt analogy?
Yeah, that's pretty absurd. Let me clue you in on something: unless you're talking about quantity, there's basically nothing that a professional chef does that somebody, somewhere, probably me at some point, never does with home cooking. Just because you buy every meal from the frozen food section doesn't mean everyone should be required to. I mean, what the fuck.
In the states you can be arrested for a DUI by being inside your car with your keys within a certain distance of you and your car (something like 30 feet). So yes, it's entirely possible to be drunk and not driving and still get a DUI.
You can be arrested for being drunk and having your keys in the ignition, even if you have no intentions of moving the vehicle. It's ridiculous to think it's a thought crime when a random guy in the middle of the street is walking around with a kitchen knife. What the hell is he going to do with it, wait for vegetables to randomly fall from the sky so he can chop them up?
Come on guys, you should trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Actually, you can. The law says you can be arrested for being drunk "in charge" of a motor vehicle, the interpretation of "in charge" is left to the discretion of the police.
At the risk of sounding like Thanatos (or summoning him), I think those of us living in the US have very little reason to trust law enforcement to be rational about this.
Well we don't have to worry about it, so I guess it doesn't matter. But I doubt an officer with moderate intelligence is going to arrest everybody with a knife and throw them in jail for 3 years.
Like that ever ends well.
I personally know at least one person who was thrown in jail for 24 hours, though, for carrying a gun legally. As in, he was clearly breaking no law (and, in fact, had looked up the law beforehand and clearly stated it to the officer). The prosecutor actually tried to pursue the charges as well...again, even after being informed of the law.
Luckily the judge threw it out (because again, no law was broken). He then spent a couple weeks trying to get his property (the gun) back.
Again, I don't trust the police to enforce such an ordinance rationally, fairly, or even according to the law. Maybe British police are better about such things. But I'm just saying that a lot of people in the US have plenty of reason not to trust cops not to go throwing people in jail all willy-nilly...because over here that's what they do. That and taser some motherfuckers.
TBH if I were a cop, I'd try to taser as much as I could. It looks fun.
Given our government's obsession with setting targets to measure the effectiveness of people in public roles, I have no difficulty believing that they'd at the very least be under pressure to make the arrest and worry about it later than to exercise a reasonable amount of discretion over it.
That seems like a really illogical position: Oh, we know the police do lots of bad shit, but this time it's going to be different.
If they can't be trusted to properly enforce the laws that already exist, creating more laws for them to abuse is the stupidest idea ever.
This is a law in the UK, not the US. I have a strong feeling that there police are slightly better at their job than ours.
Ah, I assumed that you lived somewhere in the UK. Nevermind then.
Still, what I've heard about UK policing has not generall impressed me either. In fact I was just reading something in the Economist about how sucky they are.
Well, perhaps I'm totally wrong. But we'll find out pretty soon I'm sure.