On Friday, the German Bundestag will vote on their “security package” – legislation they cooked up in the wake of the diversity knife attack at the Solingen Diversity Festival back in August.
Why oh why is Germany copying the modest retarded knife-law in the world?
(The Swedish one in case you're wondering.)
This is 90% a copy of the current Swedish knife-law, in all its triumph of ignorance. Strictly speaking, there's no legal way to buy a knife at the store and take it home. The law is so loosely written and interpreted that /if/ police and prosecutor and court wants to nail you for a knife-crime, you're nailed. You could be a construction worker on the way home, having a shoddy blunt crap knife used for peeling electrical wiring on the floor of your car, that you've completely forgotten you dropped there weeks ago. If police stop you, and if they feel like it, then you are guilty of illegal possession of a knife.
If my son brings his chef's knifes home from work (which he does, the knifes cost a fortune) he is committing a crime. And on and on and on. Meanwhile, I can drop by the hardware-superstore in town and by a battery-powered nailgun and take it home. On public transport. Or a felling-axe. Or a chainsaw. Or a shovel. Or one of them claw-on-a-stick things you use for weeding. Or. . .
Our old law was much better. It only made a difference between assault and armed assault. Armed meant using something other than your body. Steel-toothed comb or broken bottle or a baseball bat mattered not, only the damage done to the victim.
I've carried a knife most every day of my life since I was 10, when grandpa gave me my first one - as per tradition! - and I've never, ever, even drawn a blade in a fight.
It's not the knife, or the gun, or whatever. It's the person.
Good on your son! I learned the hard way when my $150 Wustof walked away with some shithead who managed to get fired mid dinner shift. It's just another sign of how out of touch these idiots are with people who actually work for a living.
It would be far more productive to just ban shitheads instead of knives. All the powers that be need to do is devise a shithead test like we do for DUIs and let them be administered anyplace, anytime.
We have done one better in Australia - we have expanded this to all items. If the police consider you to be carrying anything at all for self defense, no matter how effective or prohibited the item, that is an offense.
As someone here on the interwebs pointed out, the problem with Australia isn't the Australians who descended from prisoners, it's the Australians who descended from prison guards.
So much of the western world is built on the expectation that the nation-forming peoples of these countries will basically abide by the honor system. “I’m not supposed to carry a knife and lie about its purpose, so I won’t”.
It will be a significant, perhaps even an existential crisis for these countries when that no longer holds true - an outcome this system inevitably will produce.
I would only take this one step further and repeat a point someone made that Christendom itself arose from the premise that life is short and eternity long, so let's keep our eyes on the ball and live well here so that we can spend the next life in the right place.
Dismantle that (as we did), and we're left with our current state of entire countries being led by emotions.
This is also one reason (not the only one) that European countries used to have the death penalty for offenses of all sorts. Of course, the lack of a large-scale jail system was a bigger one. But once people had proved themselves willing to commit serious crimes, it was more practical (in terms of protecting everyone else) to kill them than trust them not to do it again. They expected criminals to lie, and honest people to not be criminals.
You know, opponents of gun control in the USA have half-joked about how if firearms were banned, criminals would simply resort to knives and eventually there would be calls for "knife control." Well, here we are.
Just put everybody in a straitjacket already and throw them in a padded cell. Imagine all the lives it would save when it's physically impossible for anyone to hurt anybody, including themselves. Heck, if it saves even A SINGLE LIFE, it will be worth it! 🙄
We need stricter weapon-laws to combat rampant abuse of assault-rocks used in violent crimes!
Only half-joking. Colleague of mine was in Rwanda during the nastiness in the 1990s. When the weapons-embargoes started to take effect, the hutus and tutsis resorted to clubs, farming tools, shovels, spears, and anything that could be used as a weapon.
I always ask anti-gun/anti-self defense people (and there are loads such in Sweden) this:
"If I come at you with a weapon, how do you hold me off until police can arrive?"
Pisses them off something fierce, it does. Even more when I ask: "Without a weapon, how are you going to stop someone you see assaulting a child?"
I have a bottle of vodka and two glasses by the door. If it's a solicitor I throw one of the glasses at them. If it's an attacker, I hit them with the vodka bottle. If it's a friend I offer them a drink. If they're from the government I pour a drink, break the vodka bottle over their head, pull out my lighter, then have the drink by the fire with the vodka I just poured.
"eventually there would be calls for "knife control." Well, here we are."
Britain has had them for over a decade. They even control cricket bats now.
US gun owners are perpetually thankful for Europe Australia, and Canada: when US gun banners propose "next steps," we have plenty of examples of places we can already point to, to prove that their ideas are nonsense that will never help.
You know, I am strongly anti gun control, but that probably would dramatically reduce the number of deaths in this country
(namely, in that when you're trying to murder a rival drug dealer, it's a lot harder to miss and hit a dozen random bystanders when you're using a knife)
Correlation is not causation. Mass shooters (not "regular" shooters) are typically mentally ill, so they are likely to have been prescribed drugs for mental illnesses. Many of these shooters have been prescribed drugs they never took, too. We have a crisis of severely mentally ill people in this country. There are no mental hospitals. They live at home with family, if they're lucky and able/willing to do so, or by themselves. Either way, no one can make them take medicine or get psychological help, or even go to a hospital short-term (unless they do or say anything that indicates they might 'harm themselves or others,' which they usually know not to do). People who don't have a severely mentally ill relative have NO idea how bad it is. Family, or visiting social workers for those who live on their own), have to try to manage their illnesses without any training or help. It's a nightmare.
I am strongly opposed to SSRI antidepressants but I think this is an unfair comparison. A shockingly large number of Americans (something over 10% last I checked) take these meds. Just by random chance, of course it's going to be the case that shooting suspects are on them.
Although, with that said, I don't reject the hypothesis either, I just think it's a weak argument
Up until the Clinton administration, the largest mass murder in the US was committed with a glass jar of gasoline. Then came Waco, Oklahoma City, 9/11, and deliberately weaponized COVID. The only one of these committed with guns was Waco, and those guns were in the hands of the government.
The drug dealers will always find a way to firearms. If nothing else, there'll be police officers and soldiers willing to trade their weapon for enough cash. Meanwhile, the rest of us would proverbially be bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Mexico has all the gun laws other countries crave. What firearms the cartels don't import from overseas, they steal or buy from Mexican police and military.
Let me tell you as someone who lives in a country with strict gun control. Only law-abiding citizens obey law control.
In a country that I won't name, a drug dealer almost managed to buy stinger missiles from the black market, the deal being thwarted at the last moment by the police, this in a country that at that time made supremely difficult for private citizens to obtain an authorization to buy a gun, and even if the citizen managed to get it, he would be severely restricted on the types, calibers and magazine capacity, along with very small yearly allowances for anmo for buying.
I mean sure, in a place where that's possible, but the horse has not only left the barn here; The barn burned down decades ago and the horse died of old age. The lack of magic gun evaporation fairies means the US will never be gun free. The advances in home production equipment makes it even *less* likely than 20 years ago.
We'd probably be better off just ending Prohibition 2.0 instead of continuing it.
Seems to have long applied in some areas. 40 years ago I pulled out a pocketknife in the ICIA (Imperial Chemical Industries of America, near Wilmington, Delaware) cafeteria to cut an apple I'd brought for lunch and caught what for.
Hehe, one of the times you're legally allowed to carry a knife in public here is when you're out hunting, fishing or trekking. Which I often do.
Once, while travelling via state railroads, I switched trains in Stockholm, the capital. Since there was about an hour between trains, I popped over to a nearby park with the dogs and started carving up some bloodpudding for them.
About ten-fifteen minutes later, two police saunters over.
"Out hiking, are you?"
"Yes officer, we're going to the Rogen nature reserve, Just waiting for the train."
"Yes I can see that. Could you perhaps put your knife in your rucksack though, people have been making nervous phone-calls about a crazy hobo with a foot-long dirk feeding raw meat to his wild dogs."
That foot-long dirk, was my Eldris-knife from Morakniv:
Eldris was designed specifically to allow campers a knife without legal trouble because when it came on the market the law made allowances for blades under a specific length (3" I think it was).
Because our politicians have never heard of carpet knifes or box-cutters or anything with adjustable blade-length.
It's a damn good blade though, the steel is second to none - though I'm biased as all get out; the makers hail from my home-region.
Same happened to me. I took out my old Normark "Super Swede" folding knife to cut up an apple at my desk (I'm in the UK) , and a colleague freaked out that I had an illegal knife or some such. I pointed out that since our office was not a public place, there was no issue. A different colleague, ex military, appreciated it as he'd been issued one when he served, but no longer had it. Mine is 25 years old, the action is still perfect, and the steel is so good I have only had to sharpen it once.
It's a good thing that we have these knife laws. Those knives are killing and stabbing people. It's not as if some person has to hold and move the knife. I hope the knives will finally obey the law.
I'll bet that's for the Sikhs, the males of whom are required by their religion to carry a knife or dagger. I'll also bet that your broadsword will somehow not qualify. Just a hunch.
If Europeans faced with these obviously ridiculous knife laws would introspect a bit and realize that US gun laws are equally stupid, both in the 'this makes no sense' sense and in the 'murder is already illegal; criminals don't care' sense.
As an aside,
> Thus people carrying knives for hunting or sporting purposes are excepted, as are people carrying knives for “the preservation of traditions"
I absolutely hate exceptions like this, because they are never applied fairly. This is always always always a euphemism for "we're too afraid of being called racist, so we won't enforce this against ethnic minorities. The protections of laws like this are never extended to the local dominant population.
Now that I think about it, the US supreme court setting that recent precedent about how gun control laws have to be consistent with historical tradition in the US is a great example of actually extending this kind of protection to the local dominant population and look at how much it makes everyone flip their shit.
Your redneck correspondent here. Bought my first pocket knife at age 6. 1950. Earned the money catching night crawlers to sell to fishermen.
Carried a pocket knife every day of my life since--until the 9/11 craziness began. Have had a couple close calls--where I almost lost my knife at some metal detector. So far, I have been able to take it back to the car. An arrest is no likely in my near future.
On a related matter. A redneck relative (Military Academy, retired Lt Col) is a (now retired) airline pilot. When they started flying again after 9/11, he did the sensible (to rednecks) thing--showed up for work with his .45. No one was going to hijack HIS plane. Had an interesting conversation with him asking "Do you know what I DO on this airplane? I fly it. I am going to hijack myself?" Of course, he lost, temporarily. Being retired military, he knew how to play the game. Got certified as an Air Marshal. Thereafter, had the .45 in his flight bag.
Nowadays, legislators write hundreds useless (and often completely innocuous) statutes just for moralistic grandstanding and brownie points on social media. Many such cases, sad.
A sane government should adopt a mass-repeal rule: a bill can only be passed if 5 laws currently in force are to be repealed.
Banning knives won't help when the real problem is the Koranic demand to slaughter unbelievers because they have rejected Islam. Lots of great quotes documenting this incitement:
Well. You have missed the true insidious purpose behind all this.
They want us to eat pap, not steak, and throw everything into blenders, rather than dicing our tomatoes and potatoes and carrots to make lovely traditionally textured meals, and knives are the enemy of cricketwurst and worm cutlets.
And--you know how everyone discusses the physiognomy of Morons of Progressivism et al? Adelle Davis was onto all this many decades ago, and I'll update her thesis. When people drink rather than chew their nourishment you get poor jaw development. I myself have never had a smoothie and expect to shuffle off this mortal coil without ever having done so. If I want to drink my nourishment I shall have a few glasses of chocolate malteds.
Wife and children drink this garbage EVERY FREAKIN’ DAY, and good old Dada gets to clean that infernal, screech machine. I really, I mean really HATE that thing and the repulsive brown contents it makes.
YES. Many years ago, my youngest son in law made me a smoothie. I had never had one. I said "okay, make it very small please" (I do not like mixed food like this).
Well, one sip and I wanted to barf. fruit veg yogurt and peanut butter.
I like peanut butter but not a drink like this. gross.
I must say, my son quite enjoys a smoothie, but then he has a steak for supper so that sorts the chewing but, no orthodontist and he made it to 50 like that!
There was a reason why Texas, Wyoming and other States, would only allow their legislatures to meet 40 days every other year...As Mark Twain wrote, "Neither life, liberty nor property are safe when the legislature is in session..."
Surely they mock us... Isn't mass stabbing a 'generally recognized purpose' at this point?
🤣
“The preservation of traditions” might be more precise?
Why oh why is Germany copying the modest retarded knife-law in the world?
(The Swedish one in case you're wondering.)
This is 90% a copy of the current Swedish knife-law, in all its triumph of ignorance. Strictly speaking, there's no legal way to buy a knife at the store and take it home. The law is so loosely written and interpreted that /if/ police and prosecutor and court wants to nail you for a knife-crime, you're nailed. You could be a construction worker on the way home, having a shoddy blunt crap knife used for peeling electrical wiring on the floor of your car, that you've completely forgotten you dropped there weeks ago. If police stop you, and if they feel like it, then you are guilty of illegal possession of a knife.
If my son brings his chef's knifes home from work (which he does, the knifes cost a fortune) he is committing a crime. And on and on and on. Meanwhile, I can drop by the hardware-superstore in town and by a battery-powered nailgun and take it home. On public transport. Or a felling-axe. Or a chainsaw. Or a shovel. Or one of them claw-on-a-stick things you use for weeding. Or. . .
Our old law was much better. It only made a difference between assault and armed assault. Armed meant using something other than your body. Steel-toothed comb or broken bottle or a baseball bat mattered not, only the damage done to the victim.
I've carried a knife most every day of my life since I was 10, when grandpa gave me my first one - as per tradition! - and I've never, ever, even drawn a blade in a fight.
It's not the knife, or the gun, or whatever. It's the person.
Good on your son! I learned the hard way when my $150 Wustof walked away with some shithead who managed to get fired mid dinner shift. It's just another sign of how out of touch these idiots are with people who actually work for a living.
It would be far more productive to just ban shitheads instead of knives. All the powers that be need to do is devise a shithead test like we do for DUIs and let them be administered anyplace, anytime.
Oh, and we'll need more jails. A LOT more jails!
But but but if we banned shitheads, where would all the politicians and journalists migrate to?
Oh, I never thought about that 🤔. I have an idea. How about FEMA?
No, no there's already too many there.
Got it! Eff-Bee-Eye. They might even have a union.
They're no longer administering those at borders. Tells you all you need to know about their real agendas.
We have done one better in Australia - we have expanded this to all items. If the police consider you to be carrying anything at all for self defense, no matter how effective or prohibited the item, that is an offense.
As someone here on the interwebs pointed out, the problem with Australia isn't the Australians who descended from prisoners, it's the Australians who descended from prison guards.
Very true. We give Canada a run for its money as the most anti-freedom in the Anglosphere.
Damn. That's beautiful.
no shit
👍
What?
So much of the western world is built on the expectation that the nation-forming peoples of these countries will basically abide by the honor system. “I’m not supposed to carry a knife and lie about its purpose, so I won’t”.
It will be a significant, perhaps even an existential crisis for these countries when that no longer holds true - an outcome this system inevitably will produce.
this very good point.
I would only take this one step further and repeat a point someone made that Christendom itself arose from the premise that life is short and eternity long, so let's keep our eyes on the ball and live well here so that we can spend the next life in the right place.
Dismantle that (as we did), and we're left with our current state of entire countries being led by emotions.
This is also one reason (not the only one) that European countries used to have the death penalty for offenses of all sorts. Of course, the lack of a large-scale jail system was a bigger one. But once people had proved themselves willing to commit serious crimes, it was more practical (in terms of protecting everyone else) to kill them than trust them not to do it again. They expected criminals to lie, and honest people to not be criminals.
You know, opponents of gun control in the USA have half-joked about how if firearms were banned, criminals would simply resort to knives and eventually there would be calls for "knife control." Well, here we are.
Just put everybody in a straitjacket already and throw them in a padded cell. Imagine all the lives it would save when it's physically impossible for anyone to hurt anybody, including themselves. Heck, if it saves even A SINGLE LIFE, it will be worth it! 🙄
We need stricter weapon-laws to combat rampant abuse of assault-rocks used in violent crimes!
Only half-joking. Colleague of mine was in Rwanda during the nastiness in the 1990s. When the weapons-embargoes started to take effect, the hutus and tutsis resorted to clubs, farming tools, shovels, spears, and anything that could be used as a weapon.
I always ask anti-gun/anti-self defense people (and there are loads such in Sweden) this:
"If I come at you with a weapon, how do you hold me off until police can arrive?"
Pisses them off something fierce, it does. Even more when I ask: "Without a weapon, how are you going to stop someone you see assaulting a child?"
Yes, I have two very heavy massive vases next to my front door.... just in case.
I should toss one in the back seat of my car and put it next to my pitchfork
I have a bottle of vodka and two glasses by the door. If it's a solicitor I throw one of the glasses at them. If it's an attacker, I hit them with the vodka bottle. If it's a friend I offer them a drink. If they're from the government I pour a drink, break the vodka bottle over their head, pull out my lighter, then have the drink by the fire with the vodka I just poured.
As a Scout I visited Philmont Scout Ranch. The rangers informed us throwing rocks was illegal in New Mexico.
"eventually there would be calls for "knife control." Well, here we are."
Britain has had them for over a decade. They even control cricket bats now.
US gun owners are perpetually thankful for Europe Australia, and Canada: when US gun banners propose "next steps," we have plenty of examples of places we can already point to, to prove that their ideas are nonsense that will never help.
You know, I am strongly anti gun control, but that probably would dramatically reduce the number of deaths in this country
(namely, in that when you're trying to murder a rival drug dealer, it's a lot harder to miss and hit a dozen random bystanders when you're using a knife)
What we can't talk about is WHO is shooting each other.
Because of course inconvenient facts are verboten to discuss....especially when melanin is a variable.
In the US gun violence would go down 90% if people that vote D would stop shooting each other. Fact.
And please review the pharmacology involved, with some suspicion that various flavours of antidepressants are commonly found in the shooters.
Correlation is not causation. Mass shooters (not "regular" shooters) are typically mentally ill, so they are likely to have been prescribed drugs for mental illnesses. Many of these shooters have been prescribed drugs they never took, too. We have a crisis of severely mentally ill people in this country. There are no mental hospitals. They live at home with family, if they're lucky and able/willing to do so, or by themselves. Either way, no one can make them take medicine or get psychological help, or even go to a hospital short-term (unless they do or say anything that indicates they might 'harm themselves or others,' which they usually know not to do). People who don't have a severely mentally ill relative have NO idea how bad it is. Family, or visiting social workers for those who live on their own), have to try to manage their illnesses without any training or help. It's a nightmare.
I am strongly opposed to SSRI antidepressants but I think this is an unfair comparison. A shockingly large number of Americans (something over 10% last I checked) take these meds. Just by random chance, of course it's going to be the case that shooting suspects are on them.
Although, with that said, I don't reject the hypothesis either, I just think it's a weak argument
SSRIs are torture and weight control drugs. I'm not convinced they be antidepressants.
> SSRI
> Weight "control"
I mean, if you want to bulk up I suppose they can "control" that. But SSRIs make you fat, not skinny. You're thinking of adderall.
Think "Hotel California." (One of my friends is in Las Vegas this week to see The Eagles in concert.)
Withdrawal is really challenging. I always tried to get the patients to taper in the spring, and latterly figured out the Vit. D supplement trick.
Chicago. Detroit.
Both cities have shootings every night.
And most, (almost all?), of those shooters share a highly visible genetic trait.
But we're not allowed to notice that.
Ah, another one of those "noticers." I've heard about your kind.
I actually went to hear Steve Sailer hold a public reading of Noticing.
It was way, way, way less fun than I expected. IDK why
Up until the Clinton administration, the largest mass murder in the US was committed with a glass jar of gasoline. Then came Waco, Oklahoma City, 9/11, and deliberately weaponized COVID. The only one of these committed with guns was Waco, and those guns were in the hands of the government.
Ah, the Bath School Massacre.
Bath (1927) had a death toll of 44 and involved dynamite. The gasoline fire was Happy Land Social Club, 87 dead.
👍
The drug dealers will always find a way to firearms. If nothing else, there'll be police officers and soldiers willing to trade their weapon for enough cash. Meanwhile, the rest of us would proverbially be bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Mexico has all the gun laws other countries crave. What firearms the cartels don't import from overseas, they steal or buy from Mexican police and military.
Let me tell you as someone who lives in a country with strict gun control. Only law-abiding citizens obey law control.
In a country that I won't name, a drug dealer almost managed to buy stinger missiles from the black market, the deal being thwarted at the last moment by the police, this in a country that at that time made supremely difficult for private citizens to obtain an authorization to buy a gun, and even if the citizen managed to get it, he would be severely restricted on the types, calibers and magazine capacity, along with very small yearly allowances for anmo for buying.
Sounds like Sweden.
Only here, it was AT-4s with grenades (or "skott" [shot] as we call the ammo for anti-armour launchers).
Which the perps tried transporting in public, on a train. Geniuses.
I mean sure, in a place where that's possible, but the horse has not only left the barn here; The barn burned down decades ago and the horse died of old age. The lack of magic gun evaporation fairies means the US will never be gun free. The advances in home production equipment makes it even *less* likely than 20 years ago.
We'd probably be better off just ending Prohibition 2.0 instead of continuing it.
Seems to have long applied in some areas. 40 years ago I pulled out a pocketknife in the ICIA (Imperial Chemical Industries of America, near Wilmington, Delaware) cafeteria to cut an apple I'd brought for lunch and caught what for.
Hehe, one of the times you're legally allowed to carry a knife in public here is when you're out hunting, fishing or trekking. Which I often do.
Once, while travelling via state railroads, I switched trains in Stockholm, the capital. Since there was about an hour between trains, I popped over to a nearby park with the dogs and started carving up some bloodpudding for them.
About ten-fifteen minutes later, two police saunters over.
"Out hiking, are you?"
"Yes officer, we're going to the Rogen nature reserve, Just waiting for the train."
"Yes I can see that. Could you perhaps put your knife in your rucksack though, people have been making nervous phone-calls about a crazy hobo with a foot-long dirk feeding raw meat to his wild dogs."
That foot-long dirk, was my Eldris-knife from Morakniv:
https://morakniv.se/en/product/eldris-s/
There's a joke in America about a males perception of six inches.
Och aye, as they say, heard that one.
Eldris was designed specifically to allow campers a knife without legal trouble because when it came on the market the law made allowances for blades under a specific length (3" I think it was).
Because our politicians have never heard of carpet knifes or box-cutters or anything with adjustable blade-length.
It's a damn good blade though, the steel is second to none - though I'm biased as all get out; the makers hail from my home-region.
Ha ha, "foot long dirk". That's funny right there.
That's what the callers told dispatch. My dinky little tool-of-all-needs, barely a 2" blade they saw in their emotional state as a foot long dirk.
Almost makes me wish I had worn my WW2 Canadian Pacific Theatre machete instead.
Awwww, it's adorable!
"If you so fear people with knives, perhaps you shouldn't go out of your way to antagonize them."
Same happened to me. I took out my old Normark "Super Swede" folding knife to cut up an apple at my desk (I'm in the UK) , and a colleague freaked out that I had an illegal knife or some such. I pointed out that since our office was not a public place, there was no issue. A different colleague, ex military, appreciated it as he'd been issued one when he served, but no longer had it. Mine is 25 years old, the action is still perfect, and the steel is so good I have only had to sharpen it once.
“If it saves one life…….”
Where have I heard THAT before?
Someday sliced bread will be illegal.
Everyone knows sliced bread is a dogwhistle for transphobic Zionist white supremacy.
Bread-bowl meals were the first sinister step in that direction.
It doesn't need to be illegal. Here in the US it is too expensive for most of us to buy.
Only the good chefs knives. We can still buy a POS soft steel folder for around $5. You only have to sharpen it after every use.
LOL, I know what you mean. But I was talking about bread, it has gotten so expensive here in the U.S.
OH, My bad! P
Hear, hear! German unsliced bread is generally far superior to presliced, such as Toastbrot.
Tijgerbrood is the best. Eat the whole bag
yummmm
It's a good thing that we have these knife laws. Those knives are killing and stabbing people. It's not as if some person has to hold and move the knife. I hope the knives will finally obey the law.
A characteristic many knives seem to share with firearms.
Those damned tools - no respect for the law!
That's it! If you get caught with one, just tell them you made a citizens arrest and were waiting to turn it in to the first LE you saw.
'people carrying knives for “the preservation of traditions” (no. 8)'
Oh goody! I can wear my broadsword to the festival!
I'll bet that's for the Sikhs, the males of whom are required by their religion to carry a knife or dagger. I'll also bet that your broadsword will somehow not qualify. Just a hunch.
Every traditional male in Yemen carries a dirk.
Could be an historical reenactment.
You know what would be cool?
If Europeans faced with these obviously ridiculous knife laws would introspect a bit and realize that US gun laws are equally stupid, both in the 'this makes no sense' sense and in the 'murder is already illegal; criminals don't care' sense.
As an aside,
> Thus people carrying knives for hunting or sporting purposes are excepted, as are people carrying knives for “the preservation of traditions"
I absolutely hate exceptions like this, because they are never applied fairly. This is always always always a euphemism for "we're too afraid of being called racist, so we won't enforce this against ethnic minorities. The protections of laws like this are never extended to the local dominant population.
Now that I think about it, the US supreme court setting that recent precedent about how gun control laws have to be consistent with historical tradition in the US is a great example of actually extending this kind of protection to the local dominant population and look at how much it makes everyone flip their shit.
Your redneck correspondent here. Bought my first pocket knife at age 6. 1950. Earned the money catching night crawlers to sell to fishermen.
Carried a pocket knife every day of my life since--until the 9/11 craziness began. Have had a couple close calls--where I almost lost my knife at some metal detector. So far, I have been able to take it back to the car. An arrest is no likely in my near future.
On a related matter. A redneck relative (Military Academy, retired Lt Col) is a (now retired) airline pilot. When they started flying again after 9/11, he did the sensible (to rednecks) thing--showed up for work with his .45. No one was going to hijack HIS plane. Had an interesting conversation with him asking "Do you know what I DO on this airplane? I fly it. I am going to hijack myself?" Of course, he lost, temporarily. Being retired military, he knew how to play the game. Got certified as an Air Marshal. Thereafter, had the .45 in his flight bag.
'The government can claim that they did something, though, which is all that this is really about.'
Maybe prosecuting the people who stab other people is the best solution 🤓
Nowadays, legislators write hundreds useless (and often completely innocuous) statutes just for moralistic grandstanding and brownie points on social media. Many such cases, sad.
A sane government should adopt a mass-repeal rule: a bill can only be passed if 5 laws currently in force are to be repealed.
Surely the term "sane government" is an oxymoron.
Banning knives won't help when the real problem is the Koranic demand to slaughter unbelievers because they have rejected Islam. Lots of great quotes documenting this incitement:
https://patrick.net/post/511/2007-09-11-islam-and-violence
Well. You have missed the true insidious purpose behind all this.
They want us to eat pap, not steak, and throw everything into blenders, rather than dicing our tomatoes and potatoes and carrots to make lovely traditionally textured meals, and knives are the enemy of cricketwurst and worm cutlets.
And--you know how everyone discusses the physiognomy of Morons of Progressivism et al? Adelle Davis was onto all this many decades ago, and I'll update her thesis. When people drink rather than chew their nourishment you get poor jaw development. I myself have never had a smoothie and expect to shuffle off this mortal coil without ever having done so. If I want to drink my nourishment I shall have a few glasses of chocolate malteds.
Wife and children drink this garbage EVERY FREAKIN’ DAY, and good old Dada gets to clean that infernal, screech machine. I really, I mean really HATE that thing and the repulsive brown contents it makes.
Thanks for letting me vent!
You have my great sympathy. How much is the orthodontia costing you?
Thousands my friend.
It is very challenging when one parent has more sense than the other.
No comment!
I too like getting my nourishment from malteds. Malted barley that comes in a bottle from Scotland, from the beautiful valley of Glenlivet.
I know I have some strange tastes of my own but it has baffled me all my life that people can drink that stuff with pleasure.
Everyone has their vices.
YES. Many years ago, my youngest son in law made me a smoothie. I had never had one. I said "okay, make it very small please" (I do not like mixed food like this).
Well, one sip and I wanted to barf. fruit veg yogurt and peanut butter.
I like peanut butter but not a drink like this. gross.
Only recommended if you're suffering from tetanus or a broken jaw.
Sounds like the perfect emetic for a poisoning.
Each ingredient, separately, is fine. But that is some awful sludge.
I must say, my son quite enjoys a smoothie, but then he has a steak for supper so that sorts the chewing but, no orthodontist and he made it to 50 like that!
If I 'identify' as a Gurkha, can I carry a Kukri? (Asking for a friend)
I'm sure you can! If in doubt, identify as Sikh, they can also carry their religious knife ...
There was a reason why Texas, Wyoming and other States, would only allow their legislatures to meet 40 days every other year...As Mark Twain wrote, "Neither life, liberty nor property are safe when the legislature is in session..."
So I can carry a scimitar in the tradition of my Persian ancestors? Cool.
Yes, and I may carry a battle axe and mace.
Hah!