Anti-Stab Knife Debuts in U.K.

The point is that it's pointless (in more ways than one, perhaps). You can still cut someone's throat with this wondrous new invention, but you can't cause much damage by stabbing a person with it (except hard in the eye socket, maybe? Just a helpful suggestion). A steel steal at around $70 per knife.

Industrial designer John Cornock

...was inspired by a documentary in which doctors advocated banning traditional knives.

Something tells me Cornock and said doctors aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

Meanwhile, according to civil-libertarian law professor Eugene Volokh's blog, the Obama administration moves to ban 80 percent of folding knives, though the exact percentage is disputed in the comments. Knives with thumb nubs ("one-handed-opening" knives) are targeted, and even Leatherman tools appear headed for illegality. Hard to believe — I'd like to see other reputable sources weigh in on the scope and meaning of the proposal. If there's substantial truth to the Volokh post, the plan is boneheaded beyond belief, not least because it will fuel the fear and outrage among millions of NRA types who'd already convinced themselves that Obama is preparing to take their guns away. Their "I told you so" moment is here.

Comments

[Fred Mangels]

The link to Volokh's blog doesn't work for me.

[Rogier]

Thanks Fred, now fixed.

[Mike]

I've always been mildly annoyed with a lot of gun control laws basically because it is a ban on 1000 year old technology. I sorta buy the argument that the average person can't build a gun so it is only mildly annoyed. Banning knives does seem pretty darn foolish the cat is kindof already out of the bag, People have been using knives for thousands of years, a ban on them just seems like the the wrong way to solve a problem.

[hermesten]

"...because it will fuel the fear and outrage among millions of NRA types who'd already convinced themselves that Obama is preparing to take their guns away. Their "I told you so" moment is here."

I think the NRA sucks, but come on Rogier, he'd already have done it if he thought the political climate would allow it. There has been a more than 30 year propaganda campaign against gun ownership in this country.

When I was in high school we brought guns to SCHOOL. Kids had them visible in their trucks. Sometimes someone brought a new gun to school and we checked it out in the parking lot. Sometimes people went hunting when school let out, so they brought guns with them in their vehicles.

As a TEENAGER I used to walk down the street where I lived wearing a handgun, and toting a rifle or a shotgun, to go shooting in the vacant land adjacent to our little town. If a cop stopped you it was to check out what you were shooting and swap gun stories.

Now I know a guy whose son was expelled from school because he went deer hunting and forgot to remove his hunting knife from his truck. Dumb fucks brain damaged by commercial television, where gun ownership is regularly demonized, move to Texas and then call the police on someone because they saw them through a window cleaning a gun at the kitchen table (actually happened to someone I know).

There are a lot of people out there who would love to strip Americans of their guns. They've effectively done it already in places like NYC, Boston, and Washington, D.C. But it only works where people aren't used to seeing and using guns, and from this lack of familiarity are dumb enough to believe taking guns away from people who aren't criminals is going to make them "safer."

The ban gun and ban knife mentality is exactly the same, and it's misguided at it's best and downright sinister at its worst.

[hermesten]

In the interest of clarity, I should add that I'm not suggesting Obama is particularly likely to pursue a gun ban, or that it is an ardent objective of his administration. I doubt the political battle that will ensue at this point would be considered worth the effort.

It's much more likely that a gun ban will be successful under one of these phony "conservative" administrations like the fascist regime presided over by Bush the Younger. Support on the left for gun ownership is thin, and all the wing-nuts will line up to turn in their guns if someone like Palin is in office and tells them that's what all good god-fearing Jesus-loving patriots would do to defeat the 'terrists.

[Phelps]

I'm pretty sure I would have no problem killing someone with a shovel if these were the only knives available.

Then again, Moses did pretty well with a big rock, come to think of it.

BAN ROCKS.

[M. Simon]

hermesten,

When I was on the left the party line thing was much more prevalent than anything I have seen on the right.

Glad to hear that it is no longer that way.