Sometimes I feel sorry for leftists in America. They work so hard to create at least the appearance of a reasoned position on something like gun-control, and then their elder siblings across the pond do something so silly it completely cuts them off at the ankles.
From the New York Times comes a story about this editorial in the British Journal of Medicine urging that long, pointed cooking knives be banned in order to prevent murders.
It’s funny because the most passionate 2nd-Amendment advocate in the grip of the most fevered slippery-slope argument would probably never think to imply that the mindset of gun-control would eventually lead to the banning of cooking knives, and yet here it is.
I suppose that sometimes that slippery slope really is there.
(Update: Does Britain really want to be known as the country whose people can’t be trusted with sharp objects?)
Are knives covered by the 2nd Amendment?
It’s funny because the most passionate 2nd amendment advocate in the grip of the most fevered slippery-slope argument would probably never think to imply that the mindset of gun-control would eventually lead to the banning of cooking knives and yet here it is.
Boy, are you wrong!
Japan already bans knives that are longer than 5 inches. (Overall length, not blade length.) South Africa, appalled by their level of violence even after a draconian gun ban, has been talking about making knives illegal there as well.
My favorite is this article from a British online newspaper, which reports that a ban on the sale of “assault knives” is in the works in Old Bailey. They’re even thinking of raising the age that people are allowed to buy steak knives from 16 to 18!
But the English are behind the curve. The Australians have already banned the ownership of most kinds of knives. Just to show how progrsssive they are, the Aussies are trying to make crossbows illegal.
I suppose you have to be a 2nd Amendment advocate to know these things.
James
Are knives covered by the 2nd Amendment?
The 2nd Amendment doesn’t mention firearms specifically, instead saying “keep and bear arms”.
Sounds like it does to me.
James
They can pry my grandmother’s bread knife from my cold, dead hands.
You know, slasher movies just won’t be as effective w/a paring knife.
Well, they can always use box cutters. I hear they’re effective.
We may teach slippery slope as a fallacy, but sometimes it isn’t all that different from the “law of unintended consequences” or the “give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile” that we are used to. (Fillibuster works on some judges, hell, why don’t we try it on Bolton. My graduating senior with a pure gift 60.4 that he’d begged for all semester immediately asks if he can get a C. Why? I ask Because I may want to go to grad school.)
We may teach slippery slope as a fallacy,..
You might, but to gun owners the reality is all too plain.
The 1998 article linked to above recounts how California passed a law requiring all owners of so-called “assault rifles” to register them or face criminal charges. Law abiding firearm owners did just that, only to see the state confiscate their property two years later.
The slippery slope is certainly real, as any gun owner can attest. Not only that, but the anti-gun lobby actually admits that their strategy is to promote incremental changes until they’ve achieved a ban on all private gun ownership.
I’ve been trying to dig in against that slippery slope for a few decades now.
James
James,
Thanks. It’s good to know my kitchen is a constitutionally protected area.
Why not ban baseball bats while we’re at it, you can really hurt someone with that.
Like the level of this thinking:
Are we really supposed to take these people seriously? Refrain: What law of human nature do they think will be repealed if people don’t have knives? I thought these people were all about root causes: the root isn’t the knife; it is an inability to value & develop in the populace self-discipline.
From *Knife* I especially liked:
‘Scotland’s most respected pathologist, Professor Anthony Busuttil, said: “All the statistics show that for the last 15 years, victims of stabbings, whether fatal or seriously injured, are caused by kitchen knives such as steak knives rather than knives bought specially for the purpose.” ‘
So that’s it! Those frugal Scots are not buying knives made specifically for stabbing people, they’re just using whatever is at hand! For shame, you cheapskates!
baseball bat carry is prohibited in Poland. No restrictions on knives, or swords, though.
“Why not ban baseball bats while we’re at it”
Yeah, or baseball caps.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4561399.stm
Look guys, would you stop laughing at us? Please? We know we have an odd authoritarian streak – you only have to look at the years when we were a republic under the Puritans – but when they start banning kitchenware please don’t add to our embarrassment by sniggering. We can do that all by ourselves.
In any case the above comments about the slippery slope have got me worried. When they start disembowelling people with cheese graters, you’ll know what’s coming.
Actually, don’t more people die from car accidents? We can go back to hunting & gathering, but my understanding is that this wouldn’t increase life expectancy (which trumps most things in my book). These people seem to assume the desire is not in man but in the weapons themselves – or else they have no respect for the ingenuity of man.
This is from someone who doesn’t want guns in the house because the violence society has worked so hard to contain is near enough each of our surfaces that I’d rather its expression not be all that easy. And I’ve known children maimed and dead because of accidents in the house with guns. That, too, happens.
But in another place facing different factors, I’d weigh different percentages. My world is not a very dangerous place; if it were, I’d probably go to James for lessons.