Some People Won’t Stop Doubling Down Until You Make Them, Something Our British Cousins Should Remember
Libertarians while get some things really right, when it comes to gun and weapon laws I’d say they set the gold standard when they say an armed society is both a polite and safe society. Unfortunately the people in the world that would have their boots on your neck, just don’t have a well functioning society as a goal. Their goal is to have a society where the use of force is strictly in their hands, which brings us to the U.K.
Earlier this year it was reported that London had surpassed New York City’s murder rate despite having some of the toughest gun control laws in the world.
- In January, the Met investigated eight murders whereas the NYPD looked into 18 killings
- By February, the NYPD’s figures had dropped to 11, while London’s rose to 15
- In March, 22 murders were investigated in London while 21 inquiries were launched in New York
- When the figures are weighted for population, the rate of murders per 100,000 people was higher in London than in New York in February and March.
The Met said it was “concerned at the increase in murders in London”.
“One murder is one too many, and we are working hard with our partners to understand the increase and what we can all do to prevent these tragedies from happening in the first place,” a spokesman said.
However, it is a murder rate that has left Mr Logan feeling “absolutely devastated”.
“I cannot understand how things have gotten out of hand,” he said.
The U.K. has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world famously even extending to the police, where regular patrolmen aren’t allowed to have guns. Where NYC like most of the U.S. has seen rising rates of gun ownership in recent years and declining rates of violent crime. I know it’s tempting logic to say “Well if people don’t have guns they can’t kill each other with them” but
A) People have been killing people since long before guns were invited. Murder makes it into the Book of Genesis after all.
B) Guns in general allow those most likely to be targets of violence (the weak, the nominally non violent, people without combat training) to present a credible deterrent and defend themselves.
Instead or realizing the immutable nature of the human condition the U.K. has tightened the laws on knives to the point of absurdity.
As a lawyer and civil libertarian, I am particularly chilled by Big Brother’s helpful comment “A court will decide if you’ve got a good reason to carry a knife if you’re charged with carrying it illegally.” That surely provides a lot of guidance.
Knives: the laws on buying and carrying
The laws about buying and carrying a knife depend on the type of knife, your age and your circumstances
Basic laws on knives
It is illegal to:
- sell a knife of any kind (including cutlery and kitchen knives) to anyone under 18
- carry a knife in public without good reason – unless it’s a knife with a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less, eg a Swiss Army knife
- carry, buy or sell any type of banned knife (the list of banned knives is below)
- use any knife in a threatening way (even a legal knife, such as a Swiss Army knife)
Lock knives (knives with blades that can be locked when unfolded) are not folding knives, and are illegal to carry in public.
The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and a fine of £5,000.
Good reasons for carrying a knife
Examples of good reasons to carry a knife in public can include:
- taking knives you use at work to and from work
- you’re taking knives to a gallery or museum to be exhibited
- the knife is going to be used for theatre, film, televison, historical reenactment or religious purposes (eg the kirpan some Sikhs carry)
A court will decide if you’ve got a good reason to carry a knife if you’re charged with carrying it illegally.
Knives that are illegal
There is a complete ban on the sale of some knives:
- flick knives (also called ‘switchblades’ or ‘automatic knives’) – where the blade is hidden inside the handle and shoots out when a button is pressed
- butterfly knives – where the blade is hidden inside a handle that splits in two around it, like wings; the handles swing around the blade to open or close it
- disguised knives – eg where the blade is hidden inside a belt buckle or fake mobile phone
- gravity knives
- sword-sticks
- samurai swords (with some exceptions, including antiques and swords made to traditional methods before 1954)
- hand or foot-claws
- push daggers
- hollow kubotan (cylinder-shaped keychain) holding spikes
- shuriken (also known as ‘death stars’ or ‘throwing stars’)
- kusari-gama (sickle attached to a rope, cord or wire)
- kyoketsu-shoge (hook-knife attached to a rope, cord or wire)
- kusari (weight attached to a rope, cord or wire)
This is not a complete list of banned knives. Contact your local police to check if a knife is illegal or not.
Looking at the descriptions, everybody needs to keep mum over there about the fact YoYos were originally hunting weapons.
While murder is the greatest of crimes, violent crime in by way of rape, acid attacks, human trafficking, sex crimes and other crimes of profit are all higher in London) Instead of seeing that the way to deal with violence is that people should be able to lawfully stand and defend themselves, the rulers of the U.K. have decided to try and turn their people into easily victimized sheep.
Well The fact most of the martial arts weapons you see in kung fu movies were originally agricultural tools Nun Chuk was a flail for beating grain, the comma was a scythe and so on. Just goes to show even if you force people to beat their swords into plowshares, they will still find a way to use those plowshares to kill.
Drink up That’s it for the Watercooler today. As always it’s an open thread
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