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[pogona]

Somehow I can't seem to get my head around the banning of  what must be one of the simplest, yet most useful single invention that we Hominids have ever come up with. Get something sharp, attach a handle. Australopithicines were making knives 2.5 million years ago, and now we want to enforce making the carrying of one a criminal offence?
I've been

Comments

[pogona]

Ok. Australopithicines making knives was pushing things a little, but only a little. They did make handheld sharp-edged stone tools for cutting (I hate to quote Wiki as a source but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olduwan for those who are interested) and what is a knife if it's not a handheld sharp-edged tool for cutting. All we've done in 2.5 million years is refined the materials and the shape a bit. Ok, a lot.
And although there is no evidence to show that Australopithicines carried tools, firstly such activity would be difficult to show, and secondly modern chimpanzees, who employ very simple tools, simpler than those we are referring to here, are known to carry them around when they get one that is particularly useful. I am happy therefore to extrapolate and say that there is a good chance that an Australopithicine would hold onto, and transport a particularly useful rock.

As long as these things are done with a modicum of sense it's not a problem, but when governments tweak laws like this they can over-compensate. Take for instance the new sword law. Does Belly dancing count as sport?. If not, having a curved sword for balancing on ones head is now illegal. Rules are made for the majority, and the minority get squashed.

And crumbs, your politics are changing sir!

Apologies for the waffle, but the whole knife and sword thing this year has got right up my nose!