Ach laddie, but they're all sharp and pointy and stuff!
Hello there to all my imaginary friends,
First they took our guns, then they took...
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=637
Rampant liberalism at it's best.
Knife Culture
KNIFE CULTURE
Does this level of crazy even HAVE a name? I really don't want to turn this in to some kind of political blog. Not overall. Not really. I prefer just to point out where people are being dumb, or getting duped and being smug about it.
But comon! Knife Culture? When I first heard that the UK was trying to ban sharp, pointy knives I thought it HAD to be a joke. Nobody could take that seriously. It's one thing when the Diane Finesteins and Rosey O'Donnels want to invade my guncabinet and get rid of my AK-47's, but are they going after my silverware drawer next?
If I live in the UK they might. They even have 'The Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Bill' which prohibits the sale of swords in Scotland. You can't buy a sword in Scotland. But what am I going to rob banks with there? If it weren't for swords and borderline transvestites, what would Scotland be known for?
And we all know how well the gun ban is going there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3761626.stm#graph
hmmm.. seems that gun crime has been going up every year. Granted, it is at a much slower rate than in the US, but since guns are illegal there, there should be 0% gun crime, shouldn't there? Criminals can't get guns when they're illegal.
Interstingly, the rate of crimes committed with replica guns has gone up. I guess someone's been watching the movie Snatch a few times over there.
But back to the point: Having sucessfully taken guns out of the hands of the people of the UK, what did they do? Well, they bloody well carried on using guns, but for the sake of argument, lets go a step beyond that; they started stabbing each other with knives (except for one unlucky Scotsman who got hit with a barstool http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=637&id=1511882006 there's a lesson: Reach tends to beat cool factor). I guess people who want to hurt and kill each other will find a way to do it. Oh, who am I kidding, Michael Moore is right, people only ever kill each other with guns. People don't kill people, guns kill them. All by themselves with no help at all.
I guess it's just the audacity of the thing that gets me. In essence, it's saying, "Weell... We got rid of all our guns. We should be totally safe now. Murder should be a thing of the past in the UK. What? People are still being murdered? How can that be? Guns are illegal, so they CAN'T be using those. Knives? They're stabbing each other? Well zounds, man! We have to get rid of all those knives. They have sharp edges that can be used to cut people, and pointy points that can be used to stab! Get rid of all knives immediatly! And ban swords too while you're at it, I never did trust swords! So that's all sorted then? Tea time? Jolly good, I'm knackered!"
Yes UK, I'm making fun of you. I've met snotty, snobby Eurotrash before but this takes the cookie.. err.. buscuit.. or whatever you call them there.
When you remove something from your population (and I can understand how the British might be afraid of guns, that's how they lost their colonies in the New World to begin with), and there's still a problem, you don't just go one step down the checklist to the next thing to try to ban in an attempt to cure your societal ills.
Europe, and especially the UK is supposed to be the model for a socialist society. A great Universal Healthcare system, Welfare reform, no guns, a good public transport system. The best you can come up with stem the tide of murders and societal mayhem is to outlaw knives, and spend millions of pounds on posters that tell people not to cut each other up? Nevermind the ravening hordes of out of work young people living on the dole with almost no education, and nothing to do all day. They'd never turn to violence, or destruction (www.chavscum.co.uk). Nah. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism) The sands of Brighton Beach must be pretty fine to accomdate all those heads burried within.
Personally, I've been more scared of knives than guns for years. Seriously. A couple of years ago, it became fashionable again to wear pocket knives. I carry one myself almost every day, I use it a lot in my job. But when I look around, I see many more people walking around with knives than I do with guns. It's also comon knowledge that shootings get a lot more media coverage than stabbings do. The media industry has a bigger stake in gun control than it does in knife control, obviously.
But knives have been around almost as long as we've been a tool using species. If the knife (or sharp-angled rock or bone) wasn't among the first three tools invented by man, it was deffinetly among the top ten. There was a large part of our history when knowing how to use a knife was a survival skill, not an industrial skill (unless you count staying alive as an industry). I think they world might be a little better off if there could be a truly enforcable ban on firearms for legal and criminal citizens. Sadly that can never, and will never happen. The old motto, "If they take away our guns, can we go back to using swords?" might be romantic and fanciful but it is unrealistic in the extreme.
To me, the scarriest part of knives is that they arn't scary. Guns are scary. Bombs are scary. Flamethrowers are scary. Knives are practically harmless by comparison. They're everywhere. You own several, and use them everyday. People who would never even consider letting a gun into their neighborhood let alone their house have drawers full of knives. It takes a certain amount of madness or anger to haul out a gun and shoot somebody. It really does, despite what you've been told on the TV. We've had it drilled into our heads so often, and some cities like New York are big on pushing their 'Use a gun, go to jail' mandatory minimum sentencing laws that people often do think twice before pulling that trigger. But knives? Knives are practically legal. Knives are at hand. You're face to face with some guy; you're both drunk, and you're both angry. The argument escelates. Neither of you are martial artists. It's the easiest thing in the world to pull that knife out and stick it in him. Many people involved in knife crime say they didn't even realize that they had stabbed someone until after it was done. Unfortunatly it's late and I'm unble to find the relevant page on the DOJ website with the statistics. I will try to dig it up later for you. A lot more people get stabbed every year than get shot. I'm not sure how the survivability statics add up, so I won't comment on those at the moment.
Interestingly, this reminds me of the "switchblade laws" passed in 1957 to stem the tide of ducktailed greasers that were going to get hopped up on MarryJane and murder us in our beds while listening to that Satanic 'Rock and Roll' music. Boy, am I ever glad that THAT was put in place to keep us safe!
Is this just another in a big scary line of buggity-bos to scare the public and frighten the horses? Our own TV and newspaper reports arn't that much different, except that for us it's gun violence instead of knife violence. Is this just the newest thing to distract the masses? I'm sure that violence really is a problem in the UK, and that knives are much more available than guns, but really now. The way these people keep going on and on about it, and the resurgance again and again of the phrase 'Knife Culture' makes it sound like the streets of Glasgow and London are running with blood while homicidal maniacs lurk in every shadow just waiting to sink a shiv in your back. Just the thing to keep granny locked behind her doors at night. In America, we compare gun violence to knife violence, I wonder if they compare knife violence to fisticuffs? Of course, the most common exucse given for carrying a knife (which is purported to be a crime carrying up to four years in prison in Scotland. Again: Four years in the pen for carrying a knife on the street) is that it's carried for "protection". Actually, that's been the most common excuse for any thug anywhere to be carrying a blade.
If you ever belive one single thing I tell you, believe this: As a defensive weapon, a knife seriosuly inhales oreamnos phalli. There is no way to incapacatite someone with a knife safely short of holding the blade and hitting them over the head with the handle.
While I admit that I may know practically nothing about the application of edged objects in relation to combative movement, I do know the 'Golden rule of knife-fighting' That rule is: Never get into a knife fight, you cannot win a knife fight; you only lose by varrying degrees. Don't believe me. Hand a nine year old a magic marker and try to take it away from them. See if you can do it without getting any ink on you.
But again, the spectre of the main question, and the reason these articles are funny rears it's head: How do you stop people from carrying and using knives? You can't even think that you can outlaw knives in people's homes, collections, kitchens, workbenches. it's not possible. It's like telling you that you can't use you left index finger.
You can make them illegal to carry in public, especially concealed. Many states, including California have such laws. But nine out of ten people (who arn't in law enforcement, or work with the law) have no idea what the concealed knife laws actually are. Trust me, if you haven't read them (CPC12020 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen/12020-12040.html), and had them explained to you by a DA, you probably don't know either.
You can also educate people about knife violence (which seems to be the main gist of what's happening in Scotland and other places in the UK right now), and try to convince them not to stab each other. A better idea would to help people in poorer neighborhoods get in better financial situations where they arn't surrounded by knife weilding thugs.
Increasing the penalties on laws about violence and specifically knife violence is good as well, but it is a limited approach. There are already several laws on the books both state and federal about using weapons in the commission of a crime. While they may act as a deterant to some, there has never been a law that has been proven to have prevented a crime from happening. Laws do not keep people honest, they simply give a guide to how to punish people who arn't.
In the end, what does it take? To be honest, I hate to cop-out here, but I really don't think there is an answer. People have been killing each other for thousands of years, most of that time they have been doing it with knives. They will go on using the most convient method of elimination available.
It's sad to say, but we're a violent species, and the best way to not become a statistic is to avoid problems or to arm/armor yourself against them.
Myrtle Protects,
-Uncle Andy
Proud member of S.M.U.T.L.U.V.
First they took our guns, then they took...
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=637
Rampant liberalism at it's best.
Knife Culture
KNIFE CULTURE
Does this level of crazy even HAVE a name? I really don't want to turn this in to some kind of political blog. Not overall. Not really. I prefer just to point out where people are being dumb, or getting duped and being smug about it.
But comon! Knife Culture? When I first heard that the UK was trying to ban sharp, pointy knives I thought it HAD to be a joke. Nobody could take that seriously. It's one thing when the Diane Finesteins and Rosey O'Donnels want to invade my guncabinet and get rid of my AK-47's, but are they going after my silverware drawer next?
If I live in the UK they might. They even have 'The Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Bill' which prohibits the sale of swords in Scotland. You can't buy a sword in Scotland. But what am I going to rob banks with there? If it weren't for swords and borderline transvestites, what would Scotland be known for?
And we all know how well the gun ban is going there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3761626.stm#graph
hmmm.. seems that gun crime has been going up every year. Granted, it is at a much slower rate than in the US, but since guns are illegal there, there should be 0% gun crime, shouldn't there? Criminals can't get guns when they're illegal.
Interstingly, the rate of crimes committed with replica guns has gone up. I guess someone's been watching the movie Snatch a few times over there.
But back to the point: Having sucessfully taken guns out of the hands of the people of the UK, what did they do? Well, they bloody well carried on using guns, but for the sake of argument, lets go a step beyond that; they started stabbing each other with knives (except for one unlucky Scotsman who got hit with a barstool http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=637&id=1511882006 there's a lesson: Reach tends to beat cool factor). I guess people who want to hurt and kill each other will find a way to do it. Oh, who am I kidding, Michael Moore is right, people only ever kill each other with guns. People don't kill people, guns kill them. All by themselves with no help at all.
I guess it's just the audacity of the thing that gets me. In essence, it's saying, "Weell... We got rid of all our guns. We should be totally safe now. Murder should be a thing of the past in the UK. What? People are still being murdered? How can that be? Guns are illegal, so they CAN'T be using those. Knives? They're stabbing each other? Well zounds, man! We have to get rid of all those knives. They have sharp edges that can be used to cut people, and pointy points that can be used to stab! Get rid of all knives immediatly! And ban swords too while you're at it, I never did trust swords! So that's all sorted then? Tea time? Jolly good, I'm knackered!"
Yes UK, I'm making fun of you. I've met snotty, snobby Eurotrash before but this takes the cookie.. err.. buscuit.. or whatever you call them there.
When you remove something from your population (and I can understand how the British might be afraid of guns, that's how they lost their colonies in the New World to begin with), and there's still a problem, you don't just go one step down the checklist to the next thing to try to ban in an attempt to cure your societal ills.
Europe, and especially the UK is supposed to be the model for a socialist society. A great Universal Healthcare system, Welfare reform, no guns, a good public transport system. The best you can come up with stem the tide of murders and societal mayhem is to outlaw knives, and spend millions of pounds on posters that tell people not to cut each other up? Nevermind the ravening hordes of out of work young people living on the dole with almost no education, and nothing to do all day. They'd never turn to violence, or destruction (www.chavscum.co.uk). Nah. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism) The sands of Brighton Beach must be pretty fine to accomdate all those heads burried within.
Personally, I've been more scared of knives than guns for years. Seriously. A couple of years ago, it became fashionable again to wear pocket knives. I carry one myself almost every day, I use it a lot in my job. But when I look around, I see many more people walking around with knives than I do with guns. It's also comon knowledge that shootings get a lot more media coverage than stabbings do. The media industry has a bigger stake in gun control than it does in knife control, obviously.
But knives have been around almost as long as we've been a tool using species. If the knife (or sharp-angled rock or bone) wasn't among the first three tools invented by man, it was deffinetly among the top ten. There was a large part of our history when knowing how to use a knife was a survival skill, not an industrial skill (unless you count staying alive as an industry). I think they world might be a little better off if there could be a truly enforcable ban on firearms for legal and criminal citizens. Sadly that can never, and will never happen. The old motto, "If they take away our guns, can we go back to using swords?" might be romantic and fanciful but it is unrealistic in the extreme.
To me, the scarriest part of knives is that they arn't scary. Guns are scary. Bombs are scary. Flamethrowers are scary. Knives are practically harmless by comparison. They're everywhere. You own several, and use them everyday. People who would never even consider letting a gun into their neighborhood let alone their house have drawers full of knives. It takes a certain amount of madness or anger to haul out a gun and shoot somebody. It really does, despite what you've been told on the TV. We've had it drilled into our heads so often, and some cities like New York are big on pushing their 'Use a gun, go to jail' mandatory minimum sentencing laws that people often do think twice before pulling that trigger. But knives? Knives are practically legal. Knives are at hand. You're face to face with some guy; you're both drunk, and you're both angry. The argument escelates. Neither of you are martial artists. It's the easiest thing in the world to pull that knife out and stick it in him. Many people involved in knife crime say they didn't even realize that they had stabbed someone until after it was done. Unfortunatly it's late and I'm unble to find the relevant page on the DOJ website with the statistics. I will try to dig it up later for you. A lot more people get stabbed every year than get shot. I'm not sure how the survivability statics add up, so I won't comment on those at the moment.
Interestingly, this reminds me of the "switchblade laws" passed in 1957 to stem the tide of ducktailed greasers that were going to get hopped up on MarryJane and murder us in our beds while listening to that Satanic 'Rock and Roll' music. Boy, am I ever glad that THAT was put in place to keep us safe!
Is this just another in a big scary line of buggity-bos to scare the public and frighten the horses? Our own TV and newspaper reports arn't that much different, except that for us it's gun violence instead of knife violence. Is this just the newest thing to distract the masses? I'm sure that violence really is a problem in the UK, and that knives are much more available than guns, but really now. The way these people keep going on and on about it, and the resurgance again and again of the phrase 'Knife Culture' makes it sound like the streets of Glasgow and London are running with blood while homicidal maniacs lurk in every shadow just waiting to sink a shiv in your back. Just the thing to keep granny locked behind her doors at night. In America, we compare gun violence to knife violence, I wonder if they compare knife violence to fisticuffs? Of course, the most common exucse given for carrying a knife (which is purported to be a crime carrying up to four years in prison in Scotland. Again: Four years in the pen for carrying a knife on the street) is that it's carried for "protection". Actually, that's been the most common excuse for any thug anywhere to be carrying a blade.
If you ever belive one single thing I tell you, believe this: As a defensive weapon, a knife seriosuly inhales oreamnos phalli. There is no way to incapacatite someone with a knife safely short of holding the blade and hitting them over the head with the handle.
While I admit that I may know practically nothing about the application of edged objects in relation to combative movement, I do know the 'Golden rule of knife-fighting' That rule is: Never get into a knife fight, you cannot win a knife fight; you only lose by varrying degrees. Don't believe me. Hand a nine year old a magic marker and try to take it away from them. See if you can do it without getting any ink on you.
But again, the spectre of the main question, and the reason these articles are funny rears it's head: How do you stop people from carrying and using knives? You can't even think that you can outlaw knives in people's homes, collections, kitchens, workbenches. it's not possible. It's like telling you that you can't use you left index finger.
You can make them illegal to carry in public, especially concealed. Many states, including California have such laws. But nine out of ten people (who arn't in law enforcement, or work with the law) have no idea what the concealed knife laws actually are. Trust me, if you haven't read them (CPC12020 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen/12020-12040.html), and had them explained to you by a DA, you probably don't know either.
You can also educate people about knife violence (which seems to be the main gist of what's happening in Scotland and other places in the UK right now), and try to convince them not to stab each other. A better idea would to help people in poorer neighborhoods get in better financial situations where they arn't surrounded by knife weilding thugs.
Increasing the penalties on laws about violence and specifically knife violence is good as well, but it is a limited approach. There are already several laws on the books both state and federal about using weapons in the commission of a crime. While they may act as a deterant to some, there has never been a law that has been proven to have prevented a crime from happening. Laws do not keep people honest, they simply give a guide to how to punish people who arn't.
In the end, what does it take? To be honest, I hate to cop-out here, but I really don't think there is an answer. People have been killing each other for thousands of years, most of that time they have been doing it with knives. They will go on using the most convient method of elimination available.
It's sad to say, but we're a violent species, and the best way to not become a statistic is to avoid problems or to arm/armor yourself against them.
Myrtle Protects,
-Uncle Andy
Proud member of S.M.U.T.L.U.V.