We Americans Have It So Good

[Excaliber]

How're you gonna get all that peanut butter or mayonaise at the bottom of the jar??? that's the goooood stuff.

Presumably with those new, safe, round tip knives they want everyone to use. You know, the ones their criminal types will never think of modifying by grinding the tips to a point. And I'm also certain that the new legislation will bring the importation of all those tightly controlled sharp edges manufactured abroad to a screeching halt.

Actually, as usual, the price of the forbidden items will simply go up and the supply will be maintained to meet the demand.

When their politicos discover they still have a knife violence problem, they'll eventually get around to banning the rounded tip knives too and the folks over there will end up having to rip their steaks apart with their fingers and teeth.

As their "crime control measures" descend deeper and deeper into certifiable lunacy, it'll be interesting to see if there's enough common sense left over there to put a stop to it at some point, or if the whole country is so beyond hope that they'll keep going down this road forever.

[anygunanywhere]

When they discover they still have a knife violence problem, they'll eventually get around to banning the rounded tip knives too and the folks over there will end up having to rip their steaks apart with their fingers and teeth.

You do know about Brits and their quality dental care, don't you?

ANygunanywhere

[Excaliber]

You do know about Brits and their quality dental care, don't you?

Good point. They might have to make do without the teeth part.......

[DoubleJ]

When they discover they still have a knife violence problem, they'll eventually get around to banning the rounded tip knives too and the folks over there will end up having to rip their steaks apart with their fingers and teeth.

You do know about Brits and their quality dental care, don't you?

ANygunanywhere

What's funny is that is a direct result (IMO) of their HealthCare system, which, invariably our friends in the Blue states want us to model OUR healthcare system after.....


I think the analogy of the "masses" ripping their food with tooth and paw speaks to a deeper concern. gee, wonder WHY the education system is in such disarray, really.

[Rokyudai]

I remember reading somewhere that now the government in England wants to ban points on kitchen knives, since knife crime has gone up.

"When someone picks up a kitchen knife, they are going to use the edge, not the point. There is no need to have a point on the knife"

We should remove the sharp forked tongues of parliament then.... it's an effective measure for crimes they have brought against their subjects.

[jimlongley]

The proposed law outlawing pointed knives seems stunningly idiotic to us here. It should be sobering to realize that in the UK it is being seriously put forth as the next reasonable step. If history is any precedent, the populace will accept it (not really believing it will help a thing) and it will become law with the same positive effect on crime as all the other prohibitions on objects (none) and the same negative effect on what little freedom remains (further diminishment).

The state of the UK today is an unforgettable reminder that Ben Franklin was right when he said that those who would trade an essential liberty for safety deserve neither. If we allow the same thing to happen here, we won't be able to say "how could we have known?" after we've watched it happen in a closely allied country whose former legal structure provided the initial framework for our own.

IN the "OLD" Navy, when a recruit reported aboard his first ship he would be issued his seabag and various items to fill it. One of the things in his kit would be a folding knife, a venerable old Camp King or some such, and one of the first things the bosun would do was take the new swabbie down to the machine shop, insert the first half inch of the blade of the new knife in a vice and snap it off. It was up to the recruit to smooth it off.

The wisdom was that points on knives were unnecessary to any job the sailor would be doing, and dangerous.

Telephone company "chipping" knives have a sheepsfoot profile for just the same reason.

[Excaliber]

The wisdom was that points on knives were unnecessary to any job the sailor would be doing, and dangerous.

Telephone company "chipping" knives have a sheepsfoot profile for just the same reason.

There's a pretty sizable difference between optimizing a tool to best fit a given set of tasks, and having a national government regulate what tool configurations you're allowed to have.

If you leave folks alone, they'll figure out what works best and use that, with incremental improvements evolving over time. Pointed knives in the kitchen have proven their utility over quite a few centuries and that's why they're still made that way. If blunt ended knives are actually better, someone will design, produce and market them. If enough folks agree they represent an improvement, they'll eventually become the dominant configuration. I wouldn't suggest holding your breath until that happens.

The British attempt to save people from themselves by prohibiting possession of easily constructed every day items is ill conceived to say the least, and doomed to fail as miserably as their other object controls already have. The problem isn't the knifepoint - it's the people.