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View Full Version : The war is over, Scotland. Edward the Longshanks has beaten you.



Patience Darklighter
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:39:29 PM
Plan to ban swords and knives in Scotland (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/4788881.stm)

I mean, what the hell UK? What the hell is this?

Dasquian Belargic
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:43:00 PM
I'm not surprised. Glasgow is the knife-crime capital of the UK. Not a minute goes by without someone being kebabed.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:46:37 PM
I know how to solve that. Give them all guns.

Seriously though, if you took away all the knives they'd make shanks and go at it that way. Or use slingshots. Or good old fisticuffs.

Only the law abiding people would not own knives anyway, the criminals would still have them.

Patience Darklighter
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:46:38 PM
Be that as it may, this is going to be about as easy to enforce as a ban against cratching your butt. This isn't exactly like firearms. You can stab people with anything, just ask a prison warden how hard it is to keep imaginative troublemakers from making shivs out of anything from toothbrushes to toilet paper.

Are you ready to be treated like a convict everywhere you go? If so, hop aboard this freight train to hell.

Razielle Alastor
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:46:48 PM
Okay.. there goes my five year plan.:rolleyes

Patience Darklighter
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:50:13 PM
Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
I know how to solve that. Give them all guns.

I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but the key element at stake here is the element of choice. Choose to be armed, or choose not to. Giving everybody weapons unconditionally, or taking them away on the same terms are both sharp double edges of the same nasty (banned) sword.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 05:58:32 PM
Yeah I was kidding, o serious man. Hence the "seriously though" that I put right after that. :rolleyes

Droo
Aug 14th, 2006, 06:59:41 PM
To be honest, I'm not going to presume to know the answers to this dilemma. The way I look at it, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If only the plan was flawless. It would be wonderful to live in a country, actually, world, in which weapons of any kind were shunned by all but that's something of a pipe-dream.

Oriadin
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:03:37 PM
I think this is a problem thats been building over the last few months all over the UK. I live in Bristol and there have been a few local stories of stabbings since the knives amnesty.

To be honest, I agree with the gun laws in this country and to a certain degree I agree with the way the country is heading with knives and swords. Guns arent illegal in this country, but you do require a license. I see no harm in having a similar law for swords. Knives are more difficult as all you really need is a large carving knife.

Still, as mentioned above the worrying thing is that criminals who have guns and knives, will continue to have guns and knives regardless of any laws. It would be interesting to see how many deaths are caused accidently due to swords and large knives though. People messing around or something...

Patience Darklighter
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:24:12 PM
My problem with lisencing is that there's essentially no real need for it, and lisencing, as well as other tools, have historically proven a really effective way for governments to weed out and disenfranchise people that it otherwise cannot get at. (see: reconstruction-era southern USA, the palestinian intifada, dreyfuss-affair europe, 1920's alcohol prohibition, the USA PATRIOT act, etc)

We're lisenced to drive motor vehicles because the government (be they municipal or federal) are stewards of our roadways. No such stewardship exists to require firearm lisencing, so I'm highly suspicious of such controls being pushed on me.

As for accidents involving blades, I can't see anything beyond a bandage or a stitch taking care of it. You've got the proverbial running with scissors bit, but I can't imagine there's a plethora of fatal accidental skewerings that aren't happening in the movie Snatch. I mean, even accidental firearm deaths in the USA are relatively low when you look at just about any other form of death that can get you in the home and abroad, etc.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:41:52 PM
Banning knives just seemed weird to me. Like you said before, you can stab someone with just about anything. Sharp pointy stick, for instance.

Does this mean no more steak knives in restaurants, or butcher knives in homes?

Liscensing for a sword just seems overly paranoid. I mean, if you're going to want to kill someone with a sword I think you're going to do it whether it's illegal or not. Isn't simply killing someone illegal? Or do you just have to get a permit for it? :p

The solution, mostly tongue in cheek but not completely, is the death sentance for capital crimes. You don't get many repeat offenders that way, and first timers would think twice.

Patience Darklighter
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:48:33 PM
Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
Does this mean no more steak knives in restaurants, or butcher knives in homes?

At least one doctor in the UK has already advocated this, and no I am not kidding either.


Isn't simply killing someone illegal?

These control measures have never been results-oriented. They're politically expedient. You can pass this over the head of a layman and they'll generally nod along with it and not give it a second thought.


The solution, mostly tongue in cheek but not completely, is the death sentance for capital crimes. You don't get many repeat offenders that way, and first timers would think twice.

No thanks. I'm morally opposed to capital punishment (I'd refer us all to the constitution but people already pick and choose the bill of rights as it is), and I really don't think it deters anything. If somebody's done something to warrant getting the needle, do you think they're going to surrender or show restraint now?

There's also the point the capital punishment has no rehabilitation, is a zero sum societal contribution activity, and is ironically more expensive to the taxpayer than lifetime incarceration.

Yes, I realize this is a UK-oriented thread, so I'll steer it back along the lines and avoid the mention of the Bill of Rights more than I have to. Still, I think that the taking of human life as a tool of the justice system is an absurd concept. Even if we adopted Sharia Law as the foundation of our legal base tomorrow, it would still disgust me.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:52:51 PM
I don't think telling someone that murder = they get the needle will make them surrender. Who said anything about surrender? That's what the police are for.

Dasquian Belargic
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:55:15 PM
Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
Does this mean no more steak knives in restaurants, or butcher knives in homes?


The article says: "Shops selling swords will need a licence, as will businesses dealing with non-domestic knives and other bladed weapons such as machetes."

I'm guessing that kitchen knives etc will fall into the domestic category. Obviously banning this stuff won't stop people carrying blades if they really want to, but I suppose they are just trying to make it harder to acquire lelthal weapons.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:56:38 PM
Weren't switchblades banned in the US? Are they still?

Byl Laprovik
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:57:53 PM
My point is that a person's capacity for compromise diminishes to nothing when there's no incentive. You could increase the police levels two or threefold, but it wouldn't change this problem.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 07:59:57 PM
:lol I didn't say anything about increasing police levels. It comes down to teaching your children not to stick pointy objects into other people. And the children that grow up to be deviants and who LIKE sticking pointy things into other people should be punished.

Don't punish the pointy things.

Byl Laprovik
Aug 14th, 2006, 08:00:18 PM
Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
Weren't switchblades banned in the US? Are they still?

No. I own one, as does Christin.

Lilaena De'Ville
Aug 14th, 2006, 08:00:44 PM
No to both or just the last?

Byl Laprovik
Aug 14th, 2006, 08:06:21 PM
Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
:lol I didn't say anything about increasing police levels. It comes down to teaching your children not to stick pointy objects into other people. And the children that grow up to be deviants and who LIKE sticking pointy things into other people should be punished.

Don't punish the pointy things.

I agree that parenting is probably the best way to deal with this problem, but how do we make this happen? How do we change the social landscape so that we're not stuck with single parents, or both parents working and leaving their spawn in some low quality daycare child farm, or even worse?

The reason why gun/knife/rubber chicken control is so appealing is because attacking the symptom is way easier than going after the cure. Violence is a social malady. Its nature is rooted in social problems. Problems that people generally do not want to hear about, do not want to face, and do not even want to think about how to fix. Our modern democratic societies have their benefits, but both the UK and the US are reaping the whirlwind from their own prosperity. I don't know when or how we'll come to grips with it.


Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
No to both or just the last?

No to both. There was a federal law prohibiting interstate commerce involving automatic blades, but that's about it. You may have some state control depending on where you go, but at least for here, they're perfectly fine.

Morgan Evanar
Aug 14th, 2006, 08:17:59 PM
Pretty soon Scottland going to be back to flining 10 pound rocks and using pikes and staves to beat people. Or hell, good old sock full of coins.

Oriadin
Aug 15th, 2006, 03:15:28 AM
Originally posted by Byl Laprovik
I agree that parenting is probably the best way to deal with this problem, but how do we make this happen? How do we change the social landscape so that we're not stuck with single parents, or both parents working and leaving their spawn in some low quality daycare child farm, or even worse?

The reason why gun/knife/rubber chicken control is so appealing is because attacking the symptom is way easier than going after the cure. Violence is a social malady. Its nature is rooted in social problems. Problems that people generally do not want to hear about, do not want to face, and do not even want to think about how to fix. Our modern democratic societies have their benefits, but both the UK and the US are reaping the whirlwind from their own prosperity. I don't know when or how we'll come to grips with it.


Actually, I agree with you completely. Its like a quick fix to well rooted problems that will not just go away by introducing blade laws. The problem gets fixed by educating everyone into not wanting to harm one another. Nip the problem in the bud before it actually happens.

How we could ever get to that stage I have no idea, perhaps thats just too much to ask.

Morgan Evanar
Aug 15th, 2006, 06:08:46 AM
Maybe it should be 420 smoke weed every day? At least people would calm down.

Byl Laprovik
Aug 15th, 2006, 06:23:30 AM
Actually, I think easing up on the drug laws would be a pretty good start now that you mention it. The war on drugs puts our governments in debt, incarcerates thousands of citizens for victimless crimes, ensures an expensive, poor-quality product hits the streets without tax revenue returned to the government, and gives gangs all the cause they need to wage brutal, pandemic warfare on each other.