The Rude Pundit: In the UK, They Banned Knives When Knife Crime Rose

[babylonsister]

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/05/in-uk-they-banned-knives-when-knife.html

The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
5/20/2023
In the UK, They Banned Knives When Knife Crime Rose


As an American, it's easy to be cynical about knife crime in the United Kingdom. I'm here right now, and already I've seen multiple TV news segments about all the stabbings and threats of stabbings with knives and machetes. When I saw a BBC report with the chyron "Knives: can we end the violence?" my gut Yank instinct was to think, "Oh, England. You're adorable that you're only worried about one-on-one knife attacks. Try living every fucking day of your life damned to be in a country where mass shootings happen with a frequency approaching hourly."

snip//

See, in 2019, as a result of the rise in knife crime, the UK government, which, again, is led by the Conservative Party as it has been since 2015 (or 2010, depending on how you count a coalition), tightened a ban on "offensive weapons," as in "can be used in a criminal offense," not "they stink." Prior to the new law, you couldn't carry the banned knives in public. Now, you can't even own them. If you do, you can face up to six months in jail. The laws fully went into effect in 2021. And you know what? The level of knife crime declined. It's still higher than it was, but it's lower than it became.

Think about that. There was a rise in violent crime and they banned the weapons being used in the crime. No movement to halt the ban gained any traction because while, sure, a person with a knife is responsible for the crime, it sure is harder to hurt someone if the knife isn't available.

One type of knife that has gotten really popular, especially with young people, is the "zombie knife," which is a supposedly cool-looking blade that resembles hunting knives in zombie movies and TV shows. And there was a loophole in the law that allowed for certain kinds of those knives to be sold online, along with machetes that aren't used for gardening. Right now, the UK Home Office is looking into closing that loophole because that's what the fuck you do.

This shit isn't hard. In the United States, we make it hard because we pretend that the Constitution gives us the right to individually own the means to destroy ourselves. Here, that kind of thinking is seen as madness and completely antithetical to the safety of the public. Or, you know, common fucking sense.

[raging moderate]

1. Some Places in the US did ban guns when gun crime rose.

At least some guns were banned in some places. Or background checks were required for gun ownership. I still have my gun-owner's card from Illinois, the state where I was born.

[sab390]

3. Speaking of Illinois

It is still illegal to carry many types of knives in Chicago. No switch blades, no straight razors, no "gravity knives ", no knife with a blade longer than 5 1/2 inches. The 2nd amendment doesn't mention knives so those laws stand. But you can carry an AK down Michigan Ave. I carry a "Chicago street legal knife " in my pocket even though I don't live there anymore.

[Old Crank]

5. I believe NYC had a gravity knife ban

Unfortunately some trades people have and use knives that can be considered gravity knives under their broad definition. Usually trades people who sometimes need a knife and only have one hand free. Usually charges get filed against POC if one is found in tool boxes on pretextual stops or shake downs.

Originally developed for the German military to cut parachute lines and shrounds.

[Buns_of_Fire]

2. "...Or, you know, common fucking sense."

Which, as it turns out, is not nearly as "common" as the term implies.

[raging moderate]

4. I think I read that guns were banned in the city limits of Dodge City, long ago.

And similar places. I think this is true. And you were not allowed to just carry any old gun, any old way, in many places. If our ancestors did not think that this violated the 2nd Amendment, and they were closer to the dialect in which it was written, is it possible that the modern people who think the 2nd Amendment decrees the freedom to carry any old gun any old way are misinterpreting the 2nd Amendment?

[hadEnuf]

6. That's because they didn't have the NRA back then.

The NRA is the Fox News for guns.

[Buns_of_Fire]

9. You did.

Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town, likely by civic leaders and influential merchants who wanted people to move there, invest their time and resources, and bring their families. Cultivating a reputation of peace and stability was necessary, even in boisterous towns, if it were to become anything more transient than a one-industry boom town.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

The practice was started in Southern states, which were among the first to enact laws against concealed carry of guns and knives, in the early 1800s. While a few citizens challenged the bans in court, most lost. Winkler, in his book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points to an 1840 Alabama court that, in upholding its state ban, ruled it was a state's right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution's allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/

[malaise]

7. Tell them Rudie

Rec

[malaise]

8. Tell them Rudie

Rec

[praxEs]

10. Police in UK

Apparently, only 10% of highly trained police in the UK carry guns. The 90% that don't carry guns like it that way.

[Blue Owl]

11. K&R

[Cha]

12. Well Done, Rude! TY