Don’t carry a knife in Great Britain
When you do away with guns, you apparently get more knives. It stands to reason.
And you know what? You apparently get guns, too:
The increase in London homicides has been so profound that for the first time in recorded history the UK capitol’s murder rate has surpassed New York City’s…
In January, the UK’s Office for National Statistics published the statistical bulletin, “Crime in England and Wales: year ending September 2017.”…
The report stated that there had been a 20 percent increase in offenses involving firearms from October 2016 through September 2017 over the same period a year earlier. This included a 36 percent increase in offenses involving shotguns and a 20 percent increase in offenses involving handguns. Handguns are prohibited in the UK outside of Northern Ireland.
Most of this has occurred in London. And knife attacks have increased, with the following reaction from authorities and activists:
Having stripped the law-abiding of the most useful means of self-defense, activists and government officials now busy themselves with knife control. Anti-knife activists from the Save a Life ”“ Surrender Your Knife campaign provide “knife banks” where owners can relinquish their blades anonymously. Having collected a reported 100,000 knives so far, which they used to create an anti-knife sculpture, knife control activists recently met with Home Office officials to coordinate a nationwide campaign to collect 1 million blades.
The UK already prohibits most knife sales to those under 18, bans a wide array of knives and swords outright, and prohibits subjects from carrying any knife other than a 3-inch or shorter non-locking folding knife “without good reason.”
And this is not from the Onion:
…a March 16 sweep [of refuse and shrubbery] by officers near London’s Regents Park uncovered a pair of plyers, two screwdrivers, scissors, and a file, which the department assured the public were “safely disposed [of] and taken off the streets.” With the help of local students, last October police in London’s Telegraph Hill were able to protect residents from a pair of scissors, something the department referred to as a “potential weapon.” A month earlier, a “weapon sweep” in Barnsbury prevented a gardening tool from “end[ing] up in the wrong hands.”
This is more than disarming the public; it’s detooling the public. And it’s doomed to failure. You might say “knives and screwdrivers don’t kill people; people do.” And if people are determined to kill and threaten and harm, they will find a way. People are quite ingenious, especially when angry.
And if people are not allowed to defend themselves, only the “bad guys” will have weapons—or will make weapons out of common objects found every day in your home. At least, they used to be found in your home.
Most articles about this development have focused on the London Mayor’s tweet:
No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law. https://t.co/XILUvIFLOW
— Mayor of London (@MayorofLondon) April 8, 2018
But this is part of a much bigger picture, which has been ongoing (as the link he provides in the above tweet shows). As Guy Benson writes at Townhall:
There is never a reason to carry a knife? What about to defend yourself against the criminals murdering people in London? Or is self-defense now officially becoming a criminal offense in Great Britain?
Well, yes.
[NOTE: You may be surprised to learn that in the US, where knife laws are passed on a state-by-state basis, there are some states that have fairly Draconian laws against carrying certain kinds of knives. I haven’t done a country-wide search on this, but my impression is that none come close to the extent of the ban in the UK, and I’ve never heard of drives to surrender knives or to find them in park shrubbery. Most of the US laws concentrate on switchblades and ban any carrying of knives by minors on school property.
For example, here are the laws in New York, and here’s Ohio and Mississippi. As you might expect, Texas laws are far less restrictive.]
When the right to defend yourself is gone, you then live at the mercy of criminals and politicians. Patrick Henry was right. “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Rights and responsibilities… or Planned Citizen.
“This is more than disarming the public; it’s detooling the public. And it’s doomed to failure. You might say “knives and screwdrivers don’t kill people; people do.” And if people are determined to kill and threaten and harm, they will find a way. People are quite ingenious, especially when angry.
And if people are not allowed to defend thens–or will make weapons out of common objects found every day in your home. At least, they used to be found in your home.”
https://www.correctionsone.com/contraband/articles/2030082-8-real-and-lethal-prisoner-made-shivs/
I never knew you could do that with a toothbrush.
Just wait until some lefty in Britain gets the bright idea that hands and feet are weapons, because after you take away guns, and then knives, and then bats, and then shovels and fireplace implements, eventually assaults on their overlegislated island will primarily feature criminals using hands and feet as weapons. You wouldn’t want weapons in the hands (pun intended) of the law-abiding, would you?
It’s not the knife, it’s the fool who holds the handle.
The Talmud–
Thank goodness (for now) that I live in the US and not Great Britain – you should see all the tools, aka: weapons, in my basement workshop.
AFAICT, most knife laws also apply to what might be considered “combat knives” like the KayBar, or the Fairbairn, or any other knife with a double edge and, or, a knuckle guard. Also length limits. In Michigan–where some change is in the legislature–CCL does not allow you to carry any of the forbidden knives.
Since, if you want to cut something, it’s usually in one hand, a folding knife is made so that it can be opened with one hand. There are little knobs at the base of the blade to give you purchase to move it out of the handle so that it can be flicked to complete the opening to the lockback. Conveeeeenient, says I. Also, with a little practice, you an also fold it up one handed. And, with some more practice, the same with the non-dominant hand.
As somebody else noted, “What London needs is not knife-control but Muslim-control.”
Waiting for the Muslim Mayor of London to realize this…
Check KnifeRights.org
People cannot be saved… from themselves. Their fate is of their own creation. Their sin is in imposing their chosen fate upon the innocent.
Absolutely hilarious.
I am reminded of those astoundingly bad and cheaply made Sci-Fi Horror flicks from the 50’s which one could see replayed years later on TV when I was a kid,
A trudging “monster” pursues a hapless moron; who heretofore has apparently floated through life semi-conscious: when, inevitably, the moron fleeing the lumbering threat trips over some invisible nothing and falls to the ground.
Of course, instead of getting up again and running, or even outpacing the slogging monster by simply crawling away, the moron lays there helplessly – alternatively screaming and gnawing on its knuckles – until the monster finally catches up and renders unto the hapless moron its natural due.
Moral of the story is that monsters have feelings too, and some must die so that others can feel good about it.
After possession of scrap iron and garden tools are finally rendered illegal in GB (” There’s no reason for a law abiding citizen to own a piece of potentially sharpen-able channel iron!”), will running away be next?
Knives are nothing but tools for slicing, cutting, and dismembering! No one has a right to such killing machines. (If an inclined plane or a wedge is a machine, so too can a knife be.)
The only thing knives are good for is cutting! That is their only purpose: slicing through animal flesh, selfishly lopping off and pruning the limbs and sprouts of vegetative life that has done no human being wrong.
Knives are violence, and nothing more than violence. It’s time to outlaw them and guarantee all members of society a living wage.
My mom, born in 1921, told me that she and her classmates in a one-room school would play mumbley peg in the schoolyard. All the boys carried pocket knives as did some of the girls. Nowadays, kid are furnished “sporks” in the lunchrooms, even plastic knives are verboten.
I have carried a folding pocket knife since age 7; how else do you cut the twine on a hay bail? The left wants you to feel defenseless and placing your life at the mercy of government. They can have my Fairbain folder after I slit their throats as they sleep. But seriously, does anyone seriously believe that millions of Americans will surrender their bullets and blades?
parker:
As I interpret the UK’s regulations, at present they allow small folding pocket knives, although the mayor’s tweet would have you think otherwise.
What did you think was going to happen? In the 1990s the UK passed some severe firearms restrictions because of some shootings. These were supposed to improve public safety. Now, who is going to turn their guns in to the police, the honest law abiding citizen or the criminals and the crazies? Naturally with the law abiding citizens being disarmed the criminals had a field day and crime in the UK greatly increased. Now the politicians instead of admitting that the gun bans didn’t work, doubled down and passed even more restrictive laws. They were confiscating pellet guns and now they are confiscating swords and knives. When politicians tell you they are going to disarm the law abiding citizens and that will improve public safety, you know you are dealing with morons or liars.
neo,
My Fairbain folder has a 5 inch blade. One side of the blade is half serrated, the other side is sharpened from the tip to about half way down. It is a slicing tool not designed for stabbing. It is purely a self defense tool (although it could cut twine or open a box). My knife training was about fighting an opponent armed with a knife. That training stressed not getting close enough to stab, but rather cut the opponent on his/her/xer arms until weakened enough to go in for the kill.
I am sure it is illegal in the EU and perhaps elsewhere. Illegal means nothing to me. How I choose to defend myself is above any law that I am willing to recognize.
Somehow prison inmates manage to fabricate servicable and murderous implements (shanks). Ball point pens, tooth brushes, etc. are used to kill each other. Give a liberal enough rope (power) and he’ll manage to ….
And of course there is the “tactical eraser;” a countermeasure to those who carry a “tactical pen.”
Rock control coming to your area soon.
The denizens of London will soon have no choice but to buy all their RTA furniture from IKEA, since the crappy little Allen wrenches they include with everything are too short and smooth to allow the user enough gription (my brother’s term) even to put together the furniture, much less to wield as weapons. (Aside: Imagine the consternation at high levels of government when it’s discovered that you can kill someone with a non-sharpened stick.) And then, once their Billy bookcase is standing, they’ll have to turn in the crappy little Allen wrench to some newly created body that tracks the number of Allen wrenches in circulation. (If you bought two Billy bookcases and a Poang chair, you will need to account for three wrenches at the secure disposal facility.) So again and as usual, the desire to keep us safe from ourselves will result in more people on the road, more natural resources being used, and the rise of weird black and gray markets.
This evening my family used at least eight or nine things at dinner that could be turned to violent ends, not counting the chicken if it’d been underdone… Will we end up forced to eat nothing but soup and yogurt out of tiny pouches?
Good God. My grandmother taught me how to knit and crochet – the lawless harridan. Every single thing involved with those activities can kill.
If someone is really intent on injuring someone else, and if guns or knives aren’t easily available, they will use anything that comes to hand–it could be a bottle, it could be a convenient stick or umbrella, a pencil or pen, it could be a rock, a nail file, a heavy iron skillet, a chair or bar stool, a pool cue or cricket bat, a long nail, some boiling water, a tire iron, or a can of some irritant spray.
So, is the Mayor of London going to ban bottles, sticks, rocks, pencils and pens, umbrellas, skillets, pots, and pans, all long nails, tire irons, chairs, bar stools, pool cues, baseball and cricket bats, and anything in a pressurized can that can harm or irritate someone?
Are they going to send their useless police around around and collect all of these potentially dangerous offensive weapons?
The all too obvious point here is that, it’s not the inanimate object, but the motivation of and the person who wields it.
The much harder job, then, is to, as they say, “change the culture,” to instill some morality and self-control in the people who might be tempted to injure someone by wielding one of these potentially harmful items.
P.S.–All of the attacks committed using guns in the UK attest to the fact that criminals are not going to turn in their guns, nor will they turn in their knives, that allow them to attack the law abiding citizens who will be forced to turn in their knives, just as they have been forced to turn in their guns.
Result? An even more vulnerable population.
Why the native citizens of Britain and the UK do not rise up, and throw out their useless leaders and police, who are stripping them of the tools they need for their self defense is a real mystery to me.
UK Banned Tim Larkin because his Target Focus Training was teaching civilians how to use lethal force with just their arms, legs, and body.
So when my forearm can cut through a mortal, now I have to be “disarmed” because I don’t need tools that can cut through bodies? What kind of clap trap is that.
This Leftist human slavery 3.0 totalitarian Lucifer system is pretty interesting and clever.
Why the native citizens of Britain and the UK do not rise up, and throw out their useless leaders and police, who are stripping them of the tools they need for their self defense is a real mystery to me.
I would like to say that I am clueless about why Americans don’t rise up and kill half of the traitors in DC but… I already know why.
It has been said that Londoners are far more leftist than the English in the hinterlands, and I guess that is why they have elected this Muslim, who is their obvious enemy. An infiltrator who, as their Mayor, is trying to do everything he can to make it seem as if they are not under constant attack by Muslims, to make them more vulnerable, and to advance the cause of Islam.
They’ve just gone mad in England and the UK, and I hope that, when things really get bad, we won’t willingly take in tens of thousands of refugees from the UK, people whose bad decisions have brought their bad fate upon them.
Let them go elsewhere, to Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, where they can proceeded to do their bit to screw those countries up even more than they are right now.
Snow on the Pines:
If they want to get in they have to get in through the southern border while the getting is good. It’s not so easy to win the cultural diversity lottery now a days, European by birth or culture? Back of the line.
Jamie–Oy. How could I forget the lethality embodied in knitting needles, cork screws, heavy, substantial books, various spices, laptops, a sharpened chicken bone, or a whole host of other potentially deadly objects?
Then, of course, we have to get around to hands, heads, and feet. Gotta watch those stiletto heels too.
Snow on Pine Says:
April 9th, 2018 at 11:40 pm
Jamie—Oy.
* * *
Bring back hats for the ladies.
So they can have hat pins again.
They’ll be conquered without anyone needing to fire a shot.
Where’s that “Rule Brittania” re-write? I know I had it somewhere.
When America adopts Leftist tactics to defeat the Left, they will be conquered without anyone needing to fire a shot.
It would be optimistic to believe the US can avoid Britain’s issue, but humans don’t have the knack for avoiding the repetition of history.
Here’s a novel idea.
How about the authorities in the UK rounding up the black gang members who are reportedly behind the recent spike in knifings, prosecuting them, stripping them of citizenship, and then deporting them.
How about rounding up all the Muslims who are behind the recent terrorist attacks (likely to include family members), along with the Imams of any Mosques preaching Jihad that they attended, or any other Jihad preaching Mosques, closing every one of these Mosques, prosecuting all involved, stripping them of citizenship, and then deporting them?
My guess is that these actions would result in a major decline in both knife attacks, and terrorist attacks by Muslims.
Of course, this is way too rational and direct a solution, and very un-politically correct, so it will never be implemented.
And if a burglar does break into your home, for God’s sake just let him stab you to death, because if you fight back or – God forbid – stab him with his own screwdriver, his mates will run you out of your home and put up a shrine to the fallen burglar, with police support.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/694826/hither-green-burglar-stabbing-henry-vincent-richard-osborn-brooks-flowers-shrine
Livestock aren’t accorded human rights. I guess people didn’t read the fine print on a democracy yet.
Ever wonder what happened to Princess Dianna? Heh. A totalitarian or constitutional monarchy is indeed more effective at implementing central national policies. Just look at the UK putting the rod on their natives. With the full assent and agreement of their “Queen”.
Many Americans would like a hero king and messiah as well. Just look around you.
Anybody remember the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents where the wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then cooks it and serves it to the cops who come to investigate the murder?
Now, do we just ban frozen meat, or all frozen foods?
Richard Saunders–Yeah, I really liked and remember that particular episode.
Anything can become a weapon in the hands of someone who has the intent to injure or kill.
Thus, it is not the virtually infinite range of weapons that need to be rounded up and controlled, it is the person’s “intent” that needs to be the target of any preventative actions.
Who can tell me, with a straight face, that the saturation of the public over the last couple of decades–especially the young–with hyper-violent video games, movies, videos, music lyrics, TV, plays, and books–hasn’t created a climate–hasn’t, in some sense, given permission–for people who may be on the edge to act out their most violent fantasies?
Since humans are the weapon, it is time for the Deep State to ban humans.
for people who may be on the edge to act out their most violent fantasies?
Why are so many of these people then killing themselves after acting out their violent fantasies?
I don’t play Eve Online or war games or first person shooters, win with a high kill count, then eat a grenade and smash my computer and routers…
What you are looking at isn’t what people think it is.