English Doctors calling for a Ban on long Knives

[IIamaKing]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm



I got a pretty good laugh about this. Where does it stop? I mean I have joked in gun control debates about Knife bans but it was always hyperbolic.

So what happens when they ban long knives and stabbing with short knives goes up, or bludgeonings with bats go up?

[Spectral]

I opened that and immediately saw this caption:

Doctors say knives are too pointed

LOLed at the other thread with people telling me how much less free the US is than Western Europe.

[smelltheglove]

in the US we have knife laws. some pertain to length, others to type, ie switchblade. the length laws only apply to a knife that is carried around in public though

[Deleted]

They should just ban hands. If you don't have hands you can't hold a weapon!

[Deleted]

That article is from 2005, its already illegal to carry a knife in england and carries a prison sentence.

[smelltheglove]

They should just ban hands. If you don't have hands you can't hold a weapon!

mitten laws ftw

[IIamaKing]

in the US we have knife laws. some pertain to length, others to type, ie switchblade. the length laws only apply to a knife that is carried around in public though

Yes, they have similar laws in the UK as well. But this call is not for small pocket knives but for long kitchen knives. Not limited to just not carrying them around in public but outright BAN as in even cooks and what not would have them.

[Wells]

Like to reiterate this is not the government banning anything. Its a group of people, in this case doctors, calling for it. While I agree its a dumb idea I can see where they're coming from. If you've taken an oath to save lives and see a large number of serious injuries coming from knives I can understand feeling some kind of way about that.

Home Office doesn't seem very interested.

[anveena]

So how would you go about preparing food without kitchen knives?

[IIamaKing]

Like to reiterate this is not the government banning anything. Its a group of people, in this case doctors, calling for it. While I agree its a dumb idea I can see where they're coming from. If you've taken an oath to save lives and see a large number of serious injuries coming from knives I can understand feeling some kind of way about that.

Home Office doesn't seem very interested.

Correct this is not a law in the process of being passed, simply some doctors who think if they can get a long knife ban stabbings will stop.

[Wells]

So how would you go about preparing food without kitchen knives?

Its just a proposed ban on large pointed knives. You don't really use the point of a butcher knife for anything special. Its really just a more deadly cleaver.

[smelltheglove]

Not limited to just not carrying them around in public but outright BAN as in even cooks and what not would have them.

now that's just a horrible idea

[mizeri]

They should just ban hands. If you don't have hands you can't hold a weapon!

[hiragana]

Well, like it says in the article what do you really need massive knives like that for? id bet the vast majority of people dont need them. Sure short knife crime might go up but it would be much less fatal.
Sounds like sense to me, its so easy for someone to get hammered, get into an argument and stab someone when they would never normally do something like that.
Ofcourse i dont think an outright ban is necessary, but maybe some how limiting where there sold perhaps.

[Spectral]

It really does stand to reason that if knives are too dangerous for the public that banning learning how to box is appropriate as well. That has far less practical application than a knife, it's used strictly to injure people.

[Wells]

It really does stand to reason that if knives are too dangerous for the public that banning learning how to box is appropriate as well. That has far less practical application than a knife, it's used strictly to injure people.

Same old lethality argument.

Plus boxing is a socially accepted sport where as professional kitchen knife fighting is frowned up on policy society.

[smelltheglove]

Its just a proposed ban on large pointed knives. You don't really use the point of a butcher knife for anything special. Its really just a more deadly cleaver.

boning and filet knifes make use of their points, and arent exactly short

[Wells]

boning and filet knifes make use of their points, and arent exactly short

True, and illustrates problems here, though neither knife has the weight or size of a pointed kitchen knife.

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

To be perfectly honest, it's all stupid. So you take away knives. People will just find something else to do something terrible to their neighbor with. It won't reduce violence, it'll only reduce the type. Then instead of stabs you'll see people attaching a chain to a brick and swinging that around, and you'll have your next epidemic.

[Defengar]

in the US we have knife laws. some pertain to length, others to type, ie switchblade. the length laws only apply to a knife that is carried around in public though

Some of them are quit hilarious to. A lot of them go WAAAY back to the early 1800's when Bowie knives were super popular to carry around and fighting with them happened often.

In fact, the first concealed carry supreme court case was not over guns, but over cane swords.