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Sheffield-based company Viners has produced the "Assure" range, square-ended knives which are "shaped to reduce and prevent injuries, accidents and fatalities." With knife crimes in England and Wales at their highest in a decade, a 3% increase on last year and the highest level since 2009, this new knife is intended to not be used in crimes and only in the kitchen. While anti-stabbing messages have been left on fastfood containers and a crackdown on knife crime has been tried, for which included limiting the sale of knives, so far nothing has blunted the knife based problem.
When have social problems been solved by technical solutions?
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UK Company Makes Knives Without Tips As Knife Crime Wave Surges
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Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!!
Oh wait...
I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out.
Never mind.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:37PM (41 children)
Unless they ban knives with pointy tips this is stupid. The type of person who tends to get stabby will buy knives with pointy tips, while the type who slices tomatoes will be fine with a flat tip. Me? I cook a lot, a knife without a pointy tip is useless.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by choose another one on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:19PM (15 children)
Yeah, precisely (and concur on the non-pointy knives for cooking - I dropped one of mine and knocked the point off, now it just gets used for cutting cake).
Except, that if you don't have a pointy knife you will simply find a way to do what you want with a non-pointy one.
After all, machetes (often/usually) don't have points and no one ever died from being slashed with one of those, did they?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:34PM (10 children)
Machetes are really bad at peeling tomatoes, though.
I like knives with a point.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:47PM (1 child)
Teeth are really good at eating tomato skin. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:55PM
Don't tell me how to cook!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:35PM (3 children)
Use a serrated / scalloped knife to cut tomatoes. The flat edge of a knife just squishes them. Seriously, get away from it.
My "vegetable" knife was in the dishwasher when I was cooking a burger -- needed a tomato slice on the quick. Used the finely serrated knife, have never looked back. No need to "poke" it before I can start cutting. No shredded mess as you might expect, either.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:57PM (2 children)
You need to sharpen your knife, assuming you meant sharp edge instead of flat edge. Yeah, serrated knives have their uses. But my chefs knife can easily slice and dice tomatos.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:18AM (1 child)
This thread is about slicing and dicing humans, which begs the question, should the meat be marinated overnight in a sweet and sour sauce? Can the cat eat the bones without having to worry about splinters?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @12:57PM
Actually, it *raises* the question. Begging the question is something different.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/53/Begging-the-Question
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @02:15AM (3 children)
Not bad for carving pumpkins, watermelons, or bodies, though.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @02:43AM (2 children)
Have you tried a chainsaw? Environment considerations aside**, they work so much better for carving, especially in the latter case.
---
** the environmental impact is going down too lately. Look mate, Bunnings carry a decent range of cordless chainsaws [bunnings.com.au], so if you have solar panels on your home (you have, haven't you?), carving becomes a carbon neutral operation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @02:55AM (1 child)
Really depends on your prefernce for speed over tidiness. This is why every trade needs apprentices- someone to clean up and clean the tools.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @03:19AM
With the note that both the machete and the chainsaw will need cleaning anyway, I concede the point that the clean use of a chainsaw requires higher level of mastery and, consequently, a longer practice to the artistry levels able top arrest the escalation of the mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @02:41AM
After all, machetes (often/usually) don't have points and no one ever died from being slashed with one of those, did they?
Ever been to Rwanda?
And yes they do have points
(Score: 2) by qzm on Monday January 20 2020, @11:29AM
I can only assume you cook with only one knife? how odd.
What they seem to have done is reinvented the japanese Nakiri or Usuba, flat ended knives for vegetable cutting.
The Japanese (and my apologies to the rest of asia, I know you have these also) style of vegetable cutting is to 'chop' not 'rock'.
These quite possible predate Christ, so... not the newest idea ever.
Of course this is nothing but a cheap marketing ploy, but hey.
Also, I would rather be attacked by someone with a small stabbing knife than with a good usuba, because they would open you up rather nastily.. stabbing is not always the mode damaging attack.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @01:23PM
You can put a point on a knife, easily enough. Old man showed me a long time ago. Sit down on a nice concrete sidewalk, parking lot, whatever. Start sweeping that knive back and forth, like you're trying to peel the top off the concrete. It took him about fifteen minutes to put a new point on a nice buck knife with the tip broken off. Another fifteen minutes with his whetstone, and the knife was like new, just a little shorter than new.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Monday January 20 2020, @10:50PM
Could you have tried sharpening the end to a point?
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:01PM (5 children)
There are calls to do just that. https://www.google.com/search?q=pointed+knife+ban&oq=pointed+knife+ban [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Monday January 20 2020, @12:40AM (4 children)
They don't need to ban knives, they need to learn statistics. There's been a recent uptick in knife crimes after an unusual low a few years back, but overall it's about average. I can't find specific data for knife crimes, but here's the forty-year figures for violent crime [ons.gov.uk]. This is regression to the mean, not something that a knife ban will do anything about.
Sells a lot of papers and makes for great political point-scoring though.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday January 20 2020, @04:36AM
Well, yea, after all that's what's really important.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:57PM (2 children)
So what you're saying is that the native whites were getting more civilized, and now the Jewish NGOs and the treasonous government have brought in all the "migrants" and now the rate is going up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:53PM (1 child)
Shhh, we don't let people say that out loud. Talk about how "multiculturalism has enriched the city" and "strength through cultural diversity" and "BAME involvement in city life is welcome".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:26AM
No, you are perfectly allowed to say thst out loud. You simply don't because you don't want people correctly applying labels to yourself. If you were truly free thinkers confident in their worldview then you wouldn't be such cowards. Of course being a coward is a natural part of bigotry, a secret insecurity externalized on to others in order to feel superior.
If you had real convictions you would advocate your world view all over. Put it in your public profile, not hide your real feelings when politics comes up at work. But you know you would become a social pariah that everyone thinks is hateful and ignorant. So cowardice it is, post your hate pseudo-anonymously, and complain bitterly about your social exile as if your human rights are being trampled. All while having zero awareness of the irony, or the privilege that allows you to do so.
Ultimate entitlement, and again more irony.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:37PM (10 children)
That's telling more about your cooking ability.
Me? Most of the time, (umm, how shall I put it?) I see no point in the knife's point.
I'm happy to use a light/thin chinese cleaver knife [japanesechefsknife.com] as my main knife; my choice of thickness makes it loose the edge faster, but it also means that running it on a file (soft aluminium allow,diamond coated) 2-3 times on every side restores it.
Occasionally, yes, I do need a paring knife, but it's only perhaps 2-3% of the time.
And, yes, I do cook a lot. My SO is a chef and it has been ages since she declared that she's too tired to bring the job at home too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Monday January 20 2020, @12:12AM (4 children)
Cooking is a diverse enough universe that you need all kinds of utensils, not just different kinds of knives. Some of it's cultural too. An Ulu is traditionally used for just about anything (I use one a lot for vegetables), and the tips can be used somewhat like a tipped knife.
Even if I were willing to use only "safety" knives like this, and it worked for me personally, there are too many other use cases suited only to pointed tips. Try deboning a duck without a pointed knife, or do any kind of food art. I don't think it's possible to claim that you could rid the culinary world of pointed tips.
Moreover, it seems rather ludicrous to make knives "safe", when there are countless of instruments of death. Pick axes, machetes, a nice sharp shovel, screwdrivers, scissors, box cutters, etc. Any farm or repair shop is going to have something that could be used to kill.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @12:28AM (3 children)
Never said that you should.
I'm only objecting to the idea that "knives without a point are useless" when, demonstrable, they are not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday January 20 2020, @01:07AM (2 children)
Ahhh, misunderstood your point then.
Well then look no further than the Ulu as an example for that argument. Impossible to call that knife useless. If I had to choose one knife for my kitchen, it would be a high quality crescent shaped Ulu. My favorite thing is, with the proper shape, you can rock them back and forth (one-handed unless insane), and it acts as a Cuisinart in a small in a concave surface. I can go from full onion to minced in less than 60 seconds.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @01:19AM
Now, that's interesting. So self-evident once one point it to you.
I always found that knife useless, it tends to push away the stuff I'm trying to chop and I end in spending more time bringing the stuff back into place or chasing it around the board.
I see a new project for me in the near future - make a concave shallow chopping board and try the difference. Trying which depth gives better results sounds like "science at home" too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @01:38PM
So, kinda like a French knife, but you put it into a concave recess? That does sound interesting. I've never seen the knife you describe - lemme find an image . . .
https://www.amazon.com/Ulu-Factory-Birch-Handle-Cutlery/dp/B002KPJ2ES [amazon.com]
https://www.amazon.com/Cherry-Wood-Chopping-Bowl-Set/dp/B008FDHRFA [amazon.com]
https://www.etsy.com/market/alaskan_ulu_knife [etsy.com]
That etsy link has several pretty knives, and even a double bladed ulu. Odd, I've never seen one. I do like my French knife, but this looks even more Frencher than a French.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 20 2020, @04:49AM (2 children)
Not really since you agreed in the next sentence, "Most of the time".
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @05:01AM (1 child)
You logic is faltering again, khallow.
Ponder for a while on the difference between "any knife that doesn't have a point is useless at any moment" to "I and many others can use non-pointy knifes quite a lot, they aren't useless", maybe you'll get it. If you don't get it, no biggie, we won't make a fuss, we're already used with you following a parallel Universe logic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 20 2020, @09:22PM
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 20 2020, @01:00PM (1 child)
Unfortunately for the people proposing that scheme, there are a lot of knife fighting styles that have a similarly low opinion of the point.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @01:20PM
Unfortunately... those people? They aren't actually proposing this as a scheme, we were trolled [soylentnews.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Monday January 20 2020, @12:13AM (7 children)
Building a gun requires some tech.
Sharpening the tip of a knife is child's play.
Face it, banning guns gets you knives, banning knives gets you makeshift knives or screwdrivers or acid or fingers in the eye. The difference is less amount of damage per effort, and less protection for the outnumbered/weak ones. Armed police forces would benefit, but armed police forces, as yet unable to see into the future, tend to materialize too late.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @12:54AM (2 children)
>blockquote>Face it, banning guns gets you knives, banning knives gets you makeshift knives or screwdrivers or acid or fingers in the eye... Armed police forces would benefit, but armed police forces, as yet unable to see into the future, tend to materialize too late.
And the relevance of this is... what exactly?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Touché) by hemocyanin on Monday January 20 2020, @02:24AM (1 child)
The insanity in the UK is a look into the our future.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 20 2020, @03:06AM
That's right. She predated Reagan by a whole year. We knew what was coming.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday January 20 2020, @04:38AM
Now don't go giving them any more ideas!
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday January 20 2020, @10:16AM (2 children)
The argument of selling knives without bladed tips has been bounced about in the UK for a few years. I understand that many knives used in assaults are grabbed opportunistically from the home, rather than being kept as a dedicated combat weapon. If there weren't any sharp-tipped knives in the kitchen, then they aren't available to grab on your way out the house. The trouble is that most home cooks would want at least one tipped knife (paring knife) available in the kitchen, so there would still be one available to grab. Maybe that's why no knife manufacturers decided to make untipped knives all these years (until now)?
If nothing else, perhaps the nefarious youngsters will pay attention in metalwork classes to learn how to put a point back on the knives!
A matter that should be easier to deal with is the sale of knives to children, but though it's illegal, it's [itv.com] still [express.co.uk] going [croydon.gov.uk] on [nationaltradingstandards.uk].
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday January 20 2020, @01:51PM (1 child)
The fatal flaw in this argument is that it assumes that the "thing" that people are trying to opportunistically grab is "a knife". It isn't. What people are trying to grab in a hurry when under threat is a weapon, preferably a big scary one.
Blunt the knives and they will grab something else, plenty of other things lying around the house. If the knives are no good (and assuming they blunt the scissors too) I'll go for the toolbox, which is near enough to the kitchen, and then I'll probably realise that the axes are in the same cupboard as the toolbox...
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday January 20 2020, @08:18PM
There's some truth to what you say, but I'm pretty certain that only a minority of UK households happen to own an axe, so I'll discount that option. (Besides, an axe isn't as easy to conceal as a knife is.)
Given the option, I'd prefer to find myself facing an angry person armed with a pair of scissors or a screwdriver rather than a kitchen knife. Though in all cases, I'm likely to leg it rather than engage with that angry person!
(Score: 3, Funny) by NPC-131072 on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:43PM (12 children)
It's clear reading this that we on the morally superior left have gotten gun control wrong. If the Brits can stop people being slashed by removing points from knives, why do we not remove points from bullets and use softer material?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:52PM (3 children)
Remove the tips of Ice Picks.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:45PM (1 child)
Don't forget the screwdrivers!
Anyone wanna be stabbed with a wood chisel?
I guess they'll have to go back to dousing people with acid...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:37PM
Ban BIC pens.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:50PM
Don't forget the toothpicks too.
Safer to use other implements, like tooth extraction pliers (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:53PM
Well, if you want people to live, then you'd better buy ammunition with not only blunt points, but hollow points. And then discharge those rounds into every Arab you see raise a knife within a few feet of you.
The royal family is compromised 100% by Arabian goatfuckers, as is the rest of the leadership of the British Isles and Europe. If you want to live a harmonious life, storm the gates of those who seek to make your life hell. Pull them out of their mansions and castles and feed them to their Islamic dogs.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:56PM
The best material for that is likely lead.
The problem is that has some negative environmental impacts. A hybrid approach where the tip is soft but the remainder of the bullet is covered in something that helps protect the environment (e.g. copper or brass alloy) might be best.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:04PM (1 child)
When you support Trump and other kiddie diddlers anyone else is automatically morally superior. Except maybe Hitler, but you get pretty upset when that gets pointed out.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:52PM
The Democrats are the KIDDIE DIDDLERS.
Trump goes after LATE TEENAGERS, i.e, barely legal.
YUGE difference.
(Score: 1) by paul_engr on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:34PM (1 child)
Uhh, ball ammo is already round and hollow points /do/ have the points removed and are as a result much more effective at creating trauma...
Keep in mind the UK is the place that also brought us polycarbonate laminated pint glasses that are impossible to shatter and cut people with. Sounds like that is working out real good for them...
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Monday January 20 2020, @03:04AM
Heh, that was actually the point, NPCs are entities composed almost entirely of satire :-)
Their numbers have dwindled dramatically, so it is up to us to preserve them for future generations.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday January 20 2020, @02:45AM (1 child)
Actually you probably have. Violent crime in Europe dropped with the advent of the wheel lock pistol, then again even more with the simpler/cheaper/more reliable flintlock. In the UK, assaults per 100k were 2.39 in 1920 just before the English right to arms was eliminated, and by the turn of this century, were 419.29 per 100k of population. http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp158.pdf [wm.edu]
Women, the old, those who weren't born like football players, have always been targets and until the gun made it possible for them to level the playing field with those willing to engage in strong arm crimes, they had no chance. Anyway, yeah, make people vulnerable as in the UK where they might as well publish statutes like "unlawfully interference with a robbery", and assaults will go up. Give people a means to defend themselves, and the calculus the criminal faces changes -- when it doesn't matter how roided up he is, when even an 80 year old grandma has a reasonable chance of planting him in the ground, many will choose a less risky occupation. Naturally there will always be edge cases who will be criminals despite the risks, but to destroy that which gave us such a safe environment because of edge cases, invites the edge cases to become the new normal. This is what we see playing out in the UK -- first it was guns, now it is knives. Next it will cars. After that household cleaners. Rocks -- people have been making deadly weapons with rocks for eons. Good luck with rock control.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday January 20 2020, @10:02AM
That's an interesting read. I note that the linked document also describes homicides in England increasing from 0.84 in 1920 to 1.44 in 1999. (That is homicide by all means, not just firearms, but it's still an increase.)
The standard for determining homicide hasn't changed much, but what we consider to be "assault" certainly has. As an example, hitting children (caning) was an accepted form of discipline in the 1920s, but would now be regarded as an assault. I suspect there will have been a change in reporting rates, too. So while I accept that the rate of homicides has nearly doubled over that period, I don't think that the 200-fold increase in documented assaults is as useful or reliable a figure.
One thing I'd like to see from that study is a comparison with homicide rates from counties with a different history of access to firearms, especially over the "upward trend since 1900".
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:04PM (12 children)
I cannot remember the last time I used a knife. My caramel soy latte - does it use a knife? No. Does my Afghan cauliflower and tofu tikka kebab need a knife? No, again. Knives are only useful for two things: killing people and violating the bodies and flesh of other animals who never consented to such treatment. I think it's time we stopped beating around the bush here: a knife is little more than a killing tool. I mean it's 2020! It's time to move on towards responsible knife laws. And that means no knives. It's truly the only way we can be a safe and happy people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:29PM (1 child)
I use a knife for everything. Tip: Don't try to give yourself a Brazilian with a Buck Knives 110.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:36PM
You're right. That Buck will be too dull to cut anything after passing through 3 pubes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:33PM
Best troll this year. Well done.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:45PM (6 children)
How do you make carrot sticks?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:40PM
Hot glue guns?
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:55PM (4 children)
You CNC the carrots. A laser engraver works wonders and also boost your level of geekness - especially if you use deep-UV lasers and manage cuts at a few nanometers scale.
(should I grin?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday January 20 2020, @01:53AM (2 children)
But what if a young hoodlum decides to carry a CNC around with them and use it as a weapon? Shouldn't we ban them?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @02:19AM
Projectile or crush injuries?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @02:26AM
Not necessarily.
For instance. a better solution would be to subsidize the development of technologies that allow the attacked to deploy a pure defensive countermeasure in due time.
For instance, within the time the hoodlum puts you on the CNC carriage and program the specific (based on your body conformation) G-code sequence to slice you up, you should be able to fire up your metal RepRap 3D printer [reprap.org] and print yourself an armor able to resist the specific laser power and wavelength the attacker uses. After all, you are at advantage: you can preprogram your body conformation and use the laser power/wavelength as input parameters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @08:54AM
If you'll keep using your laser you'll go blind, with hairy hands.
(Score: 1) by paul_engr on Monday January 20 2020, @12:02AM (1 child)
Fucking cauliflower is always too big and you need a chainsaw or a katana to break it up into mouth sized chunks.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday January 20 2020, @02:04AM
Yes! I use a knife to kill cauliflower!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:11PM (5 children)
To stop this most serious of crime waves, all they need do is remove the hands from all new babies. Children with no hands will most definitely not grow up to commit violent knife crimes!
And, if that idea isn't absurd enough, you might consider removing baby's head.
(Score: 4, Funny) by pTamok on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:17PM
That seems like a modest proposal, compared to some.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @01:31AM (2 children)
Continuing on the same path, why stop at babies? Look, Runaway, based on your S/N comments, your own head can be extirpated without you losing most of your current abilities. No only the energetic burden of your body will be lighter (and so you'll pay less for food), but you'll get rid of headaches too.
To address the only useful case that is lost following your head removal, a cork in your wind pipe will be equally effective in stopping the rain going down your throat unimpeded.
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @02:15AM (1 child)
In the words of King Leonidas, molon labe!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @02:34AM
Yet another example your head is not serving you, not one iota.
The arguments I presented would convince any human with modicum rationality to implement the self-improvement without help or delay (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 20 2020, @03:55AM
Who needs hands? [youtu.be]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:14PM (14 children)
Some people might well have the best of intentions, but the ease of production of pointy weapons makes this a bit, well, pointless, really.
Anyone who wishes to go out and cause lethal harm to someone will go equipped with a sharpened screwdriver, which is basically a stiletto [wikipedia.org] knife; and there are plenty of animals that demonstrate that a pointy fire-hardened stick is a lethal weapon. [wikipedia.org]
Prison authorities will also attest to how difficult it is to prevent people making bladed weapons ('shivs [wikipedia.org]') in secret.
So anyone who wants to 'go equipped', can. Effecting cultural change so that certain groups (often young and male) no longer feel the need to do so is the problem to solve.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:29PM (11 children)
They've already done that. With their stiff upper lip mentality and shield of dry wit, they have an extremely low murder rate. You can never entirely remove the human potential for violence though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:52PM (10 children)
Worth seeing the statistics again: 11,004 Gun Murders in US vs. 26 in England. And those were probably done by American tourists.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @02:52AM
That's not a statistic, that's slimy marketing. As an example, more people are killed every year by hands and feet than by rifles of all types, and yet was is it everyone wants to ban? A portion of the rifle market.
I'll tell you too, if I was going to be murdered, I would hope it would be with a well placed shot from a gun rather than say with a plastic bag slipped over my head or my belly cut open and my guts hanging out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 20 2020, @05:29AM (7 children)
So the Brit murder victims feel better about themselves knowing they were killed with a knife instead of a gun? Good to know.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @05:54AM (6 children)
So you need more Brits to be killed by firearms than by knives (<300 [bbc.com]) to feel happy? Good to know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @02:01PM (2 children)
The better question is, why is anyone comparing total homicides in a state-sized nation, to the total homicides in a nation more than fifty times as large?
The UK violent crime rates are comparable to our individual states. And, that comparison doesn't favor the UK as much as people would have you beleive.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @02:14PM (1 child)
If you are referring to the area, please explain how is this relevant.
If you are referring to the population size, I think you are off by an order of magnitude. Unless, overnight, US decided to accept 270-280M immigrants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @02:37PM
56 million in England and Wales. Damn, what a pressure cooker! All those people packed into an area that maybe equals our three smallest states combined. Hell, I might be violent if I were jammed nut-to-butt with all those people!!
So, I exaggerated a little. We only have about 7 times the population, spread out over about 1/3 of the North American continent. Counting the undocumented illegal aliens, it might be 8 times the population.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 20 2020, @02:27PM (2 children)
No, I want people to at least stop over at lies and damned lies a little bit before they go straight to misusing statistics in the disarmament of the populace issue.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @02:37PM (1 child)
Because being armed presents such a big advantage when you aren't prepared to use them? Hint: Crocodile this-is-a-knife Dundee is mostly fictional, very few people are mentally prepared to use weapons.
But yes, other things would be better. Like directing their effort in addressing the causes instead of the symptoms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 20 2020, @02:49PM
Simple solution to that. So simple it's the motto of the Boy Scouts.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:19PM
"Worth seeing the statistics again: 11,004 Gun Murders in US vs. 26 in England"
Try removing the word "gun" from above, and recalculate using accurate figures
for murders/100k people. I think you find the actual numbers are not nearly so
lopsided.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday January 20 2020, @12:17AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:04PM
The same useless pigs who let the sand niggers kidnap, rape/sell white *girls*, b/c it might upset the Muslim community to prosecute the huge gang of perps? Those pigs?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:16PM (30 children)
Have carried a knife for over 25 years and somehow no one was every stabbed by it. The are looking at the wrong problem. When knives become useless, these individuals will switch to screwdrivers, clubs, hammers, pipes, and other things to accomplish the same task. Many things can be used as weapons and you can't outlaw them all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:36PM (4 children)
Correct. One of the first things we invented as a species was the pointy stick.
I've been carrying a pocket knife any time I had pants on since I was a six year old Cub Scout and never cut anyone but myself with it. Yes, in school. Yes, in church. Yes, even on airplanes. The last was even post-911. It never even occurred to me to not have a knife in my pocket, so I threw it in the change tray with everything else in my pockets and put it back after they utterly failed to notice it in there. Hell, I didn't even notice myself until I was putting it back in my pocket.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday January 20 2020, @03:59PM (1 child)
You too? I wasn't a cub scout / boy scout, but I've had a knife for decades including in high school.
My post 9/11 pocket knife story is amusing enough. My spouse and I had to enter a federal building with a metal detector. I walked through the metal detector without thinking about my pocket knife. It did not go off. I probably just walked through too slowly for it to detect the metal in my pocket. Meanwhile, she had to put her purse through the x-ray machine where they found her pocket knife. She looked at me and said, "Go put this in the car for me." The underlying message being to also put my knife in the car too. Looking to avoid hassle by security theater, I did. But it was amusing that I could have gone right in while she couldn't despite us both having pocket knives.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 20 2020, @04:22PM
Another fun tidbit: The courts in my home county in OK don't like you going in with a knife sheathed on your belt but don't check anyone for knives or guns they can't obviously see in any way.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:25PM (1 child)
Hah... My little brother got expelled from high school (mid-2000s) because he had a pocket knife (they searched him claiming he "smelled like weed").
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 20 2020, @04:54PM
Most of the vehicles at the highschools I attended had a shotgun and a rifle in the gun rack right where everyone could see. It wasn't uncommon to see a guy come to school in full camo during deer season because he wanted to hunt right up until he had to go to school. That was both large city and itty bitty town. This institutional weapons paranoia today is nuttier than squirrel shit when viewed against what I experienced not even ten years before your example.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:41PM (11 children)
No, the UK should legalize the ownership of AR-15's. Much more efficient as they could kill lots more in far less time and at far greater distances. That way knives would be seen as a non problem again. Works here in the good 'ole USA, doesn't it.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:54PM (3 children)
Someone could just as easily hole themselves up in a Las Vegas hotel and throw knives at 500 concert goers. Could easily happen. There's fundamentally no difference between guns and knives. That's why the military only uses knives. Cheaper and just as effective as guns.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by zion-fueled on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)
Someone can easily make a bomb or just drive through the crowd. And they have... none of that matters when there is agenda to push.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:47PM
So why don't we see school bombings or school drive-thrus on the news every day? They should be happening just as often as shootings according to your logic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:08PM
let's not drag the FBI's Fake Terrorist Factory into discussions about crimes the public/invaders commit.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @05:13AM (6 children)
Here [fbi.gov] are the stats on homicides in the US, broken down by weapon. You might be surprised to notice something. About 500% more people are killed by knives than by rifles. In fact about 200% more people are killed the old fashioned way - beating them to death with your fists and feet - than are by rifles.
Most people don't realize that rifle crime in the US is relatively negligible. This is because our entire media have become hardcore agenda pushers. And this is also true for 'mass shootings.' Here [fbi.gov] is the table on victim count. It doesn't specify weapon but it's not necessary because there were more than 300% multiple victim scenarios than the entire total of the number of people killed by rifles. Quite clearly, rifles are not playing a major role there.
The most popular weapon there is for killing people is cheap little pistols.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @08:37AM (5 children)
Are rifles not guns?
Or they don't count because someone is somehow less dead, being shot with a rifle rather than a pistol or a shotgun?
Those stats show over 71% of homicides were committed by some sort of firearm.
The price of that "freedom" seems quite high.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:25AM (2 children)
The point is to emphasize how little people understand about crime. The person I was responding to said, "No, the UK should legalize the ownership of AR-15's. Much more efficient as they could kill lots more in far less time and at far greater distances. That way knives would be seen as a non problem again. Works here in the good 'ole USA, doesn't it."
He probably believed that rifle homicides in the US were greater than knife crime. And he can be forgiven for making such a mistake. Anytime there is any rifle crime, the news media runs it nonstop 24/7 because the goal is to intentionally misinform people and to make them assume that rifle crime is at all a relevant chunk of homicides. In reality you could ban every single rifle and you literally would not notice a difference as the total of all rifle homicides is less than the statistical noise in other gun crime.
---
The current absurd situation in the UK should emphasize that the problem we have in the US is not a gun problem, but a people problem. Here [fbi.gov] are the gun statistics on race. When you look only at non-hispanic whites (you need to subtract hispanic ethnicity from white race to get this figure - the FBI classifies hispanics as whites for race), you see a homicide rate of about 1.6 per 100k. That's higher than most of Europe, but not by much. It's below some countries such as Belgium and Canada.
By contrast the homicide rate among black Americans is 15.6* per 100k. That is, bizarrely enough, directly comparable to the homicide rate [wikipedia.org] in a wide number of African nations. You can see this problem by observing the joke that the UK is becoming. They have extremely stringent gun laws, so people are simply turning to new ways to murder each other. So now they are working to ban knives. Yet that will hardly change anything since just about anything can be used to kill with, including of course your fists. The same thing would happen in the US. Ban guns and now you'll just see people killing each other with knives, or guns anyhow. Because the sort of people that engage in murder are the same sorts that can dig up weapons in the black market. Same thing the UK is also now seeing in spite of the fact that they are literally an island.
You're not supposed to talk about this because it's supposed to be racist. It is not. Political correctness is cancer. If you want to solve the US homicide rate you need to start by figuring out why young black men are killing each other at such absurd rates. The social science response of things like systemic racism makes 0 sense since you also see similar things in places such as Africa where the people, the police, and their politicians are all very ethnically close. You also do not see things from other groups that are or were indeed discriminated against such as Jews, Irish, Catholics, etc.
This is also why "racist" actions such as "stop and frisk" do work. It's completely fair to say that the police engage in racial profiling, but it works - because you're looking at vast crime rates between different groups. Ultimately this is a problem you're never going to solve until you throw political correctness (and tabula rasa) out the window.
---
* = The black homicide rate is actually much higher than that. The reason is that "unknown" column. That is driven by homicides that were left unsolved (thus the race of the offender is not known). And these are disproportionately in the ultra-high homicide rate areas in the US: Detroit, Baltimore, etc. And in these cities nearly all offenders (and victims) are black. So it is fair to assume the the vast majority of "unknowns" are also black.
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Monday January 20 2020, @11:00PM
Wrong, I'm well aware of the gun violence problem we have in this country.
FYI Your sarcasm detector must be broken, please fix it.
Thank You
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:33AM
Lolwut? Only dark skinned people have ever been violent and genocidal to their kin?? Ever read the bible??
Lololol, racist shitpost parsding as sinole facts "they" don't want you to know! "Come join our secret club, you'll have brothers, belonging, solidarity!! Except women, they aren't allowed in our secret club, not because there is anything wrong with us."/s
Someone needs to go back to school, learn some world history. Your ignorance is painfully awkward to read.
You ignore facts and logic because they go against your BELIEF and the simple logic you think everyone is ignoring out of PC concern. You are an ignorant turd pretending you're being oppressed somehow because few people agree with you.
Ah well, can't reason someone out of a position they didn't logically get into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:13PM (1 child)
10k murders by firearm per year in a country of 330 million people? big fucking deal!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @10:20PM
In other parts of the world, this would not be considered to be an acceptable price, which is why different countires have different levels of restriction on certain activities.
Parallels the issues with deaths caused by motor vehicles, in that countries* effectively "allow" a certain number of deaths each year as a byproduct of certain activities.
*permission is granted by the citizens, whether they vote or not..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:36PM
are you muslim?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:41PM (10 children)
You haven't noticed? In many places throughout the US it's illegal to repair your home.
Even if it's not, apparently doing plumbing or electrical work yourself will void your insurance policy.
The movement is explicitly toward preventing you from being able to do _anything_ -- and so if you can't do anything legitimate with these "tools", why would you need them? "This is an implement that can harm somewhere; let me see your license to possess this phillips screwdriver."
You can't say that cars aren't going the same way.. and just look at how home ownership is becoming expensive to the point that only large corporations can buy property, forcing everyone to rent.
It's maybe not a foregone conclusion, but it seems like a pretty good prediction of the future. The acquisition of fundamental knowledge is already practically illegal -- when's the last time you were able to buy elemental chemicals without a corporate or teaching license?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @12:02AM (9 children)
When a botched repair can result in your neighbours' home being damanged or destroyed (and maybe their life too), I don't think is such a bad idea to ask wiring/plumbing be performed by professionals.
Besides, that bank that offered you the mortgage for 30 years? Paradoxically, it's more interested in the integrity of the building and its value than your rights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Monday January 20 2020, @04:58AM (1 child)
By going outside, you could (perhaps inadvertently) cause a death! Let alone suggest you try to operate a vehicle.
Therefore we should make it illegal to go outside. Obviously. Eliminate the edge cases, eliminate the problem!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @05:18AM
See? This is why your parents trained you for some long years before letting you go on your own. You can still (perhaps inadvertently) cause a death, but the risk is deemed acceptable.
Invest that much time in training as an electrician/plumber under supervision (it's called apprenticeship in most of the civilized world) and chances are nobody will object to you performing repairs to your own power circuits or pipes, even if you can still could (perhaps inadvertently) cause damages.
Heck, you may even get a job doing those repairs for others too (that is usually called "certified trade/professional" in most of the civilized world).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:05AM (4 children)
Then I wouldn't be able to fix my house, because I wouldn't be able to afford to. Electricians, plumbers, etc. charge high rates, so there's serious savings to be had by doing the work yourself.
I educated myself and replumbed, rewired, air sealed, and insulated my house for a fraction of the price that I would have had to pay had I hired an electrician and a plumber. As long as you educate yourself about code and safety standards, it should be fine.
And yes, there are people who do ridiculous nonsense such as wire their house with undersized wire (you know, the same people who would probably ignore such laws anyway), but that doesn't mean everyone should be forbidden from fixing their homes.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @10:26AM (3 children)
Cool. Very likely you avoided the critical mistakes and made many others smaller that you don't know about. Let's hope you won't run into conditions that make from those small mistakes a critical risk (which is to say the practical experience of a good trades aren't totally captured by codes and safety standards, those are just the minimum required - and known - to be safe)
There is such a thing as "the law of diminishing returns" which guarantees over a certain level you'll be spending way more money to, in this case, lower infrequent risks. Besides, work quality, "defect free"-dom and risk minimization aren't guaranteed even the licensed tradesmen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday January 20 2020, @01:09PM (2 children)
In my experience many tradesmen are just as likely as any amateur to make stupid mistakes. The phone line in my house has been a problem forever and the man from AT&T insisted it's as good as it can be, nothing more they can do. I read up, tore apart his work, and found numerous errors including the complete lack of a ground. After I fixed his mistakes and connected the ground in the connection box to the earth I've got an order of magnitude faster internet connection and far less risk that I'll die in a lightning strike.
A skilled tradesman might be worth their weight in gold but many of the one's I've dealt with have been just a little less knowledgeable then wikihow.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday January 20 2020, @03:38PM (1 child)
If one has budget worries, in UK at least, one can hire an electrician to check out a "home brew" job and sign it off for compliance purposes. It is a compromise option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:42AM
It's the same in USA. In fact, you're supposed to get someone to inspect all your work after you finish each phase and you're supposed get your repair/improvement plans approved ahead of time before you even start. These guys are arguing with each other over nothing, both too ignorant to know what they're talking about.
In reality, the city's inspection office is too understaffed so people DIY their repairs without approvals or inspections all the time. Normally it's fine. Most things aren't that difficult or dangerous and even if it is, it only matters when something goes wrong which might never happen. A lot of the random contractors you can hire don't have that much knowledge above what you can teach yourself. Most do have more experience than you, but knowledge and experience aren't the same thing. All the knowledge you need is out there online and at your local library. You gain your experience when you screw it up and have to re-do your own work.
With insurance, sure if you screw up you'll end up being denied coverage, but that's the same when you hire someone else to do the work too. If you don't get the inspections done (something every contracting company says in their contract that it's up to you to do), then there's no difference from you doing the work or them doing the work. The 3rd party inspection is what matters for the insurance, not who completed the work.
As with most things, it's all a time vs money trade off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:15PM (1 child)
yeah, b/c paying some parasitic piece of shit to give you a piece of paper makes you qualified. what a fucking suck ass slave.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 20 2020, @09:56PM
I do remember distinctively I said you need the experience to know what problems you need to address for the result of your work to be reasonable safe, nothing about a paper.
BTW, that paper? Should be for others to trust you working on their stuff. Your problem is with your fucked-up education system, the rest of the civilized world works better in this regard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:06PM
>Many things can be used as weapons and you can't outlaw them all.
You think that will stop the UK? I've got one word for you: Brexit.
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