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posted by martyb on Friday June 01 2018, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the pointed-question dept.

A judge has proposed a nationwide programme to file down the points of kitchen knives as a solution to the country’s soaring knife crime epidemic.

Last week in his valedictory address, retiring Luton Crown Court Judge Nic Madge spoke of his concern that carrying a knife had become routine in some circles and called on the Government to ban the sale of large pointed kitchen knives.

[...] He said laws designed to reduce the availability of weapons to young would-be offenders had had “almost no effect”, since the vast majority had merely taken knives from a cutlery drawer.

[...] He asked: “But why we do need eight-inch or ten-inch kitchen knives with points?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/27/knives-sharp-filing-solution-soaring-violent-crime-judge-says/


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Friday June 01 2018, @05:13AM (23 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 01 2018, @05:13AM (#687109) Journal

    In some areas sharpened screwdrivers were the weapon of choice since they were easy to swipe from stores and to grind down on the curbing. The judge is clearly talking out of his ass and has never seen how a kitchen operates or the tools it needs.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @12:26PM (#687206)

    Motorcyles gangs carry ball peon hammers on their belts. It is totally legal still I believe. Want to see tools more deadly that are legal? Check out an electricians tool box.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @04:23PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @04:23PM (#687299)

      Is illegal in Australia to carry an object with the intent to use it as a weapon even in self defense.
      However. Carrying a large heavy torch is legal. Add is an umbrella. It is possible to carry certain items and be able to claim that there was to intent on using them to inflict damage on an attacker. Just never be caught admitting that you knew someone was after you.

      Combat umbrella? That can split watermelons? Oh this is just my normal umbrella officer. Well yes he did attack me. That broken arm must be from the fall he took when he stuck at me and tripped. Oh well. Self Defense? Well he did attack me. Bashed his head in with the strengthened sleeve of my jacket? I have no idea! This is my motor cycle jacket that I just happen to be wearing on our very safe muslim raping free public transport where no man has ever tried to subdue a woman and pack rape her.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @05:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @05:10PM (#687323)

        "Is illegal in Australia to carry an object with the intent to use it as a weapon even in self defense."

        i guess being a prisoner is in their blood. Aussies should have killed the legislators years ago.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 01 2018, @12:56PM (19 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday June 01 2018, @12:56PM (#687212) Journal

    Yes, it's a particularly stupid thing for a judge to say given how creative prisoners get in fashioning shivs.

    So while we're at it, let's do ban screwdrivers. And also nails. And glass (glass shards are incredibly sharp). And knappable rocks (we can send the Boy Scouts out to the wilderness with packpacks full of superglue to secure all loose stones). Also sticks, because fire-hardened sticks have pretty good penetrating power; even ones that aren't fire-hardened are pretty good for stabbing, which is why soldiers of yore drove stakes of them into the earth around their encampments as a protective measure.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @03:34PM (18 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @03:34PM (#687277)

      Yes, it's a particularly stupid thing for a judge to say given how creative prisoners get in fashioning shivs.

      Not really.

      Regulating sharpened tips of kitchen knives might go a long way toward curbing murders committed as crimes of passion (or causal homicide for that matter), where someone grabs a kitchen knife out of the drawer and takes a life. It won't curb premeditated crimes, but those are quite a bit rarer, and not really the point of the discussion anyway. Anyone who takes the time to fashion a shiv is already demonstrating an intent to do harm (possibly under the bullshit guise of "I need it for defense" but these tend to fall under "the best defense is a good offense" lines of reasoning, which sounds like a truism but is anything but true in most cases.

      You'll never get 100% coverage, but if you're even able to reduce the rate of incidence by a modest percentage it's a pretty clear win for society. Ditto with guns.

      Public policy doesn't have to be perfect to be effective, or address every (mis)use case to be a net boon to society at large.

      Which of course is why those who oppose such measures constantly trot out the logical fallacy that "your solution isn't perfect, therefor it isn't a solution at all." By that reason no one should wear seat belts because some people die in accidents anyway, which completely dismisses the tens of thousands of lives saved each year. (Or if you prefer, we should all smoke cartons of cigarettes every day because, you know, sometimes people who don't smoke get lung cancer, so let's ignore the health benefits for everyone else). It's a bullshit argument: rounding the tips of knives would probably reduce deaths by stabbing, as the judge suggested, just as gun control demonstrably reduces gun deaths by a huge factor, as proven by pretty much every developed nation (and as proven by the United States as a tragic counter-example). Now queue the gun nuts going ballistic...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @03:42PM (16 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @03:42PM (#687284)

        Its just a variant on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... [wikipedia.org]

        First they came for the guns, you didn't care since you didn't have a gun
        Second they came for the knives, you didn't care since you barely used pointy knives anyway,
        Then they came for your car, you didn't care since you take public transportation,
        Next they came for your juice, you didn't care since you only drink water,
        After that they came for your straws, you didn't care because you prefer to sip,

        Eventually they will come for something you do care about. There is no end to it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @04:39PM (12 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @04:39PM (#687310)

          Eventually they will come for something you do care about. There is no end to it.

          This is an example of the slippery slope fallacy.

          By that reasoning we should pass no laws, because once you pass a law, they'll pass more laws, some of which you won't agree with. Which is nonsense: we need laws covering some things, and not others, and yes, we need to fight for laws we agree with and against those we don't, not just throw the baby out with the bathwater because, inevitability, all laws that can be proposed will be (not true), some laws will be proposed you disagree with (true, and that is why we have a democratic process for addressing and fighting those laws we don't want or like), and because "there is no end to it" (hopefully there isn't an end to it, because an end to it means we no longer have a democracy and/or have stopped having an interest in addressing ongoing problems).

          Each policy should be discussed and addressed on its own merits, not dismissed because if lawmakers address one topic, they might address others we feel differently about. If they come for guns, and guns are killing tens of thousands each year, then the cost/benefit analysis of that will be different than if they come for televisions, which are not killing tens of thousands each year. Sure, there may be those that argue banning televisions would be beneficial to a large portion of the population (and they might even be right, getting those folks off the couch might have a benefit), but that is (1) not a given that it will happen if gun control (or sharp knife control) were enacted, (2) not the same thing at all, so will not necessarily be weighed the same, or (3) have the same outcome (a law enacted, for example).

          • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday June 01 2018, @05:18PM

            by Sulla (5173) on Friday June 01 2018, @05:18PM (#687328) Journal

            I would agree but Britain is working as hard as it can to make calling the slippery slope a fallacy a thing of the past.

            --
            Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @05:24PM (#687332)

            You don't think thats exactly how they dismissed it back then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... [wikipedia.org]

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @06:32PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @06:32PM (#687370)

              I would save the metaphor for when human lives are being taken, otherwise just call it the slippery slope. As long as people are aware of the potential then they can make an informed decision about whether taking the pointy tips seems like a good idea.

          • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 01 2018, @05:37PM (8 children)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 01 2018, @05:37PM (#687341) Journal

            You have the slippery slope all wrong. You've slipped on it, and slid to the bottom. The slippery slope is in believing that ANY weapons need to be outlawed, confiscated, or otherwise dealt with.

            Let's just outlaw the outlaws. Imprison some for life, and execute the rest.

            But, today's western societies have no stomach for doing those ugly, necessary chores that need to be done. Instead of flushing the toilet, collectively, we just sit around, breathing the stench.

            Execute murderers, and be done with them. Put rapists (real rapists) in prison for a few decades. Execute the most brutal rapists.

            Let me be clear about this. JUST KILL THE SONS OF BITCHES AND THEY WILL NO LONGER BE A PROBLEM!! Not only will they not be a problem, but the wannabe gangstas will think again before following in the dead man's steps.

            Let's man up, and do the jobs that men are supposed to do.

            • (Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Friday June 01 2018, @07:53PM (7 children)

              by jmorris (4844) on Friday June 01 2018, @07:53PM (#687417)

              This!

              Civilization is not for pussies. It takes hard men to forge one and then they are disposed of and pussies seem to always end up in charge with predictable results.

              Hard times create hard men.
              Hard men create good times.
              Good times create soft men.
              Soft men create hard times.

              Repeat, once more with feeling!

              Over and effing over throughout history we see the wheel spin around and around. Enough. We now have weapons that are too deadly for this crap. The monkey stuff has to end in age where the monkeys have fusion bombs. Time for hard men to rise before the Kaboom, seize the levers of power and reorder society in a way that will prevent the pussies from destroying civilization. Read anonymousconservative's r/K theory, read the Tytler Cycle theory, do some damned science for a change and end this nonsense.

              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 01 2018, @08:25PM (6 children)

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday June 01 2018, @08:25PM (#687439) Journal

                Your "hard men" appear to be trying to start World War III. You somehow always managed to get this stuff precisely backwards. I suspect your "hard men" actually have a hard time (hurr) getting hard, and are compensating for something...

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 01 2018, @11:48PM (5 children)

                  Nah. Don't seem likely. I mean look back at JFK. He was hard enough to say "Fuck it. If we go down, everyone goes down." and it pretty much killed the cold war right there except for some much less dangerous posturing that Reagan polished off. For the most part, people and governments tone down their bullshit when you make it abundantly clear (and can back it up) that there are zero paths to anything but overwhelming destruction for you and anyone who looks like you if you don't cut that shit out.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:34AM (4 children)

                    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:34AM (#687576) Journal

                    To which the hardline mullahs and other religious fanatics reply, "Bring it on, you perfidious infidel second-cousins-of-syphilitic-camels! Allah will reward any martyr with Paradise!" Now stop and realize that our Dominionists are one tiny step away from being the Christian version of the very same ideology, and indeed several are trying to fulfill Biblical prophecy with their Middle East agenda.

                    "Hard men" is another way of saying "stupid, inflexible, reactionary, and dogmatic."

                    --
                    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 02 2018, @11:38AM (3 children)

                      Naw. "Hard men" just means men willing to do whatever is necessary without flinching. There's no reason stupidity has to be present in any greater quantity than in the general population (which I'll admit is a pretty high concentration). Religious fanatics aren't much of a worry though. There aren't currently any capable of seriously threatening the US. Even if there were, the guys calling the shots for them tend to be more pragmatic than your average loony. They had to be to get to the top. Pragmatism generally tells people not to fight a fight it's impossible to win or even make a good showing in.

                      We do have quite a lot more of it floating around places of power than we tend to give credit to as well; you can tell by how almost no nation ever deliberately picks a fight that would well and truly suck for it. Take Pakistan and India for instance. They hate the living shit out of each other, have nukes, and never get up to anything more than spit ball fights.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 02 2018, @07:13PM (2 children)

                        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday June 02 2018, @07:13PM (#687789) Journal

                        There is an assumption here that "whatever is necessary" is known at the time. These "hard men" might not know it, and as time goes on and international relations get more complicated, there's less chance of them knowing. How many times has Armageddon been averted by someone making the "soft" choice *not* to fire missiles at what appears to be an incoming salvo?

                        --
                        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 03 2018, @12:03AM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 03 2018, @12:03AM (#687851)

                          How many times has Armageddon been averted by someone making the "soft" choice *not* to fire missiles at what appears to be an incoming salvo?

                          Oh Azuma... That's not the soft choice, it's not the choice of a coward going along to get along. [theguardian.com] You'll often be reprimanded for making the correct decision and all social progress has relied on people cutting against the grain. That doesn't mean everyone cutting against the grain is making social progress, it does mean "toxic masculinity" in the broad use is utter bullshit.

                        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 03 2018, @01:22AM

                          What's necessary isn't just known, it's usually blindingly obvious. That's beside the point though. If "hard men" were as dangerous as you seem to think, we'd be up to World War 3^96 by now instead of trying to avoid 3. Willingness != eagerness.

                          --
                          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @04:42PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @04:42PM (#687315)

          After that they came for your straws, you didn't care because you prefer to sip,

          I hate to break it to you... [bbc.co.uk]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @09:47PM (#687461)

            Cotton buds lead to so many clogged ears, they should be banned.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:52AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:52AM (#687595)

              Cotton buds lead to so many clogged ears, they should be banned.

              Indeed, back in the early '80s I used to get a number of freebie aviation and defence industry 'trade magazines', I always remember the medical column in one of the aviation magazines where the doctor writing it railed against these buggers for precisely this reason, citing the number of times he'd found serious blockages consisting of earwax/cotton fibres in the ears of significant numbers of pilots during their annual CPL medical examinations as good cause for banning them.
              It's a well known problem to the medical profession and probably a very common cause of undiagnosed hearing issues for a large number of people out there who've been 'conditioned' into thinking that these things are the only/best way to clean out their ears, so you'd think that they'd have already banned the things for this reason alone.
              Unfortunately, this proposed ban is only for the cotton buds with the plastic shafts, not the wood or rolled paper ones.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 02 2018, @02:48AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 02 2018, @02:48AM (#687546) Journal

        Regulating sharpened tips of kitchen knives might go a long way toward curbing murders committed as crimes of passion (or causal homicide for that matter), where someone grabs a kitchen knife out of the drawer and takes a life.

        "Might" has a lot of overlap with "won't" here. I guess you just have to decide what is more important. Tens of millions of responsible UK citizens or a handful of irresponsible people who stab others because they got upset. Sure, maybe we could occasionally save a life now and then by doing this, but it'd be at the expense of one of the most important cultural things we do - prepare and eat food. It's just not worth it.

        I think one of the great failings of democratic societies is that they decide to ban things because there are stupid, violent, and sociopathic people in the world. What happens to all those people who aren't a problem? Why should they have to sacrifice just because a handful of others are a problem?