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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?
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Knives are too Sharp and Filing Down their Points is Solution to Soaring Violent Crime, Judge Says
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Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Friday June 01 2018, @02:10PM (6 children)
If you don't like people owning guns, why don't you move to the dozens of countries that do not allow people to have guns? You know, the countries where you are not free, you might appreciate that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @05:45PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Mexico [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 01 2018, @08:09PM (4 children)
Hey, dipfuck, I've got no problem with people owning guns. What I've got a problem with is the fact that there's not a hell of a lot of accountability over said guns and said people. Switzerland does it right.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by nekomata on Saturday June 02 2018, @01:06PM (3 children)
How so?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 02 2018, @07:10PM (2 children)
Most of the men are required to have firearms and know how to use them...and the ammo and rifles are stored separately. This way 1) everyone is well-trained and knows how to respect the guns, and 2) they can't just pick one down off the mantelpiece and blow someone away in the heat of the moment.
See? Familiarity, respect, and built in baka-yoke mechanism.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by nekomata on Monday June 04 2018, @01:52PM (1 child)
Well, you are not technically wrong. But practically you are. It's very easy to own guns in Switzerland. The reservists don't even store ammo any more (except a small subset of them). And yes, if you do service (which a lot of ppl don't nowadays) you get trained with an assault rifle of top quality.
But all this doesn't matter, since you can just buy ammo and guns with farly little hindrance. You don't even have to have citizenship, a "Niederlassungsbewilligung" ('permit-to-settle') is sufficent. So basically, the following scenario is not only possible but actually happens: Foreigner with Niederlassungsbewilligung owns 100 guns (anything from pistols to ARs to sniper rifles) and 100k shells/rounds. At home. No safe required (except if you want to own full auto guns and/or explosives). You only need to have a clean criminal record. No central registry exists!
The biggest difference to the USA is that we can't carry (except for special reasons, bodyguard, acute danger etc. Very hard to get this permit!) and we need to get a permit ('Waffenerwerbsschein' - WES) to buy guns (those are shall-issue unless your criminal record has something in it).
So it would be entirely possible to shoot up schools, concerts etc. in Switzerland, from a purely practical perspective. But it never seems to happen. Which leads me to believe that guns have nothing to do with the problems the USA face. I think the reason for Switzerland being as safe as it is is culture and money. I am living a safe life here, there is just nothing to gain by going against the law. We have universal healthcare, so I don't need to be afraid about sickness and can go see a therapist if I choose to. Even if everything fails and I can't work anymore, I won't have to go hungry or live on the street. I generally trust random strangers to not do anything evil here. Also there would be little reason to carry a gun because there is little to defend against.
Given all this I am always amazed that there seems to be this idea that guns are the root of the problem in the USA, when it is quite clearly other factors at work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Monday June 04 2018, @07:01PM
100% correct. The underlying problems are real, ignored, and swept under the rug with a cry of "guns kill people." There is something about US that makes people angry, and makes insane people become totally unhinged. I've lived here for 25 years, and I don't know exactly what the reason is, I have identify just some hypothetical reasons, but nothing concrete.
One idea I do have is that I think some people just can't handle too much freedom. That is the freedom others have, which leads to others succeeding, and makes you angry and jealous. Because freedom to succeed means your failures are entirely your own, and not something to do with a vast system which leaves you helpless. Lot of people simply cannot accept that level of self-critical responsibility, and will go to great lengths to externalize their problems.
Another problem is total lack of real mental health facilities, for various reasons. Unless you are eating your own poop nonstop, you will not be committed to an extended stay. So we have tons of borderline people out and about.
Only solution for either one would be to identify and willfully rob these people of their freedoms, which might work but I am unsure is the right thing to do, as it would lead to possible abuses against people who are not a danger to others. In the good old days of Communist Utopia behind the Iron Curtain, people who opposed the regime were routinely diagnosed with mental problems and taken to a mental health facility. The town (20000 residents) which I grew up in had no hospital (there was one in neighboring town 10km away), but it had one of these mental health facilities, which is quite telling. Of course there was no mass shootings, and only murder that I could recall happened some 25 years before I was born. I guess some people wouldn't mind that level of security, but I am not one of them.