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Scots and their knives
From the Evening Times: Scottish Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson is proposing to require that only licensed dealers sell "non-domestic knives" (any pointed knife not made specifically for household purposes), and to ban most sword sales. Purchase of such a knife would require a permit "similar to a firearms permit."
The proposal is driven by the fact that almost half the murders in the country are committed with knives.
The epidemic of edged weapons violence seems to be an international one. In Australia, where the Minister for Justice and Customs reported "knives and other sharp instruments are the most common weapons used in homicides, and are used in more homicides than both blunt instruments and assault leading to murder put together."
According to the FBI, in the US only 13% of homicides involved edged weapons.
· non-US
Comments
I note that the "epidemic" you mentioned seems to have hit the captioned nations shortly after gun bans were put into effect.
Next, after the knife ban, will probably be a boot ban, to stop the escalating number of stompings...
Posted by: Rivrdog at June 29, 2005 06:12 PM
In the former Soviet Union I believe the ax was the preferred murder weapon as citizens could not privately own firearms. Totalitarian states force people to move to whatever manual weapon they can get their hands on.
"Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - St. George Tucker's Blackstone, Volume 1, Appendix , Note D, Section 12.
Posted by: Rudy DiGiacinto at June 29, 2005 09:16 PM
I wonder when they will arrest a person for defending himself with a sword when the person who attacked him used a knife? Using the sword was using excessive force of course. Unfair to the poor criminal.
There are many who sleep soundly tonight knowing that when a burgler breaks in to rob and kill them that he will be armed with a knife instead of a gun. After all you wouldn't want to distrub the neighbors would you. Die like a good little sheep.
Posted by: Dan Hamilton at June 30, 2005 03:07 PM