Sanity on Weapons -- in the New York Times!

No less than the Times editorial board has penned an essay calling for a loosening of New York's "outdated" knife control laws.

I'm not sure the law they endorse is strongly enough worded to attain their outcome. It would be better to repeal the provisions against "gravity knives" altogether. Still, sanity on weapons from this podium does not come all that often. Let us celebrate it while it's here.

9 comments:

raven said...

I have never understood the laws obsession with knives that open one handed. One would think it science had shown all criminals are one handed.
on the other hand...(had to say it) clinging to the deckhouse of a crab boat running through a chop, holding on with one hand and trying to slice away some tangled float line that was was soon to drag a bunch more pots and maybe a deckhand off the boat, a one handed opening knife seemed like a stellar invention.

E Hines said...

Yeah, well, one-handed knives in my workshop have been awfully handy, too. I've been particularly partial to my switchblade.

Eric Hines

MikeD said...

*gasp!* (clutches pearls) A switchblade?!? Does this mean Eric is a "hoodlum"? Or a gang-member?!?! Probably one of those juvenile delinquent "greasers" I've been hearing about! With their leather jackets and denim slacks!

Grim said...

The oddity of opposing knives that can be opened with one hand is even greater given that fixed blade knives aren't similarly banned. They don't have to be opened at all.

It's the same sort of silliness that caused Georgia to ban "dirks." What's a dirk? Well, these days the only knife that travels under that name is the Scottish dirk, which is worn chiefly with the kilt at Scottish heritage events like the Highland Games. So why did Georgia want to ban that? They didn't: the legislature had meant to ban the carrying of German naval dirks as a measure against infiltrators from submarines back during the world wars.

This was similarly meant to target the Sharks and the Jets, I guess, and somehow never got off the books.

Grim said...

That Georgia law, by the way, has been rescinded. But it was one of the fights we had to have in my lifetime. It's one of those Chesterton wall paradox fights: "Why is this wall here?" Turns out, not only was the wall a poor method for attaining the desired result, the reason for it is long gone.

Ymar Sakar said...

Reminds me of when Democrats and slave lords tried to impose weapons bans and confiscations on slaves and then afterwards, freed men and women.

Like that good old aristocratic feudalism that peasants can't own swords, that's a weapon of a knight or noble. Or crossbows, because that allows a knight to be easily killed, even if they wear plate.

The partial solution back then was to ban the slave lords. Then the problem got better, although they resorted to torches and lynchings later on, funding their bully boys via insurgency.

Grim said...

...bans and confiscations on slaves and then afterwards, freed men...

Before, actually. Freed blacks were forbidden from owning firearms in Antebellum Georgia.

E Hines said...

Probably one of those juvenile delinquent "greasers" I've been hearing about! With their leather jackets and denim slacks!

And when I'm not wearing that denim, I buckle my knickerbockers below my knee.

Eric Hines

Tom said...

"I have never understood the laws obsession with knives that open one handed."

But it looks more dangerous, and there were all these stories about big city gangs using them, so it follows the same logic as the "assault weapons" ban.