"We should be more like England"

say the people like Kennedy and Pelosi and Schumer. Well, Brit mentioned this in the comments to 'Show your carry gun' and I found it:
"Knife scanners to be used UK-wide

The use of metal detectors to catch people carrying knives is to be extended by British Transport Police across the UK, the BBC has learned.
Operation Shield was launched in London two months ago to target those carrying knives on the Tube network and trains."


This really shouldn't be a surprise. Many crimes you don't even get a jury trial anymore, the police can search you just about any time they please and you have no real right of privacy or self-defense. So of course the cops are going to set up scanners to hassle anyone carrying enough metal to set them off. And do you really think they care whether it's a Swiss Army knife that you carry to open boxes with?

"It will be across the country," he said. "It won't be there all the time. Obviously local police have to use their judgment as to when they deploy officers on the scanning equipment." If you've followed some of the history that Kevin tracks over at Smallest Minority, you've read of long waits for police response to reports of crime; but I doubt they'll let little things like that keep them from spending manpower and money to run their 'knife scanners'. After all, nobody has any legitimate reason to carry a knife, now do they? Oh, there's cutting string and rope and opening boxes and cutting paper and lunch and... but those don't matter! You could wait until you have some scissors or something! So say your betters!

Now look at this:
"But London community worker Shaun Bailey said that many young people carried knives because they felt uneasy."

"Where the real problems start, with the young people in particular, is when they carry a knife for use of defence," he told BBC Radio Five Live.

"They're called offensive weapons for a reason - you cannot defend yourself with a knife, you can only ever attack someone - but lots of young people carry them for a fashion statement because they feel uneasy.

"What needs to be looked at is why so many people feel uneasy, and then carry a knife."

"Home Office figures released in January showed violent crime in England and Wales rose 4% between July and September last year."

For the moment let's pass over the idiocy of "you cannot defend yourself with a knife, you can only ever attack someone", and get to the heart of this: "...why so many people feel uneasy, and then carry a knife." How about because they're scared? How about because crime rates over there are bloody awful? How about because it's the only kind of weapon an honest citazen- excuse me, 'subject of the Crown' can obtain? But instead of busting criminals and putting them in jail and keeping them there, by God they're going to war on the "knife-carrying culture".

Kevin's put it well in the past; it ain't the tool, it's who's using it and why. A sub-machine gun in the hands of an honest citazen is a threat only to those who would attack others; a bottle in the hand of a criminal is a threat. But they just don't seem to give a damn about this, or maybe it's just so much easier to target objects than to actually, I don't know, do something about the criminals?

And just to touch on it, there is no such thing as an inherently offensive or defensive weapon; it can be used for either. To go back in history a bit, a sword could be used to defend yourself; and you could kill someone with a shield just as effectively as with a sword. It's not the weapon; it is how it is used. We've got our idiot politicians too, with their 'only good for killing' rhetoric about firearms. Never mind that killing someone who attacks you in your home is a legitimate use of force; to them all weapons are bad. Unless it's a government minion carrying it, of course.

Brit, you're right. Our Constitutionally-noted right to arms is a precious thing. And we need to defend it from the idiots who would take it away.