Journal tomhudson's Journal: Govt to ban pocket knives - reclassify them as switchblades. 13
Never in my weirdest dreams did I ever think I'd be on the same side as the NRA.
The US DHS wants to classify pretty much ALL folding knives as "switchblades".
As the articles point out, many states and municipalities base their definition of an illegal knife off the federal definition - and this will now have the effect of criminalizing ownership of almost all folding knives.
No wonder 80% of the US population no longer believes their government is working for them
What's next - do like feudal lords and round up all the scythes and other farming implements that can be "weaponized"? Ban non-plastic kitchen knives in the home? Scissors? Ice picks? Corkscrews (can't have angry terr'rist french wine drinkers roaming the streets waving deadly cork-screws, can we)?
If the government feels that pocket knives are a serious enough threat to criminalize their ownership, you've got to wonder if it's to protect the people, or one small step - the camel's nose, so to speak - in a program to protect the government FROM the people. Unlike firearms there certainly hasn't been any huge public outcry to control, never mind ban, folding knives as dangerous, which makes move strange enough to raise suspicions about its' possible motivation.
Suspicious enough that, if I were in the US, I'd be thinking that maybe now would be a good time to either emigrate or exercise the rights available under the second amendment (while they're still available) - because once stupidity gets THIS entrenched, there's not much hope of reason prevailing, and it's logical to expect further "clamp-downs".
It also makes me wonder if the government isn't trying to reduce the potential damage from wide-spread civil unrest in the wake of the financial collapse of, say, California, because something like a ban on pen-knives and other folding knives is neither "business as usual" nor reasonable. It sounds more like a case of "make criminals out of everyone, and you can better control them", and "now that we've banned pocket knives, let's see what else we can get the sheeple to swallow."
I have a folding utility knife with replaceable blade that I use pretty much exclusively to trim paper and plastic backing boards for mounting photos - this would become illegal to bring into the US by car, or to own in many states; transportation across state lines would become a federal offense, as many writers have pointed out.
"Lets make criminals of boy scouts on camping trips!" There's a real plan to enhance security
The way I see it, that they would even propose such a rule change shows just how strange things have already gotten, and how much further the powers-that-be expect things to deteriorate.
Think of the children (Score:1)
Funnily enough people survived for thousands of years without the need for folding knives. If you don't use them to kill people then you don't have anything to worry about.
Re: (Score:2)
Here, let me fix that for you:
This is slashdot - when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, many (most?) will need the <sarcasm> and <humor> tags ...
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This is slashdot - when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, many (most?) will need the and " tags ...
Unfortunately it dampens the effect. It's like riding a Harley with training wheels. The fact that all my SARCASM tags turn invisible doesn't help." Anyways, if somebody can't differentiate sarcasm from reality then they've got more serious problems, like frontotemporal dementia [slashdot.org].
In the end it doesn't matter, because if just one child gets killed with a folding knife, then that is one child too many.
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I might have needed those tags if it weren't for the "Think of the children" subject line.
I don't see how this is any more ridiculous than the laws against switchblades to begin with, let alone the ongoing crusade against the second amendment, blue laws, obscenity laws, prohibition of marijuana, expanded interpretation of child pornography laws (a 16 year old girl sending naked pictures of herself to her boyfriend can be found guilty of distributing child porn?), etc.
Really, the only difference between this
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Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head.
Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead.
Ban carpentry tools!
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must have been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight
Oh Christ! (Score:1)
"80% of the US population no longer believes their government is working for them.."
"72% say they want health care reform..."
"11% believe congress is doing a good job..."
BLA BLA BLA!!! Bullshit!
Congress achieved over 95% reelection, and 98.6% of the electorate voted for the party in 08. Those are the only numbers that even come close to speaking the truth about how people feel about the government.
Stop listening to and parroting those stupid polls. They mean nothing! I'll start believing that crap when the
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A lot can change in half a year. GM and Chrysler went bankrupt, for example. The mortgage mess is clearly no longer just sub-prime and alt-a. And then there's this ...
Health care reform that gives everyone an affordable plan is DOA. The money isn't there, and it won't be next year either. Or any time during Obama's term.
Bad timing, bad luck, and bad economic policy (large-scale bail-outs, which are straight out of the Reaganomics trickle-down policy handbook) killed it.
People had high expectations - not
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A lot can change in half a year.
Nothing has changed for a hundred years or more. It's business as usual.
The stage was set for him. And the audience laps it up. And that 98% approval rating will continue as it has during my entire lifetime, going back to Eisenhower. And I'm sure it goes back long before that. People who complain about the government while voting for either faction are full of it. Real health care reform was never on the table. Only a fool would believe it ever was. And luck never played a pa
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Obama has already set the stage to be a second Jimmy Carter.
I wouldn't go that far, he is still insanely popular and the missteps so far are no worse than President Clinton's first 6 months in office (or Reagan's for that matter).
Furthermore unlike during the Carter Administration or the first two years of the Clinton Administration the Republican party has taken a detour into crazytown. There is no clear leadership, the party is eating its own by throwing anyone with broad electoral appeal under the bus, and the "leadership" voices you do hear sound like they escap
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I'm thinking that it'll be more along the lines of Hilary 2012 when I say Obama == "Second Jimmy Carter."
Talk about sub-optimal - Now I feel really dirty.
While a large part of the deficit can be laid firmly on the Bush doorstep, the GM bailout, the continuing woes it's going to cause the US car industry, as well as the huge deficits for the other bail-outs, and the failed monetary policy ... someone's going to have to take the hit for it, and "the buck stops here" for a reason.
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the GM bailout, the continuing woes it's going to cause the US car industry, as well as the huge deficits for the other bail-outs, and the failed monetary policy ... someone's going to have to take the hit for it, and "the buck stops here" for a reason.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
If GM and Chrysler had been told to piss up a rope the fallout would likely have completely disrupted the entire global supply chain for car makers, heavy truck makers, and even heavy equipment makers. Shutting that entire sector of the economy down would have spilled over into the companies who make basic materials like steel, aluminum, glass, rubber, etc. Also into things like electronics (the auto industry is the largest customer for electronic components). Person
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Much of it DID shut down - GM and Chrysler closed their plants and left their suppliers high and dry with their bankruptcy re-org filings. If they had been liquidated, the money ($100 billion) would have been more than enough to keep ALL the supply chain liquid for the next 2 years. It would have also perm
I'm not surprised (Score:2)
When I was working on cellular base station firmware, back when Nortel was a major player the cryptotgraphic algorithms used to process calls were classified as munitions by the US government. We used to say that it might be considered a munition if you intend to beat the enemy over the head with the rather weighty specifications....