AHPP

Do you see the contradiction? Yes on the firearms btw but let’s stay on topic. I was trying to point out that knife crime isn’t the same as knife ownership and now the thread’s going down that rabbit hole.

Not a wildlife trust place was it?

1) I carried a knife near 35 cars today and slashed the tyres of none of them. 2) Some cunt recently walked down my mate’s road and kicked the pavement side wingmirror off every car. Should the perpetrator need a licence for his feet? Should I?

Do keep posting things like this please. Very interesting.

No but it solved the problems (gangsters, quality, cost etc) various governments created in various eras of prohibition. That's one side of it though. I'd be hugely interested to hear what you think about drug prohibition from the addiction and health point of view.

I'm stubborn because I think I'm right about something that I think many people are dangerously wrong about. These are big arguments, trading liberty for security etc. I'm aware that sounds a bit exciting for a kid with a penknife but the arguments it raises are serious.

There's a film called '13th' that goes into the modern slavery aspects of prisons. It's like all the other documentary films of that ilk but well worth watching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)

Maybe they would. With the supermarkets cornering the drug market, they'll turn to competing for sales of moody carbon credits or something.

This thread was started about people hurting each other and the causes and you're concerned about schoolkids' stick whittling tools. Yeah, agree to disagree.

I'm inclined to believe it's drug business related. What do you reckon?

I know what reductio ad absurdum is and I'm not doing it. My argument that knives don't leap out of pockets and do harm themselves is a logical answer to your suggestion that they might. As for the nightclub, I wouldn't EXPECT to be let in anywhere. Private property, contractual terms. It so happens that I've taken a knife into loads of clubs and haven't stabbed anyone. The time I wore a burka out in Sunderland was probably more dangerous. I left my bomb vest at home though. Just as well. It might have gone off by itself.

The papers will probably be interested in a story as rare as a business partnership that doesn't go sour. Pleased it worked for you.

How about the possibility that someone they're going to stab might be carrying a pistol? I can't see anyone on this thread taking issue with that...

I've no idea. It's none of my business. I used to use mine to cut cheese, do up loose screws on wobbly chairs and threaten to cut first formers for their tuck money. As far as I recall anyway. If I went to a nightclub with a haircut that didn't fit , I'd be fine if they didn't let me in. It's their club. They'll lose my custom though. It's not the same as (a)public places and (b)being told rather than being asked. Now imagine if I were to say this: "I'm a bit worried about the content of your pockets. You could use the keys to go into your house where you could sit and use the internet to find out where I live. You could then use your keys to get in your truck and then use your phone satnav to drive here and run me over when I go out tomorrow morning. I'd like your things confiscated. You could use them to hurt me." You'd think I was a twat for wanting to use the law to take your inanimate stuff from you when you only actually wanted to use it to do normal things. Why is it any different for something you don't see any use for but someone else might?

It’s not absurd. It’s logically and ideologically consistent. And you’re losing me. A knife sat in someone’s pocket isn’t an assault either. What’s your point? I said hurt, which covers a multitude of sins. It could be kill, it could be intimidate, or whatever in between. Don’t try and pretend there aren’t a million things out there that can be used to hurt (or whatever) that aren’t knives. If you want an example, cars. You can kill people sitting down. To your last point about appropriateness [of what you have in your pocket], I’d say that’s another one of those joys of minding your own business. Otherwise I want to know what’s in your pocket now and if I don’t like it I want it banned.

Seriously. Rough Hewn opened and concluded this argument a few posts up. Guns (or knives, cars, hammers, maces, belts, sticks etc etc) don’t kill people, rappers do. Mike Tyson doesn’t need a knife to hurt you, he can just bray on you with what he was born with. A four foot girl doesn’t need a knife to hurt you, she can spray chemicals in your eyes. If prevention is to be better than cure in the respect you suggest, let’s drown everyone at birth or at least medically paralyse them.

You don’t need to. It’s one of the joys of minding your own business.

Before anyone falls into the trap of equating carrying a knife with knife crime, remember they’re not the same. Carrying a knife and not using it for crime is not criminal. Same for guns.

If the tree cutting doesn’t work out, I’d come to your restaurant.

Get rid of incentives to do bad things. Taxes discourage work so people steal, black markets (for illegal drugs etc) preclude relatively peaceful legal dispute resolution so people use violence to settle disputes.

What was your meaty date snack recipe you mentioned ages ago? They sounded delicious.

Decriminalise and legalise drugs?

Are your affairs in order?

They’d be wrong.

It’s not a benefit. It’s the obviation of a disbenefit.