knives

Ellee Seymours wants a ban on knives to try and reduce the danger of being mugged, and being on the right of the political spectrum has been mugged by her Commentariat. We on the right don't particularly go for banning stuff. By knives she probably means knives that look ’scary’ rather than the potentially lethal cutlery in my kitchen. But this is not clear as rather a lot of cutlery being, as I recall, sold in shops and used in attacks.

I obviously didn’t mean kitchen knives, just the weapons sold in shops, the type used in these attacks.

However where you to try and ban knives that look scary the underclass will simply start using cutlery. Even if all pointy objects are banned all that will happen is that the underclass will be able to get hold of them as easily as ever (as they can with guns) with everybody else being forced to carve their roasts with a spoon. Something pointed out in the comments and at length by l'Ombre de l'Olivier.

50 years ago a group of youths with knives wouldn’t have been chavs out to mug you, they would have been the local scout troop. This is because 50 years ago there was much less crime. The difference is cultural and until the culture changes then banning anything will not work. It will probably make muggings and violence more likely as there is no longer the risk of a potential victim being armed in self defence. Personally I agree with Bishop Hill when he quotes AV Dicey saying 'Discourage self-help and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians' which is exactly was done, and the result that we are seeing.