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Online sellers of knives and acids face up to a year in prison under measures published yesterday (6/20) aimed at making it more difficult for young people to obtain deadly weapons.

A new criminal offence bans the delivery of blades and corrosive substances to homes, after warnings that age checks could be bypassed online.

Under the Offensive Weapons Bill, purchasers will have to collect items in person to prove they are over 18 and online sellers face up to 51 weeks in prison and a fine if they do post such items to a residential address.

I believe the goal there is to enact enough legislation so that no one will ever be injured or killed by anyone with any thing, ever and they will all live happily ever after.

Fear leads to suffering.

These laws are like gun laws on LAFO's, don't address the real problem and crims still get hold of what they want.

Another lefty knee jerk reaction!

I am so glad we ditched them 250 years ago....

If we could just lock everyone in padded rooms at birth, and only let them out after death, for burial, we could dramatically reduce accidents and make everyone much safer.

easier to make a law than to create a society where violence isn't seen as an answer.

I believe that in modern societies, we do things backards. The opposite of war isn't peace, it's trade. In society, we use and have always used punishment to guide behavior when we should be using education. In my opinion.

sal

The world is a dangerous place. It’s the way it was and the way it will be. That way, and not some other way.

I think education is the only hope in this and many other current matters which are spinning out of control.

Obviously there has been an influx of poor acid etching of blades in the UK and they just want it stopped! I guess they will have to go back to using mustard...

sal wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:34 pm

I believe that in modern societies, we do things backards. The opposite of war isn't peace, it's trade. In society, we use and have always used punishment to guide behavior when we should be using education. In my opinion.

sal

Sal, a good friend who does biblical counseling with alcohol and drug addicts, himself a former addict, has a similar view. His favorite rhetorical question is "When is a drunk (or junkie) no longer a drunk? When he quits drinking, or when he no longer has the desire to drink?" Your view is also supported by evidence based practices in psychology. We can punish people, but that's just a temporary solution that's a reaction to their behaviors. When peoples' desires are changed through education and awareness, we see long lasting changes in their behaviors. Education and awareness can time and they're hard to do. Our instant gratification society prefers the immediate results of the quick fix bandaid of punishment, ignoring that we have to keep throwing bandaids on the symptoms of the problem, rather than doing the hard work of finding and treating the root cause. I'll get off my soap box now.

People can still buy knives online, you just cannot have them delivered to your home, you have to pick them up from a local pick up point as you would if you miss a delivery. Possible silver lining is that shady delivery drivers don't get an opportunity to steal your package or lose it. This only affects UK retailers so you can probably still order from EU sellers as per normal.

The restrictions on buying acid products are simply an attempt to stop people using it as a weapon and require people to show id when purchasing and that they are over 18.

Johnnie1801 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 2:57 am

The restrictions on buying acid products are simply an attempt to stop people using it as a weapon and require people to show id when purchasing and that they are over 18.

All the while enough chemicals under the kitchen sink and in the garage that could be used. Or if you have a swimming pool !

500Nitro wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:03 am

Johnnie1801 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 2:57 am

The restrictions on buying acid products are simply an attempt to stop people using it as a weapon and require people to show id when purchasing and that they are over 18.

All the while enough chemicals under the kitchen sink and in the garage that could be used. Or if you have a swimming pool !

I don't know what's wrong with people today but there just seem to be never ending stories of jilted lovers dousing their ex partners in drain cleaner, teenagers using water pistols filled with acid to rob people in the street and people going into night clubs with plastic water bottles filled with corrosive substances and throwing it over innocent people. The injuries can be horrific.

Johnnie1801 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:20 am

500Nitro wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:03 am

Johnnie1801 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 2:57 am

The restrictions on buying acid products are simply an attempt to stop people using it as a weapon and require people to show id when purchasing and that they are over 18.

All the while enough chemicals under the kitchen sink and in the garage that could be used. Or if you have a swimming pool !

I don't know what's wrong with people today but there just seem to be never ending stories of jilted lovers dousing their ex partners in drain cleaner, teenagers using water pistols filled with acid to rob people in the street and people going into night clubs with plastic water bottles filled with corrosive substances and throwing it over innocent people. The injuries can be horrific.

It's nothing new. We just think it's worse now because news only reports on the bad things, and this "news" is available 24/7 on TV, on the internet, and on the smart phones we've attached to ourselves. It's the " Availability Heuristic", which Harvard psychology professor Dr. Steven Pinker explains quite well in this video - https://nowthisnews.com/videos/politics ... -not-worse

I wonder if the people supporting this bill know how wide they're casting the net. The bill as drafted refers not to knives, but to "bladed articles" which include anything with a blade, a point or an edge. That's everything from woodworking or gardening tools to scissors, pencil sharpeners, corkscrews.

it appears that after hundreds of letters and emails and MP Meetings they have allowed for a "defense" (similar to an exemption) for certain articles,
oddly enough antiques are not included as "defendable" items for now (the bill isn't approved and passed yet IIRC)

ThePeacent wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:24 am

.. (the bill isn't approved and passed yet IIRC)

Correct, the bill has had it's first reading but has not been debated in the Commons yet. Still a way to go but given the government's attitude I can't see it changing much as it goes through. It would take some brave MPs to risk being seen "supporting knives".

tvenuto wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 21, 2018 5:39 pm

The world is a dangerous place. It’s the way it was and the way it will be. That way, and not some other way.

I think this is the nub of the matter. Western civilization has managed to make the world a somewhat less dangerous place, but it will always be a place where order battles chaos. My health team and cancer drugs (thanks, Big Pharma!) are keeping me alive but like everyone else, I’m in a dangerous place and my life is finite. I continue to believe that most people don’t accept this basic fact. Most want to live a long, long time and never be confronted with danger, death or violence. But, that isn’t how nature works.

Education won’t help. We have the most well educated global population in history and yet a brief survey of the last hundred years will show that education could not avert world wide catastrophe. Educated people staffed the highest ranks of the Nazi and Communist regimes and that didn’t stop them from trying to destroy the world. Some people resist education, and some just can’t benefit from it or resist it on ideological grounds. Nice idea, but unworkable.

Banning items that can cause injury or death will do little to avert that. Humans will always find a way. I suspect there is not real solution to this so-called “problem”. I am tending more these days to favor Robert A. Heinlein’s idea that an armed society is a polite society. I recall the Israeli Defense Minister’s advice to his citizens in the midst of the sudden knife attacks in Jerusalem. Get a gun.

UK can ban knives, chisels, screwdrivers, corkscrews, hobby knives, razor blades and broken bottles until the cows come home. I don’t think it will make much difference except to irritate a large segment of the population, in which event, there will probably be consequences.

Shimon Peres said, "There is no path to peace, Peace is the path". This type of logic, I believe has merit.

sal