Ban the Banned

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Suzi Quatro could have done something brilliant with this title.

Our Ruddy Home Secretary has decided to ban ‘zombie knives’. Take a look at what she wants to ban.

Three throwing knives, useless in unpracticed hands. They are fixed blade so are already illegal to cary. Already banned.

Some stupidly thin wobbly-edged blade that you could probaby bend in half with your hands. Still, it’s long and half-sharp and illegal to carry in public. Already banned.

An axe shaped so as to be pretty much useless and again, too thin to be practical. Also illegal to carry in public anyway, as are all axes unless you’re off to chop some wood. Already banned.

A lurid green version of a liner-lock knife. Used to be common but it’s now illegal to have a lock knife in public. Already banned.

Finally, at the bottom, some kind of fishing implement I think. It has no purpose other than slashing and is the most non-excusable offensive weapon of the lot. Even before all the other things were banned, I’d bet you’d have been arrested for having that. Anyway, it’s definitely already banned.

Look again at those ‘weapons’. The throwing knives are dangerous if you can use them. The liner-lock is dangerous in the wrong hands. The fishing thing is an obvious weapon. It has no other use. Except maybe for clearing weeds from between patio slabs but it doesn’t look like it would be very good at that. A crack hoe would do a better job.

The axe is a useless toy. It’s far too thin and light for any practical application and even as a weapon it’s not going to do what a cheap splitting or garden cutting axe would do. As for the ‘sword’, come at me with that and I’ll beat you with a broom. It’s pressed steel sheet. That’s why you can buy these things for under £10. They are crap. Sharpened at the front half only and it won’t hold an edge. It’s cheap soft steel. The sharpened bit has non-sharp notches cut into it for no reason at all. It is all just for show. I wouldn’t accept one as a gift, never mind buy it. If gang members are really bragging they have these, they are a laughing stock.

These ‘zombie weapons’ are ornamental toys. I have some ornamental swords that look really impressive but if you try to use them in a real fight, the blade is likely to come off the handle. You grab one of those. I’ll grab the kitchen chopping knives. I will win.

Nobody, as far as I can see in the news, has ever used one of these toys in a real attack. Nevertheless, carrying any of them in public is already illegal and frankly, why would you? Aside from the lock knife, none of them have any practical use and none of them are any use in self defence either. The whole ‘zombie knife’ shit is just an excuse to disarm us more.

On June 1, 2018, footage emerged of a cyclist using a zombie knife to try and smash the window of a car in an apparent road rage row.

That was not a ‘zombie knife’. That was a real and very dangerous big knife. What they propose to ban has nothing to do with that already fucking illegal massive knife. It’s just an excuse.

A long list of dangerous weapons that glamorise violence will also be included in the total ban, putting them on the same legal footing as unlicensed firearms.
They include sword sticks, butterfly knives and blowpipes, as well as a range of martial arts weapons such as deathstars and handclaws.

Sword sticks and butterfly knives have been banned in the UK for many years. I used to use a site called Blades-UK which dropped those from its listings 20 or more years ago. Because they were no longer legal to sell. Yeah. Already banned. Pity I missed out, I’d have liked a butterfly knife.

Deathstars and handclaws come under ‘fixed blade knives’ and are already illegal. I know nothing of blowpipes but I bet they aren’t hard to make.

Our Ruddy Home Secretary wants to make it illegal to have anything sharp at home, whether you take it on the street or not.

I mean, come on. I have a scythe. In this garden, in summer, I need it. It has a grass blade and a ditch blade for the wooded parts. I have oilstones and whetstones and a peening kit. Grinding wheels and files. I have the means to make a tyre iron sharp. And we are to be scared of lurid green toys?

What this country needs is not more bans.

What this country needs is a government that is not entirely populated by idiots.

Yeah. Not happening, is it?

31 thoughts on “Ban the Banned”

  1. In 1988, in Borneo, I’ve learned how to use a blowpipe. I lived with the Iban tribe for some time.
    A blowpipe measures approximately 186 cm long. The hollowed shaft is hand carved and drilled 8-9mm diameter from a dark native hardwood hand selected for the purpose. A dangerously accurate blow pipe in the right hands! (especially if you know – as I do – how to make the poison from plants growing in the jungle and dip the arrow into the poisonous paste. Death occurs within minutes.)
    This is why the Japanese army never completely conquered Borneo. They stayed at the coast, because venturing into the jungle would have meant instant death. The Dayak tribes barely accepted the Dutch, but another conqueror was too much for them.

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    • Sounds similar to how the Nubians (IIRC) repelled the initial Arab Muslim scouting/slave-raiding expeditions into their territory. They never fought – they never gave the jihadis a chance to fight.

      They were excellent hunters with a bow, even in the dark of night, and excellent horsemen. They just picked the Arabs off, one by one, and vanished.

      Glorious martyrdom for Allah or Emporer loses some of its luster when the dirty infidel/other settles into hunting you like a rabbit.

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  2. “The throwing knives are dangerous if you can use them. ”
    Actually no not very much. They are fine for flicking across the garden into a piece of soft wood but that’s about the end of their usefulness. They are at best practice throwing knives for getting your techniques right. Throw them in anger at an attacker and chances are they will just bounce off unless you score a perfect hit in the throat etc…to quote that famous knife thrower Wille Garvin: “By Christ Princess, you’d have to be dead lucky!”. Its the weight that matters , that’s what all the wannabe ninjas forget. Serious knives for throwing weigh upwards of what 300g+ ? You get even the butt end of that thrown hard at your chest and it will probably stop you long enough for the second to hit home.
    It’s also the steel that matters, throwing knives need to be sharp, i mean really really sharp, and they need to keep that sharpness throw after throw. Those ‘dangerous’ (what isn’t?) throwing knives are Xmas stocking fillers, nothing more.

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    • You’re right, those are most likely pressed from sheet metal and sharpened. Maybe not even sharpened, they look more like the kind of thing a zombie film geek would hang on a wall.

      The easiest to use are weight-forward ones where the blade contains most of the weight, but htat makes the blade thick so it won’t penetrate far. Still hurt like a bastard though 😉

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    • To be honest you’d be better off with a collection of stones, such as were kept on the walls of Roman forts to discourage unwelcome visitors. These were round river cobbles, about hand sized, with two sides flattened so they could be stacked on a flat surface.

      As long as you had a decent throwing arm and the height advantage of walls, there was little better for encouraging intruders to be on their way. If you wanted to get serious a slingshot was much more effective, but needed a bit more room to get up to power.

      As far as I know, rocks aren’t banned yet. Things like staff-slings probably would be, if rioters knew how to make and use them and police had ever encountered them.

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  4. Something about the cyclist going after the lad in the Polo wasn’t quite what it was described. Cyclists – so it seemed to me – was after the guy in the car. Later knew that and were it not for the person with the dash cam blocking his way, would have made it.

    There was a coldness about the way the knife guy set about the car. No yelping at being knocked off his bike, no hauling wing mirrors or busting lights. IMO he was after one thing only and equipped to terminate it.

    I suspect the car lad’s found another town, even country, to rest his weary bones.

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      • After a recent stabbing at a night club in New York the suspect was described as, paraphrasing, ‘male in his twenties wearing a white shirt and a hat’. Comments on the article mostly consisted of a guessing game regarding which of three most likely groups he may have belonged two. By being evasive in what they tell us, they are teaching people more and more to recognize the evasiveness.

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    • At the start it looks like the driver hit the cyclist first – but that does not excuse an attack with a big knife. So basically I’d file it under ‘Battle of the Twats’.

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  6. I clicked the link to the article before reading down. Got as far as the first photo and thought: Are they serious?

    Like you said: Junk. Crap. Silly toys fashioned from cheap alloys into a six year old child’s idea of how a weapon is shaped. Costume jewelry. Here in the States that stuff collects in secondhand shops, like so much detritus.

    But what comes next on the list? Pointed sticks? Sticks that could conceivably be made pointed? A special license and registry for anyone buying steel plate or stock, or an angle grinder?

    The political class and other useful idiots in Britain have supported the breeding of ferals, then the importation of more, foreign ferals. They’ve created a problem. Now who looks to cash in on that problem?

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    • They are now talking about criminalising possession of acid because of all the acid attacks in London.

      Nobody has given any thought as to what is in car batteries…

      I fully expect the legislation to cover vinegar and cheese too. We really are being run by morons.

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  7. When in the big city I use my German style walking stick “to help my gammy leg”. It’s proper sturdy and has a tungsten carbide tip not a rubber pad.

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