Bag's Rants

Treating the symptoms not the disease.

There seem to be many articles in the news over the last few months regarding crime such as shootings and stabbings. It seems that many of us are ignoring our laws regarding the possession of weapons which shoot and stab.

Anyway, it seems that we are yet again following a process that has worked so well with guns with knives. By setting mandatory minimum sentencing. Now I remember reading a while ago that the Government were concerned about the number of well to do people, company directors and the like found with pistols for protection. I never seen the conclusion of that discussion because I didn't come across it again. A search came up with millions of records so I gave up. Anyway, it now looks like they are looking at following a failed process with, err, the same process with knives. How typical.

I must confess it is a bit of mystery to me how our Government can ignore facts and continue down the path they are taking. But who am I? I am not a qualified politician. As an engineer, in a way, I tend to examine things and work out a way forward then examine that for repercussions and only if satisfied it will cure the original problem and not create any more do we implement it. Politicians on the other hand are professional liars and can argue black is white with no evidence whatsoever and are bound to follow the process in the politicians dilemma. Let's not confuse the issue with facts.

Now I don't know about you but I have carried knives around for years. In 1989 I, as well as every UK employee, was given a Swiss army knife by the Swiss firm I was working for as a thank you for massive profits that year. I've carried on my keyring ever since. It has two blades each being below the current legal minimum length. Will I need to replace this with a Swiss Army screwdriver? But screwdrivers and nail files can be used as stabbing tools as well. In addition I have another knife that was longer than the minimum by about 2mm which I ground down to about 1mm below the minimum and made really sharp. I use this for cutting string, opening boxes and letters and general cutting chunks out of things, although of course not people, yet.

If this new law comes into force it looks like it will mean I will no longer be able to carry the knives around. So the development of our ancestors of tools to perform specific actions will have been wasted all because some people use them for bad purposes. History, even over the last few years, has shown that when something is difficult to get we find alternatives. So in five years time we will be reading about mandatory minimum sentencing for carrying screwdrivers.

Now what they should really do is, no surprise here, punish those that use any weapons to attack other human beings. Put them in prison for mandatory minimums and let the law abiding people carry what they want as useful tools.


Q: What is the difference between a skunk lying in the middle of a road and a politician lying in the middle of the road?

A: There are skid marks in front of the skunk.

posted by Bag @ 1:00 pm