Miscellaneous Tech News

PenguinWrangler

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@fiyafly said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

@scottalanmiller The overarching point is more of "do you think rounding off kitchen knives will curb violent crime?"

If the issue is spur of the moment domestic crime, which I believe that it is, then I believe that it will curb the degree of damage done from violent crime, yes.

Is it good to regulate to that degree? That's a different matter. Do I think it will help the real world issue, yes I do. Do I think it's overstepping bounds for legitimate tools that people use for cooking, yes I do.

So it is a balance. How many "they just grabbed whatever was at hand" violent crimes do you want to curb vs. how annoying do you want it to be for normal people to gut fish? It also would likely reduce accidents in the kitchen. I know that having access to pointed knives in my own home is a problem. My wife swings them about wildly because she can't remember that she has a knife in her hand if she starts talking, the kids can't remember to stay out of the kitchen while other people are cooking, knives fall often, and no one but me will set one down anywhere but point out and at the edge of the counter.

I sure wish we only had rounded knives around here.

I have to disagree with your reasoning here. It sounds like in your household you might benefit from buying non-pointy kitchen knives. I don't have that problem. Have had pointy kitchen knives around me all my life and my children's lives and we are all fine. We should have the freedom to decide what is best for each of us. The London mayor wants to grind down knives is blaming knives for the increasing violent crime and not the actions of the person holding the knife. People will always find ways to kill, harm and maim their fellow man. Someone willing to stab someone with a knife is already breaking the law, a law saying you can't have pointy knives doesn't mean anything to them. They are criminals and disobey laws such as no pointy knives, or better yet do not assault your fellow man, period. I was a prison guard and I found a homemade semiauto pistol in the prison (illegal to have firearms inside a prison, but imagine that a criminal didn't obey that law either) that was made in the maintenance area. We tested it and it was a working pistol. Got about 5 shots off before it jammed. I am a licensed concealed carry holder. I walk around with a loaded 9mm on my hip all the time. The gun has yet to magically hurt someone. I hate to say it as much good as there is in my area and there are good things about St. Louis, crime is out of control. A house a few blocks from me was a drug house, this was in a nice sleepy suburban area. A home just a few miles from us had a violent robbery happen. I refuse to be a victim. Taking away weapons from law abiding citizens is never the answer.

scottalanmiller

@penguinwrangler said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

We should have the freedom to decide what is best for each of us.

That's the issue with knives, we choose what we feel is best for others. The people in question aren't the buyers or choosers of the knives, but those that don't choose them.

So there are a few questions... one, why do we feel that people should get to choose this for themselves, that doesn't seem logical as a starting point - the average person neither cares about, nor knows about, nor is thoughtful about knife purchases. Second, why is the person buying the knife assumed to get the important rights rather than the people against whom a knife are likely to be wielded? This seems logically backwards. If there is one person who should have fewer decision rights, it would be the knife buyer, surely. And third, if you were to action such a decision process to truly allow people to decide what should be bought, the only means for society to do that is through the government actioning the will of the people.

To me "people should be allowed to decide what to buy" would potentially look exactly like this - the government restricting the availability of knife types.

Not arguing that the decision is good or bad, just pointing out where the logical results of giving the people choices ends up.

scottalanmiller

@penguinwrangler said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

I refuse to be a victim. Taking away weapons from law abiding citizens is never the answer.

You can't refuse to be a victim. It doesn't make any sense. Having access to pointy knives does nothing to alter your chances of being a victim, but other people having trivial access to them without forethought does.

You cannot refuse to be a victim. But you can make being one less likely. And that's the idea behind the law.

NerdyDad

Anybody can be killed by anything. The general population is looking at this the wrong way. If we outlaw guns, then criminals are going to begin using knives or bombs. Try to outlaw those, and people will begin to use rope, or cars, or construction equipment. The point it, where do you draw the line at "keeping people safe". Criminals will always have guns. Why? Because they are criminals. They obviously show no care for the law. They are going to do what they want to do.

This isn't a government issue that can be solved with a law. This is a society issue on how we respect and treat one another.

scottalanmiller

@nerdydad said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Anybody can be killed by anything. The general population is looking at this the wrong way. If we outlaw guns, then criminals are going to begin using knives or bombs. Try to outlaw those, and people will begin to use rope, or cars, or construction equipment. The point it, where do you draw the line at "keeping people safe".

Well, I think the rational place is where it is statically shown that limiting access to things that purposefully or accidentally hurt innocent people (third parties, not the people choosing to have things) stops making people safe. Until then, all arguments are empty because they are based on "we don't care about the innocent as much as we care about the guilty" and that's an untenable ethical position in any system.

It's a fine point of logic to say that bad people will always circumvent the law. But stating that makes the outlandish assumption that that's the basis for the counterargument, which it is not, so has no purpose.

The point is making weapons harder to obtain, less available, because doing so has shown to improve safety.

Switch the argument, once obtaining weapons makes you less safe, what kind of insanity would make anyone - individuals or government, continue allowing it? It makes no sense.

In fact, we could define the desire for wanting weapons under the situation that they lower safety to itself define a scenario where the people desiring them should be ruled out from being allowed to have them for that purpose alone - because they are reacting emotionally, rather than rationally, to the ownership or possession of weapons.

wrx7m

@nerdydad said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Anybody can be killed by anything. The general population is looking at this the wrong way. If we outlaw guns, then criminals are going to begin using knives or bombs. Try to outlaw those, and people will begin to use rope, or cars, or construction equipment. The point it, where do you draw the line at "keeping people safe". Criminals will always have guns. Why? Because they are criminals. They obviously show no care for the law. They are going to do what they want to do.

This isn't a government issue that can be solved with a law. This is a society issue on how we respect and treat one another.

Case in "point" -
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scottalanmiller

@nerdydad said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

This isn't a government issue that can be solved with a law. This is a society issue on how we respect and treat one another.

That's not really true. Crimes come from individuals, not societies. Societies act through law, individuals through actions. You can't solve individuals by altering society. But societies can decide that they feel they should respect each other and make laws to that effect.

So really, I feel your statement is in conflict. The law to limit the casual availability of knives is, in fact, society taking action to say that we recognize the need for respecting the rights and safety of others more than we respect our personal rights to wield unnecessarily dangerous objects for no logical reason.

In a society that respects each other, and recognizes through logic that humans are emotional and societal norms alone cannot change that under any conditions, and that laws must be used to action societal respect... would logically do exactly the thing that you don't want them to do.

It is the role of government to do exactly things like this. And yes, laws are there to solve many things, and this presumably is a good move. It's there to help protect people from themselves. Most importantly, not individuals from themselves, but innocent third parties from people who didn't worry about the safety of their knives because it was someone else that was at risk because of their decision.

If you want to make society recognize respect, this is how it has to take form.

scottalanmiller

@nerdydad said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

Criminals will always have guns. Why? Because they are criminals. They obviously show no care for the law. They are going to do what they want to do.

That makes no sense. In countries where guns aren't allowed, criminals almost never have guns.

Criminals will always be willing to break the law. That criminals can break the law is a completely different matter and not universal. There is a reason why in China, for example, gun crimes essentially don't exist. Because getting a gun is hard, hiding a gun is nearly impossible - because there isn't any smokescreen of "right to carry" making it impossible for people to identify threats or not until it is too late.

If you carry a gun in China, you will probably get caught. Guns for criminals is uniquely a US problem because of our insane gun laws for non-criminals.

scottalanmiller

It's fine to be pro-gun ownership. You can argue the value of guns over safety. But what can't be argued is that that is what is required. Broad availability of weapons reduces safety, that's established. Americans broadly believe that individual rights are far more important than societal safety. It's a unique ethical stance shared by no other large society. But it is an ethics position, and ethics positions aren't right or wrong, just different or the same.

But that has to be understood as a basis for any discussion. Personally, I believe no individual right is ethical if it comes at the cost of the rights of others. I believe people should be free within their own space, until that freedom comes at the cost of localized lessening of freedoms of others.

Basically - all people should be equally free. Laws should never favour the freedom of the rich or the powerful at the cost of the weak or poor; or favour those willing to take away freedom over those willing to respect it. But that's counter to the standard American ethical position which favours "as much freedom as one can take from others."

PenguinWrangler

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

That's the issue with knives, we choose what we feel is best for others. The people in question aren't the buyers or choosers of the knives, but those that don't choose them.

What exactly do you mean by this? Me choosing to have a nice set of pointy Kitchen cutlery in my house does not mean it is best for you, nor would I ever say it was. You are free to have or not have any kitchen cutlery. Only you can determine that.

PenguinWrangler

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

But what can't be argued is that that is what is required. Broad availability of weapons reduces safety,

Then why does California have higher crime rate than Texas? Guns are much much more available in Texas than in California.

dafyre

There's also the point that anything can harm you accidentally -- Paper cuts anybody? How about toothpicks?

Anything can be turned into a weapon too. A pencil... a Pen... a rock, a stick... I'd have to try real hard with a toothpick... less so with it's larger cousin Clue by Four...

There comes a point where it becomes absurd to try and legislate things away... Don't make something fool proof... cause a bigger fool will always come along.

momurda

@penguinwrangler That isnt true. In America, you can buy a gun anywhere at any time. California has just as many guns as Texas. the higher crime rate(if that is even true, i doubt it) is likely due to higher poverty rate.