And really, if they force the tips to be blunted, but the cutting edge is still there, now you’ve got people able to go around still killing, but by slicing instead of stabbing….

And I am sure Bryian could give many more examples of “innocent” household items that can just as easy be used as instruments of violence.

I think there’s been a thread on the Fabulist about the current movement to ban swords next. I think this will get tacked onto that.

Every piece of technology ever developed, from opposable thumbs, to pointed sticks, to intercontinental ballistic missles, to written language is a potential weapon. It’s the nature of the beast. Development means damage…or can anyway. I can, take a 300 pound weight lifter to his knees with a ball point pen. (what to do with him then is a good question though.)

Point is, psycho people will find ways to kill other people, and no amount of banning guns, swords, kitchen knives, cork screws, dental floss, or the blunted end of a 6 foot Belkin USB-2 device cable will make a difference in that.

I could banter on and on about prevention, education, and the perils of villification, but I fogot my soapbox, and I feel like I’d most likely be preaching to the choir, anyway.

I don’t figure I need Bry to tell us ways to kill folks with household items–I’m plenty able to come up with plenty of methods myself. In fact, we used to muse in culinary school, when left to our own devices, about how many ways we could off a random person (usually it was the class troublemaker or lazy-butt who didn’t do his fair share of cleaning at the end of class) using only food items, kitchen appliances, equipment or the contents of our knife kits. It was a morbid sort of thing to talk about, but it got us through peeling sixty pounds of potatoes or slicing cases of mushrooms at a stretch.

Yeah, Theresa–I thought of that one myself. If they don’t want people misusing kitchen tools, then bloody well give them something that is made to kill people–handguns. It is more efficient and takes less skill to use.

(I am not serious, btw–that there was meant as an ironic statement.)

Dan–you are preaching to the choir, but you preach well.

At any rate, if I were in the UK, they’d have to pry my chef’s knife from my cold, dead fingers….