We've got to do something - even though it'll never work!

I see politicians are up to their usual shenanigans again.  This time it's in formerly great Britain.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: "We are announcing new measures to combat knife crime and the devastating impact it has on families, individuals and communities.

"We are going to be consulting on new legislation so that people can't buy knives online without having their identity checked.

"At the moment you have to do it by the click of a button. What we are proposing is that if you want to buy a knife online it has to be collected from a place where you have to show your ID.

"We have evidence that young people have been able to buy knives without verifying their ID and I want to stop that."

. . .

The new drive will also aim to close off a loophole that means police can be powerless to act if they discover knives in someone's home.

A ban on the possession of outlawed weapons such as zombie knives and knuckledusters on private property would mean officers can seize them and make arrests.

Any restrictions will be drawn up so that those who keep weapons for a legitimate purpose, such as cultural items or antiques, are not penalised.

There's more at the link.

I've written about this utterly worthless approach on several occasions, particularly as it relates to firearms.  Back in 2009 I pointed out:

You can't stop criminal actions by banning things. You can only stop them by stopping the people who commit them. The tools used are basically irrelevant.

. . .

Cars don't cause accidents: they're caused by road conditions, or mechanical failure, or flawed driving technique, or an impaired driver, or a combination of these factors. Aircraft don't cause plane crashes: they're caused by weather conditions, or mechanical failure, or pilot error, or an impaired pilot, or a combination of these factors. Guns don't cause massacres: those are caused by human beings deciding to commit murder. Whether they do so with a gun, or a bomb, or a fire, or an axe, or a knife, is basically irrelevant. In every case, the driver, or pilot, or murderer, may be sane or insane, impaired or unimpaired, rational or irrational: but there's always a human involved. The car, or plane, or gun, is simply a tool in their hands.

. . .

Again and again and again, the instrument is not the cause of the problem; the instrument is not guilty of the problem; and banning the instrument won't solve the problem!

Again, more at the link.

Politicians realize that to be re-elected, they have to make people feel that they're in control, and the country is safe in their hands;  so they act, and react, and posture, as soon as a problem reaches the public eye.  The fact that the measures they propose will do absolutely nothing to solve the real problem - human nature - is neither here nor there.

If criminals can't get their hands on one tool, they'll find another.  Witness the recent spate of acid attacks in the UK - a crime that was vanishingly rare until very recently.  I'm willing to bet a large part of it can be laid at the door of 'knife control'.  Denied access to their former tool of choice, some criminals simply turned to acid instead.  Ban or control acid?  They'll turn to gasoline, tossing a cupful of it at a passerby, followed by a lighted match.  Ban or control gasoline?  Good luck driving your vehicle!

Prisons are one of the most rigidly controlled environments in human society, an authoritarian's wet dream;  but even there, knife regulations, even total bans, don't work.  I've worked in prisons, and recovered so-called 'shanks' from inmates and their cells.  They make their knives out of toothbrush handles, bits of wire, stolen air-conditioning vent covers . . . anything they can find.  We had to order feeding trays and drinking 'glasses' for the inmates made out of a specially brittle plastic, that would break up rather than take an edge if you tried to sharpen it.  I've seen a very deadly shank, used in a prison murder, that was made out of an eight-inch length of rebar.  The convict stole the metal from a work site within the prison, then spent close to a year rubbing it furtively against concrete, bricks, and other masonry every opportunity he got - except in his cell, of course, where the damage might have led to a search.  After a lot of hard work, his rusty bit of scrap steel had a deadly sharp point on it . . . as one of his prison enemies found out to his (terminal) cost.

Controlling a thing cannot and will not work.  Those with evil intent will always find another thing, another way.  The Home Secretary must surely know that . . . but she doesn't care.  She's a politician.  She knows she has to be seen to be doing something - no matter how useless she knows it will be.  The latter is the least of her concerns.

Why anyone votes for conniving, lying grifters like these, irrespective of party or policy, I just don't know . . .




Peter