Swiss Army Knife Champ.

The Guardian reports that, in response to the ever-shrinking range of personal liberty in European countries, Victorinox has plans underway for a new line of neutered, i.e. knifeless, pocket knives.

For more than a century, the Swiss army knife has been an essential piece of kit for everyone from picnickers and equestrians, to golfers and astronauts.

But now the maker of the pocket-knife, with its red or blue shell and multiple tools, has bowed to what an English judge last week called the “plague of knife crime” by designing a new range without blades.

In response to an increasing number of countries imposing bans or restrictions on carrying knives, Victorinox, the Swiss firm that produces the pocket tools, is in the early stages of developing the first range of bladeless products designed specifically for activities where a blade would not be required.

“We’re concerned about the increasing regulation of knives due to the violence in the world,” said Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of the family-run company.

“In some markets, the blade creates an image of a weapon. I have in mind creating a tool that would be useful for cyclists. Cyclists have a need for specific tools but not necessarily a blade,” he said. “We already have a tool specifically for golfers.”

Last week, Mr Justice Saini blamed the “plague of knife crime” in Bristol and surrounding areas for the murder of 16-year-old Mikey Roynon, a talented teenage rapper stabbed in the neck at a house party in Bath.

The same week, a 15-year-old boy who stabbed another teenager in the heart in full view of pupils leaving a primary school in Leeds, was found guilty of murder. …

Under UK law, a person can only carry a knife in public if it has a folding blade that is less than 3in (7.62cm) long.

For all other knives, it is illegal to carry them in public without a good reason, which can include needing the knife for work, wearing it as part of a national costume or for religious reasons, such as the curved kirpan knife carried by some Sikhs.

Elsener said Victorinox was responding to the tightening of regulations by developing blade-less tools for specific outdoor activities or sports.

Victorinox produces about 10m of the pocket tools each year. There are about 400 different types to choose from, including one that boasts 73 functions. They have even been carried into space by Nasa astronauts.

However, until now they have always had at least one blade.

The company has already had to adapt its products to tightened restrictions on carrying knives and in the aftermath of 9/11 the company’s sales fell by 30%.

Even in Switzerland, the home of the brand, there has been discussion about what people are permitted to carry. In 2016, there was a parliamentary debate about banning blades longer than 5cm. One MP even asked: “Will the famous Swiss army knife be forbidden?” The proposed amendment was dropped.

RTWT

In dojos offering training in kendo and aikido, the above phrase written in the grass script on a scroll is commonly hung for purposes of admonition and inspiration.

These Japanese radicals are pronounced Katsujin-ken Satsujin-to (sometimes, Katsujinken satsujinken) meaning “The sword which kills is the sword which gives life.”

They are often rendered more explicitly in English as “The sword which cuts down evil is the sword which preserves life.”

This adage is attributed to the masters of Yagyu school, the Tokugawa shoguns’ personal instructors in swordsmanship.

And those Yagyu school sword sensei-s were right. The rightful use of weapons is essential in an imperfect world to defend innocent lives against unjust violence.

A wider commitment to skill at arms and a more common readiness to defend the innocent would be infinitely more effective at saving the lives of victims of attacks by madmen and criminals than a totalitarian program attempting to enforce universal disarmament.

Katsu-tempo satsu-tempo.

In case after mass shooting case, a gun in the hands of the right bystander could have been the gun which destroyed evil and the gun which preserved life.

The latest couple of manifestations of a trend fostered by devoted media coverage and attention resulted again in all the typical expressions of the phobic attitudes of members of our over-domesticated, metrosexual intelligentsia toward firearms.

Guns are regarded as detestable and intrinsically dangerous objects which need to be kept under official control at all times, ideally in bank vaults. Their complete removal from American society is so unquestionably desirable that even house-to-house searches, and the shredding of the Bill of Rights, would be a perfectly acceptable price.

Obviously, this kind of policy proposal represents not a practical response to a real problem, but rather an irrational and emotional outburst, indifferent to benefits and costs, oblivious to process and law, expressive of an overwhelming combination of fear and aversion so profound as to dispense completely with practicality, proportionality, and cause and effect.

This kind of hostility toward firearms, this hoplophobia, needs to be recognized as the kind of irrationalism that it is.

In a sane society, familiarity and skill with arms, possession of the ability to defend oneself and others would be looked upon as essential components of every man’s education.

–a repost.

London’s Mayor: Sadiq Khan.

Steerpike, in the London Spectator:

What an odd thing Sadiq Khan said following this morning’s stabbings in central London. Shortly before 10 a.m., three people were attacked by a man on a bike in Bishopsgate. The criminal is still at large, according to the Telegraph. This horrifying incident was no surprise to Londoners, so you would think that the Mayor would – from experience – strike the right chord. Instead, Khan had this to say:

“The good news is, it’s not a terror attack. And another piece of good news is the three victims of the stabbing are not in life-threatening situations, thank God. But it’s just a reminder of the dangers of carrying a knife…

Had anyone died this morning, would Khan really have suggested that it was ‘good news’ it wasn’t a terror attack? Just a regular stabbing? It’s not a thought Mr S thinks will be held by the families of those injured.

The Mayor also seemed to apportion blame to a sentient knife – and not, you know, the assailant. He continued: ‘We’ve seen this year, thankfully, we’ve actually seen a reduction in knife crime injuries, a reduction in knife crime injuries in those below 25.’ From a pretty high peak though, eh?

‘I’m determined to continue lobbying the government to reverse their cuts in policing and to reverse their cuts in young people,’ said Khan. Police budgets have, of course, increased by £3.8 billion since Khan took office.

RTWT

In dojos offering training in kendo and aikido, the above phrase written in the grass script on a scroll is commonly hung for purposes of admonition and inspiration.

These Japanese radicals are pronounced Katsujin-ken Satsujin-to (sometimes, Katsujinken satsujinken) meaning “The sword which kills is the sword which gives life.”

They are often rendered more explicitly in English as “The sword which cuts down evil is the sword which preserves life.”

This adage is attributed to the masters of Yagyu school, the Tokugawa shoguns’ personal instructors in swordsmanship.

And those Yagyu school sword sensei-s were right. The rightful use of weapons is essential in an imperfect world to defend innocent lives against unjust violence.

A wider commitment to skill at arms and a more common readiness to defend the innocent would be infinitely more effective at saving the lives of victims of attacks by madmen and criminals than a totalitarian program attempting to enforce universal disarmament.

Katsu-tempo satsu-tempo.

In case after mass shooting case, a gun in the hands of the right bystander could have been the gun which destroyed evil and the gun which preserved life.

The latest couple of manifestations of a trend fostered by devoted media coverage and attention resulted again in all the typical expressions of the phobic attitudes of members of our over-domesticated, metrosexual intelligentsia toward firearms.

Guns are regarded as detestable and intrinsically dangerous objects which need to be kept under official control at all times, ideally in bank vaults. Their complete removal from American society is so unquestionably desirable that even house-to-house searches, and the shredding of the Bill of Rights, would be a perfectly acceptable price.

Obviously, this kind of policy proposal represents not a practical response to a real problem, but rather an irrational and emotional outburst, indifferent to benefits and costs, oblivious to process and law, expressive of an overwhelming combination of fear and aversion so profound as to dispense completely with practicality, proportionality, and cause and effect.

This kind of hostility toward firearms, this hoplophobia, needs to be recognized as the kind of irrationalism that it is.

In a sane society, familiarity and skill with arms, possession of the ability to defend oneself and others would be looked upon as essential components of every man’s education.

(A revised posting from 2007.)

—————————————–

Last Wednesday: Police said a woman who was lawfully carrying a pistol shot and killed a man who began shooting at a crowd of people Wednesday night in Charleston, West Virginia.

We are living no longer in the Home of the Brave and the Free, but rather in the Home of the Wussies, Bedwetters, and Nincompoops.

Read the latest from KDVR News Denver:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KDVR) – A 12-year-old boy has been suspended for having a toy gun he never brought to school.

Isaiah Elliott attends Grand Mountain, a K-8 grade school in the Widefield District #3, just south of Colorado Springs.

On Thursday, Aug. 27, the seventh grader was attending on online art class when a teacher saw Isaiah flash a toy gun across his computer screen. The toy in question is a neon green and black handgun with an orange tip with the words “Zombie Hunter” printed on the side.

The teacher notified the school principal who suspended Isaiah for five days and called the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a welfare check on the boy without calling his parents first.

“It was really frightening and upsetting for me as a parent, especially as the parent of an African-American young man, especially given what’s going on in our country right now,” said Isaiah’s father, Curtis Elliott, in an exclusive interview with FOX31.

Curtis’ wife Dani Elliott was equally furious with the school’s decision to notify her, only after deputies were on their way to the family’s home.

“For them to go as extreme as suspending him for five days, sending the police out, having the police threaten to press charges against him because they want to compare the virtual environment to the actual in-school environment is insane,” said Dani Elliott.

The Problem Solvers obtained the sheriff’s report and it confirms the teacher “said she assumed it was a toy gun but was not certain.”

RTWT

The kid in the photo is not me.

But it strikes a chord. When I was a little kid, pre-school, I was allowed to adopt as a toy a huge old Damascus 10 gauge double-barreled shotgun. Only one hammer worked. My parents knew perfectly well that I had no way of getting any 10 gauge ammunition, and the gun was a junker that would probably have blown up if anybody actually tried firing it. My neighborhood gang and I treated it in our games as a cannon and we’d wheel it around on a flexible flyer wagon. We eventually played that old junker into pieces.

The Telegraph has today another of those stories that makes you want to launch some Hellfire missiles from a drone at another elite university.

Cambridge University Students’ Union has said that having military personnel at freshers’ fair is “alarming” for attendees and could “detrimentally affect” their mental health.

Students voted to ban any societies from bringing firearms along to the fair after Stella Swain, the welfare and rights officer, argued that some people may find them “triggering”.

The motion said that the presence of firearms and military personnel at the fair shows “implicit approval of their use, despite the links between military and firearms and violence on an international scale”.

Ms Swain, who proposed the motion, pointed out that CUSU had previously committed to supporting efforts to “demilitarise” the university, and that freshers’ fair should not be a place for “military organisations to recruit”.

“The presence of firearms and military personnel at freshers’ fair is alarming and off-putting for some students, and has the potential to detrimentally affect students’ mental welfare,” the motion said.

Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan, labelled the motion as “pathetic, to say the very least”.

RTWT

In dojos offering training in kendo and aikido, the above phrase written in the grass script on a scroll is commonly hung for purposes of admonition and inspiration.

These Japanese radicals are pronounced Katsujin-ken Satsujin-to (sometimes, Katsujinken satsujinken) meaning “The sword which kills is the sword which gives life.”

They are often rendered more explicitly in English as “The sword which cuts down evil is the sword which preserves life.”

This adage is attributed to the masters of Yagyu school, the Tokugawa shoguns’ personal instructors in swordsmanship.

And those Yagyu school sword sensei-s were right. The rightful use of weapons is essential in an imperfect world to defend innocent lives against unjust violence.

A wider commitment to skill at arms and a more common readiness to defend the innocent would be infinitely more effective at saving the lives of victims of attacks by madmen and criminals than a totalitarian program attempting to enforce universal disarmament.

Katsu-tempo satsu-tempo.

In case after mass shooting case, a gun in the hands of the right bystander could have been the gun which destroyed evil and the gun which preserved life.

The latest couple of manifestations of a trend fostered by devoted media coverage and attention resulted again in all the typical expressions of the phobic attitudes of members of our over-domesticated, metrosexual intelligentsia toward firearms.

Guns are regarded as detestable and intrinsically dangerous objects which need to be kept under official control at all times, ideally in bank vaults. Their complete removal from American society is so unquestionably desirable that even house-to-house searches, and the shredding of the Bill of Rights, would be a perfectly acceptable price.

Obviously, this kind of policy proposal represents not a practical response to a real problem, but rather an irrational and emotional outburst, indifferent to benefits and costs, oblivious to process and law, expressive of an overwhelming combination of fear and aversion so profound as to dispense completely with practicality, proportionality, and cause and effect.

This kind of hostility toward firearms, this hoplophobia, needs to be recognized as the kind of irrationalism that it is.

In a sane society, familiarity and skill with arms, possession of the ability to defend oneself and others would be looked upon as essential components of every man’s education.

(A revised posting from 2007.)

The Regents Park Police recently proudly posted a photograph of the arms cache collected from a local charity shop, and destined for destruction so that they will not fall into the wrong hands.

I see a large number of undoubtedly dull used paring knives, a few old and cheap chef’s knives, a lowest quality used carving knife, several bread knives, two sharpening steels, two carving forks, a letter opener, a cheap tourist-trade replica barong, a cheap and inaccurate tourist version of a tanto, one fencing foil (these are all blunt), a cake frosting spreader, and a spoon (!).

Now, thank goodness, with that deadly spoon safely off the street, citizens of Regents Park can sleep safe in their beds.