When knives are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.
Posted by GoneWithTheWind at December 29, 2015 7:26 AMUm? Yeah it's worth the effort to buy a good kitchen knife. Good steel, razor sharp factory edge (or does he need more paperwork to get it sharpened, or buy a steel and stone?) with an attractive oiled handle.
To open up a human being, any piece of rusty metal, hacksaw and rough file, half an hour.
When the statists start to attempt to ban and regulate below the point where it's easier to knock something off in your back yard then they are at the vanishing point, the point of low return. The point of no return.
Posted by John the River at December 29, 2015 7:39 AMWas in a Target store a while back. Tactical knife was locked to shelf. Next aisle the fishing knife very similar was free to handle. Cooking knives a few feet away were free to handle. Go Figure
Posted by Gary Wishon at December 29, 2015 8:51 AMUnreal.
Posted by Casey Klahn at December 29, 2015 9:07 AMWas that an assault-style tacticool knife? Those are more dangerous than dainty French chef knives, I'm sure.
Posted by Dindu Nuffin at December 29, 2015 9:41 AMPoliticians and attorneys (tyrants all) are afraid of sharp appliances such as knives, ice picks, pointy sticks for a reason. A study of the French Revolution is a good reason for this fear. The "people" of France displayed in very horrible ways the effectiveness of unchained rage and the use of implements of every kind in the disassembly of tyrants bodies. Guns were rare in their usage.
Hacking, chopping and disembowelment while still alive makes for a long lasting memory.
Coming to a city near you in time.
Posted by Terry at December 29, 2015 11:14 AMDon't let Obama see this article!
Posted by Smokey at December 29, 2015 11:59 AM"... while still alive makes for a long lasting memory. "
Umm, not to the carvee but to those politicians much fleeter of foot. If they bother to look behind them.
Posted by John The River at December 29, 2015 12:22 PMThe common conception of how an assault weapon ban will pan out in America usually follows the same inscrutable logic. The Feds will ban the weapons and the citizens will revolt. Truth, Justice and the American way will be restored. The end.
I would offer an alternative. It's less patriotic, there's no swelling crescendo of "from sea to shining sea", and there's no happy ending. Thus it's completely impossible. I offer it none-the-less.
After some run of the mill atrocity "that happens nowhere in the world but the USA" the Feds manage to pass a law banning "assault rifles". There is a generous buyback included, paid for by the federal money spigot. They know only a few guns will be handed in initially so it's more than affordable.
A thousand legal battles will be launched but they will take time to come to fruition and the government is not bound to wait until the result comes out in the wash.
Meanwhile there will be a groundswell of protest. People will march in the streets with their ARs and AKs. No matter. The buy-back amnesty runs for six months. Nobody is breaking the law. Meanwhile other more important factors are coming into play.
Immediately noticeable is the disappearance of online trading in the banned articles. The guns themselves. Magazines for said guns. Etc. Companies like Cheaper Than Dirt can be easily bankrupted by court orders to cease and desist trade. They will not martyr themselves. Gun ranges, also typically being business entities, will no sooner allow you to arrive with banned assault weapons than they would allow you to bring in a pound of cocaine. "Just give the courts some time work it out, Joe", they'll say. Some ranges will shrug off the rules. Nothing will come of it. Not until later.
Similarly, larger companies that manufacture such guns are now either forced to go back to building bolt action rifles or go to work for the government. Back room deals will be made. Nobody will be out so much as a dollar. "Just go along quietly. After all. If the American people want freedom then it doesn't fall to Remington to drag them to it kicking and screaming."
The months will tick by. The protests will start to dwindle in number and attendance. The amnesty is still in effect and many are starting to wonder how this thing is going to go down. After all. Nobody has started shooting so far, at least as far as the mainstream media is saying, and can you really trust those Alex jones types?
Joe Average is starting to wonder if he really wants to bury several thousand dollars of guns. After all, they're fetching top dollar in private sales. Consequently many Joe Averages divest themselves of any skin they had in the game. In any case, they still have their deer rifle and their .45, and that's enough to fight tyranny, right?
The hour draws nigh. The amnesty is drawing to a close. Finally, federal tyranny will have to bare it's teeth and be put down like the monster it is. The protests fire back up. Cold, dead hands, etc etc!
The amnesty is extended for another three months. The cycle begins anew. By the second extension of the amnesty the assault rifle owners have become quite drawn and haggard. Nobody is kicking in their doors and they're getting tired of perpetually attending protests or talking tough on the internet. By the time the final extension peters out the protests are lackluster.
True enough, there are still a LOT of assault rifles in circulation. The majority of them in fact. Many have since been buried. Many sit by bedsides or other handy locations, awaiting the inevitable jack boot of tyranny to come stomping. Their owners grimly await a valiant death in defense of liberty.
They are left waiting.
Protests continue, albeit on a smaller scale. People photographed at such gatherings with illegal weapons start to lose their jobs or their contracts. "Can't be seen to associate with people flaunting the law, you understand." No crackdowns required.
Meanwhile trade in the guns and their parts is closed save for the black market. What breaks or wears down has to be replaced by hand or not at all. Internet forum moderators studiously ban all talk of such things. They can be shut down easily if they were seen to be aiding and abetting lawlessness. Videos on Youtube and other video hosting websites that contain footage of the weapons in anything other than a blatantly historical context are removed, "just to be on the safe side".
Only a few brave bloggers are left to post such content as they are able, and they will later be rounded up by their internet service providers as would be someone caught posting risque pictures of children. No top-down federal tyranny required. The SWAT teams continue playing cards to pass the time.
By this stage the various cases have wound their way through the Supreme Court. If the ban is overturned then a few words in the legislation will be tweaked and it will be passed again. The slowing of momentum would require sophisticated equipment to detect. In any case, no company is going to bet the farm on retooling to ramp up supply of guns that might be illegal in another six months.
As time ticks by we will see an all too familiar story recurring across the nation.
An anonymous call from a concerned neighbor will have the police knocking on Joe Average's door at 3 in the morning. "Domestic dispute", they'll say, "you have to let us in".
"I live alone", he might reply.
"We have to verify that", they will counter.
The rest is inevitable. Either Joe has hidden his gun(s) exceptionally well at short notice or he's going to find himself dead to rights. Maybe he's buried his guns in preparation for the day when he get's the memo from the ghost of Guy Fawkes instructing him to dig them up and RSVP for the revolution scheduled for Tuesday-week. Those guns thus buried will be fodder for future archaeologists.
Most likely, Joe will long have come to hate that gun. It will burn in his presence like the beating of Edgar Allen Poe's Tell-tale Heart. Chances are he'll toss it in the river or sell it to some shady character down at the bar, if not by his own determination then by the insistence of his wife.
"Anonymous tip leads to discovery of illegal weapon cache" will be the mainstream media cliche for a decade. The inference will be that the person in question is either a terrorist or a gang member. Their life will be turned upsidown. If they plead guilty then they get to go home and live out their lives as a convicted felon with a suspended sentence.
The few that try to fight the charges will end up in federal prison as an example to the rest. Their fate will be lamented by internet patriots for five minutes per occurrence, during which many will tout the fact that they'll never give up their deer rifles, such being the necessary tool to defeat Federal tyranny.
Others will shrug their shoulders.
"We may not like it, but it's the law...
We live in a democracy...
Yadda yadda yadda..."
By the 20 year mark a new generation will come of age wondering how it was ever possible for people to legally own such deadly and dangerous weapons.
The odd AR or AK will turn up in grand-dad's wardrobe after he shuffles off this mortal coil and the lawful ownership of such weapons in the USA will end not with a bang but with a whimper.
Nobody has a crystal ball but you can reliably bet that while you have clean(ish) water, electricity, beer and television that the second amendment will only be diluted further. Ask the typical infantry grunt back from Fallujah how much of his kit he'd be allowed to legally own off-base without special federal permission slips.
Posted by ghostsniper at December 29, 2015 2:31 PMI hope Ghostsniper is wrong, but I think he nailed it with the point about the lack of caring or having desire to do something as long as we are relatively comfortable and "safe".
Posted by Snakepit Kansas at December 30, 2015 6:43 AMI read the link to the source. He's a gun control advocate. It will not ultimately bother him to sacrifice his knife buying experience after guns are eliminated, even though it does not occur to him that one follows the other. Such virtue as he owns requires much sacrifice.
A worn out file, the older the better, makes a great chisel or knife. Even a novice can do it with the tools in your garage, or your neighbors.
It is remarkable how naturally compliant to authority the Chinese are, but back in the day the ruling Chinese excised troublesome individuals and their extended families from the gene pool.
Posted by james wilson at December 30, 2015 9:55 AM