Very good article. It applies far beyond the narrow scope of knives.
Many people on this forum would agree with its narrow scope but contradict themselves on it's wider application to issues such as the war on drugs, anti-smoking laws, pornography and other inalienable rights.
"-- puritanism's unbroken record of failure will not stop people from trying again and again.
Every new generation is born with faith in the power of magic words -- written laws -- to prevent sin.
And every American generation for the past century and a half has produced its own new wave of oppressive and futile [prohibitive] laws. --"
As you note Zon, great essay..
Lets see what some of FR's foremost prohibitionists have to say about the war on knives..
Things like that always make me begin doubting the "conclusions" in such pieces ~ not necessarily the "facts" or "factoids", but the secondary results of too-casual analysis of the situation.
Frankly, once you've missed being "bombed" you develop a clear-cut aversion to the idea that bombers should be allowed to run loose.
The Democrats, on the other hand, think nothing of mad bombers getting Presidential pardons or commutations of sentence. We even have a case where one convicted bomber became a serious campaign advisor to the highest levels of the Democratic party (SEE: Brent Kimberlin for example).