What about a BANANA!
Posted on 09/10/2011 1:45:54 PM PDT by marktwain
Gilbert, AZ --(Ammoland.com)- On Thursday, September 8, 2011, the Public Safety Committee of the Boston City Council held a public hearing concerning the potential licensing of businesses that sell knives.
According to the supporters of the proposed license, the action is needed as a means to address the “ever increasing knife violence in Boston.”
Knife Rights was represented by Jim Wallace, Executive Director of Gun Owners’ Action League, who was also representing his own organization.
The politicians attending were clearly firm in their conviction that action must be taken, some scapegoat must be found. There were grieving parents and their genuine heart wrenching stories of lost loved ones. Public safety officials offered supportive testimony for the proposal.
For anyone who attended the infamous Gun Control hearings here a decade ago, the only difference was that the word “guns” was replaced with “knives.”
The testimony and statements during the public hearing were frighteningly reminiscent of past gun control hearings.
“Why would we allow any corner store to sell these dangerous weapons (knives).” “Selling knives does not support families.” “We must do everything we can to restrict access to these dangerous weapons.” “Why would anyone need a knife with a blade more than two inches long.”"Knives are fine if you need them for work, but employers should require they be left on the job.”
To anyone who has been involved in the Second Amendment battle in the last few decades it sends a shiver up your spine, because this is exactly how gun control efforts were initiated. To make matters more frightening, law enforcement officials testified that “the modern way of approaching these issues is to go after the source of the items rather than the criminals themselves.”
Wallace urged the City Council to take careful and meaningful steps in addressing the problem of violent crime.
“I urge the City Council to review what it is about to do and reflect on the failures of gun control,” said Wallace.“Over a decade ago I had to testify before committees in the state house with grieving families in the background. Now I sit before you a decade later with grieving families behind me again. If you proceed down this path and get it wrong again, ten years from now we will likely repeat this scene yet again.”
Wallace also reminded the councilors that these stores are already licensed by the city, for which they pay a fee and are subject to city oversight as to their compliance with the law, and that there is already an ordinance on the books that makes it illegal to sell a knife with a blade two inches or longer to anyone under age 18. He reiterated that there is no need for new regulation.
Even in high security of prisons rudimentary knives (shivs) are readily available, which shows the futility of trying to control the source of a such an easy to make weapon, as opposed to penalizing law-abiding citizens and making it more difficult for them to obtain the versatile tools used by millions every day at work, home and while recreating.
The City Council took no action on the matter during the hearing. It is likely that it will be some weeks before a draft ordinance is presented to the City Council as a whole.
In the meantime, we will work to try to ensure that history does not repeat itself. We have an unusual advantage in this situation to know what the future will bring if we follow this path of knife control proposed by Boston. We know without any doubt that citizens’ rights will be trampled. Most certainly grieving families will still be burying loved ones because politicians would appear to prefer going after the source of an inanimate object rather than the human criminal element – the source of the crime. The solution offered up today is no solution at all.
If you are a Boston citizen, here is a link to the councilors’ webpages where you can find a link to contact them and POLITELY express your outrage: http://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/councillors
We urge all Boston area Knife Rights members to contact the Boston City Council and express their opposition to this measure.
Your membership and support allows Knife Rights to oppose efforts such as this to restrict our freedoms. If you are not yet a member, please join Knife Rights and encourage your friends to join today!
About: Knife Rights (www.KnifeRights.org) is America’s Grassroots Knife Owners Organization, working towards a Sharper Future for all knife owners. Knife Rights is dedicated to providing knife owners an effective voice in public policy. Become a Knife Rights member and make a contribution to support the fight for your knife rights. Visit www.kniferights.org
If I told you the story of bringing wood to be recycled and burnt in an energy boiler in the Peoples Socialist Republik of Taxachuetts, this summer....you wouldn’t believe me...
the emperor of the time was afraid of being assassinated at dinner - so he banned dangerous eating utensils and ordered chop sticks as the order of the day.
We are getting close to such insanity.
no guns, then no knives. then no bats, then no forks, then no knitting needles, then........................
People intent on doing harm will always find a weapon. Broken beer bottles have come in 'handy' many times.(Start packaging beer in baggies?)
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Looks like Restoration Hardware, Sears, Walmart and some other retailers will have to pay another business license fee to comply with this nonsense.
I’d thought the Boston Knife Panic stuff was satire...
Thanks for the ping—I think I saw something about this yesterday....There’s always something for us to stay on our toes about, isn’t there?
-——the Public Safety Committee of the Boston City Council ——
Mitt is one of these looters. Boston should be purged from the union
(is this a real piece)
poke yer eye out...
Let's not forget chopsticks! I saw a kungfu movie where the good guy could kill with chopsticks at 10 paces! Obviously very dangerous weapons! /S
/s
Don’t bring a knife to a chopstick fight.
Claremont, California, a town that would be more at home being a suburb of Berkley than in the Inland Empire. I don't believe that there's any steak knife bans in the city, but it's not something I've chosen to test at any other restaurant there. First and last time I've dined in the city.
******
BOWIE KNIFE.
These horrid weapons are usually called BOWIE knives. They were invented by a man who lived in the state of Louisiana. His name was Buie(sic). It is a French name, and pronounced B'OO-E. Afterwards he went to Texas and was killed there in a battle.
People in slave states often carry such knives about them. When they get angry they draw the knife and sometimes STAB ONE ANOTHER!
A man who keeps a shop in Broadway, New York City, sells Bowie knives. (Excerpt from an article on bowie knives in THE SLAVE'S FRIEND a pamphlet published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York City.)
From Man at Arms magazine, August 1997. An NRA publication.
I still think that one of the most effective things to do is present each council member with a carefully planned proposed lawsuit, printed on pleading paper and ready to be filled in with the specific ord #, date, etc. stating that it will be filed by one if not hundreds of citizens, taking the council, the city, each personally and severally to court. And stating that the lawsuit would be pursued all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Ask them if they are fully prepared to have the city pay the expenses of such a suit for such a long period of time and through all appeals. And if they are prepared to be the ones who set the precedent if/when the plaintiff’s prevail.
Note to them that each retail store or knife seller will be happy to file a separate suit against the city/council for deprivation of civil rights under color of law and loss of income, etc. Trump up as many possible legal grounds conceivable and then ask them if they’re prepared for the costs to defend themselves, their city and council and also the bad publicity that the plaintiff’s are fully ready to unleash on each of them if such a law is passed.
I understand that it’s Bahhhston and the council doesn’t care about spending tax money but it would give them much more pause than everyone sitting around, unprepared, wringing their hands and trying to get “activists” to show up at the council meetings.
If a non-prof legal organization drew up the legaleze and each knife seller served a copy of it on each council member wherein they are personally named, the costs to defend such suit and trying to get themselves excluded would be enough to change at least some minds.
There’s gotta be a 501c(3) legal firm that could put the filing together from general boilerplate and provide it to any activist who wanted to file. And state that such firm would be pursuing the suit pro bono, so the filer wouldn’t be subject to high legal fees for representation. Unlike the council members and city. Filing fees wouldn’t be that much for each individual plaintiff, but if every council member were served, I’ll bet it would get more reaction than pleading the 2nd amend. at some staged public hearing.
Just my $0.02
Right! It’s Mutant Clown Posse up there.
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