A Call To Ban Steak Knives

BBC.co.uk ^ | 5/2005 | BBC news

[Typical_Whitey]

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing. A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I saw an article a few years back that said England engineers had perfected a round tipped knife to prevent stabbings.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

I’ve caught myself running mine without the guard. I haven’t broken a wheel, but the thought of it made me change tactics.

Sometimes I run it with a sanding disc and no guard, but the naked whizz-wheel is a no no.

I see body guys running the open 3” ones on a die grinder all the time.

[cork]

Don’t forget the chainsaw! The greatest close coontact weapon of all time!

[fattigermaster]

The people in England who first assumed an English identity were the Saxons...and the word "Saxons" literally means "the people of the knife".

The Saxons and other Nordic peoples were characterized by a knife called the "seax" or "scramaseax", meaning "broken-backed blade". It was a utility blade with an inward curving tip...a basic blade for farm chores and any uses requiring a knife, but the unique tip functioned much like a reverse tanto...reinforced the tip for punching thru armor.

If you were a free man in Saxon England and other Nordic countries you were required to bear this knife, strapped across your waist, not only identifying you as a free man and a Saxon but showing you were in obedience to your king or your chief, being prepared to join him in defending the land at any time.

Isn't it ironic that a country whose forebears were called "the people of the knife", who were ordered by their rulers to wear the knife to show themselves as free English people, now cannot be trusted with a knife to cut their meat?

BTW the above knife is on my wish list...since our socialist civilization has labeled people with conservative values as backward and barbarian, I might just take it as my sign that I'm a free backward barbarian.

[Norm Lenhart]

I used to way back when. Another fragged wheel cured me. Nothing happened but the shrapnel of it flying around the room gave me religion.

When I cut myself, I was extremely lucky my hand took the hit as it would have made a nice cut in my abdomen. I already have enough Doctor caused scars there. Didn’t need another ;)

It’s incredible what 10,000 RPM is capable of when it’s not doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

I’ve had both the good Makita/DeWalt wheels come apart as well as the cheap Chinese ones. It’s not that I bound them up or bounced them either. But since my metalworking days are over, I am just glad to get done with all digits relatively intact.

[HomeAtLast]

There will be a run on scissors. Which is very dangerous.

[Typical_Whitey]

Maybe they have no kitchen value because brits can’t chew meat with those terrible teeth they have so most things are just mush.

[Boogieman]

“They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.”

Ok, let’s try a little logic here. You ban the steak knives, and what happens in the next “impulse” situation? Do they look for a weapon of opportunity, find no steak knife, and then decide they’d better settle their dispute without violence? Or is it more likely that they will just grab a cricket bat, a beer bottle, or a claw hammer that is laying around, instead of the steak knife which isn’t?

All you’ve got to do is watch a Jackie Chan movie to learn that nearly anything can be turned into a deadly weapon, if someone wants to use it as such. We can’t possibly ban the “all too available” weapons that surround us.

[Flycatcher]

Great post.

[yarddog]

I had one of the Cold Steel large Kukris and still have one of the smaller, much less expensive ones.

If I remember right the literature which came with it said that style of knife originated in Greece. When Alexander’s soldiers came to India, they liked the style and it became common in India (and Nepal).

I always wanted an authentic claymore. I think it predates it’s use by the Scots but am not certain. They sure liked it tho. I have seen a very large collection of Scottish armor and all the swords were claymores.

[Boogieman]

You know, there used to be a progression in our society. When you made it to a certain age, your parents trusted you with the pointy scissors. After maybe a couple more years, you’d get your first pocketknife as a present, because they deemed you responsible enough to handle it. Maybe when you were a teenager or perhaps a few years younger, you’d get your own firearm, when your parents thought you could handle that responsibly.

Now, everyone wants government to be the parent instead, but the government isn’t equipped to be a parent and make those kinds of decisions. They don’t know us, and they don’t trust any of us, no matter how old or responsible we are. So, you’re right, the end result of leaving these parental decisions to the government will be that none of us will get to use the pointy scissors anymore.

[Calvin Locke]

I read "Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe" earlier in the year. It was written in the mid-1970s by a NYC couple.

The Jackie Bisset movie character, a dessert chef, arrives at Heathrow with her knife kit, and after being singled out for questioning for said collection, says "But I have an appointment at Buckingham Palace..."

[MarDav]

Perhaps we ought to wait and see what China does about knives first. Our school massacre was done with guns. The Chinese were the ones who had a knife-wielding assailant storm into the classroom (and on the same day as the Newtown tragedy).

[Olog-hai]

Indeed this is abolition of the family in action (Aufhebung der Familie), straight out of the Communist Manifesto. Marx never got to see nuclear weapons in his lifetime . . . I wonder if he would have held to his twisted ideals if he ever did? because destroying society with those things around means the very cataclysm they all feared.

[Boogieman]

Better add trees to that list as well. As long as we allow trees to proliferate, any criminal can walk outside and pluck themselves an instant deadly weapon!

I say we’ve allowed this “tree culture” to hold us hostage for long enough, it’s time for decisive action!

[KrisKrinkle]

“The brain is the ultimate weapon.”

Then America should be safer before long, given the increasing number of brainless people we seem to have.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

So have you actually tried cutting a steak with a Makita?

It would probably work well, but if everyone at the table had one, it could get kinda noisy...not to mention the spray.

I’ve had some in my time that would have made good soles, and required heroic measures, but now I’m kinda partial to rib-eye and porterhouse.

But then again, we’re talking about British fare.

[Kozak]

Also will need to ban pieces of steel, grinders and sharpening stones....

[kiryandil]

Ban bench grinders, too....

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

Fortunately, so far I’ve never broken a wheel on my angle grinder. My Dremel, on the other hand, is another story altogether. I’ve literally broken hundreds of cutoff wheels using my Dremel; given what I’ve used it for I have probably voided the warranty on it several times over.