Humans are tool-users. Honestly looking at us as naked apes we generally suck. Most things can run faster than us. Most things have sharp teeth and claws. Being hairless, we quickly succumb to exposure unless we stick to VERY warm climates like the tropics…and those tropical locals better be large islands or continents because if you think we suck at running, you should see us swim!
But meanwhile we have vastly changed our environment, use tools, clothing and innovation to expand our natural range, and lifespan. We invents more tools, and also superfluous things like art, and even science and medicine is pretty moot stuff if you’re struggling for food and warmth in the dark.
And then we invent philosophies like Marxism where pointy-headed busy-bodies look to ban tools that pulled us out of the mud in the first place.
That was until October, when the noted painter was busted on weapons possession charges for having an illegal gravity knife in his pocket as he walked home at about 3 p.m. along E. 3rd St.
A judge Wednesday tossed the charges – for which Copeland, 34, faced up to a year behind bars – after his lawyer explained to prosecutors he used it to cut canvases. Still, the artist is fuming…Kuby said Copeland has no criminal history and didn’t threaten to use it as a weapon but that cops descended on him after spotting what they thought was a knife in his front pants’ pocket.
The bust came after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. announced a major initiative to get illegal knives off the streets, including a $1.9 million settlement with Paragon Sports, among other mega stores, for selling illegal knives.
These are the same people who make it difficult to own a gun in New York as well…not to mention it suicidal to enjoy a public park after nightfall.
Remember, these jerks don’t care about need no matter what they say!
Bloomburg and his minions are just jealous that NYC’s not a carbon copy of Formerly Great Britain.
I pulled out my pocket knife one time to open a package, and a co-worker asked if I “always carry a weapon.” Sadly, instead of having the presence of mind to point out that it’s a tool, not a weapon, I just gave a half-joking “yes” (it’s no secret in the office that I routinely take advantage of my carry permit – so I do always carry a weapon, that just wasn’t it). This push to brand pocket knives as weapons is insidious, and needs to be stopped whenever it’s encountered.
This thanksgiving I had to open something so I pulled a knife out of my pocket and did the deed. One of my family members asked me if I had just pulled a knife out of my pocket. I didn’t miss a beat and told him: “Yep, that’s why they call them pockets knives! ”
Another family member ironically joked “Don’t ask him about his pocket gun!”
I had a 642 in the other pocket, but didn’t think that was the appropriate time or place to open that can of worms.
Yeah, it was bad enough the time I realized as I was leaving that I had been in a public school building, rather than one that was part of a community college like I had assumed! (I’ll leave it to y’all to theorize why that might have been a bad thing.) I’m all for avoiding canned worms!
And of course, in NYC a “gravity knife” is basically any modern one-handed folder, and most traditional locking knives. If any NYPD cop can get it to open by snapping it with all his strength, it’s a gravity knife.
And like with switchblades, gravity knives are illegal because they’re illegal. Stupid laws enacted by stupid people.
Knife laws are a natural progression from an arbitrary starting assumption: if you assume that violent crime is caused by an inferior race or class, then disarming them seems like a good idea. A disapproved race or class is likely to be poorer than the ruling group, so they use cheap weapons. Et voila: knife ban.
If you’re a different kind of stupid, and you think disarming everybody is a great way to reduce violence, you ban guns. When that inevitably doesn’t work, and you aren’t smart enough to realize that your strategy is flawed, you start banning the weapons you haven’t already banned. Again: knife ban.
A hell of a lot of states with good concealed carry laws still have bad knife laws for the former reason. NYC and Britain are excellent examples of the latter.
Actually, it occurs to me that NYC is actually an example of racist gun and knife laws that, once overt racist became unfashionable, morphed into a pathological obsession with banning any weapons that weren’t yet banned. The people of the Big Apple are certainly mentally versatile.
As I said over at Uncle’s, I think I may have accidentally broken the law when I visited NYC last year with a Kershaw assisted opening knife. They oughta warn a body! Really, all of these laws that ban items might work better if they just required government licenses to visit other states… like certain other totalitarian countries…
And remember – no matter how much they make fun of us for bringing up the slippery slope argument, they continue to prove it true every chance they get. Once the anti-rights nuts are done with firearms, they will move on to other implements and tools… people like that are never satisfied.