U.K. Sword Ban

[Gyakuto]

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[Steve]

I think that your last 3 sentences might be off the mark. But I’m not into arguing over who mass shooters are or were or why they did it. We have over 300 million people in this country, there will be a certain number of wacko people, regardless of circumstances, that’s just math.

Can we talk about how calling a Swiss Army knife a “victorinox” is just completely unacceptable?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Can we talk about how calling a Swiss Army knife a “victorinox” is just completely unacceptable?

Ok. I hear your concerns, I acknowledge your feelings, I accept your point of view, I want to know more. How am I doing so far?

 

[Argus]

I think this is happening for a reason. ‘Adults’ behave like adults, think of others as much as themselves and try to behave altruistically. When, what are essentially social norms, have to be legislated for because people refuse to adhere to those norms for whatever reason, then it suggests grown ups are behaving like adults.

Fun and interesting, perhaps, but less safe? All the injuries I had as a child, burns, cuts, contusions and concussion were due to free access to butane, pen knives, free access to building site hazards and fearlessness!

Oh that’s quite a stretch! I think we should allow children to have access to high explosives, knives and guns so stupid ones remove themselves for the gene pool. BUT they also harm those who’s genetic material deserve to remain within the pool, so that’s a problem…

We have wackos over here, but since there is no access to military grade weapons for these people, the random acts of violence we suffer in the U.K. are much attenuated. I think this is the thinking about the prohibition of firearms and large-bladed weapons. It’s lowest common denominator legislation which unfortunately cuts sensible people out of having safe fun. I was victim of this when I tried to buy a Japanese sword. Luckily there were exemptions to the laws which I was able to prove my purchase fulfilled.

That’s pure speculation with no basis in fact. Can anyone just pick up a firearm for the first time and shoot it at people ‘effectively’?

Perhaps we should preemptively lock up the quiet, weird kids before they pick up a gun and initiate a high school massacre.

I don't think we disagree nearly as much as you seem to think we do.

My point is precisely that we have these stupid over the top laws because we kind of deserve them. But I don't know if the problem is a chicken or egg thing, or if there's some kind of feed-back loop going on. I grew up around people who did a whole lot of potentially "risky" things responsibly. That responsibility was instilled in me and everyone I knew growing up. I never once felt uneasy around someone with a firearm, and never thought even for the briefest moment about someone with a knife.

Hell, learning to handle a weapon, or even a tool like a knife safely from a young age changed my entire approach to everything in life. I always am aware of when I am doing anything that could be potentially fatal, and treat it the same as if I were handling a loaded gun. Take driving, for example. I've always taken it very seriously -- probably far more seriously than most -- and feel a responsibility to anyone riding with me every time I get behind the wheel. I'm thoughtful about it and form habits that address all of the common ways that people expose themselves to accidents. A car is just as dangerous as a loaded gun and responsible for far more deaths, but nobody takes it nearly as serious, or serious enough. This is just one example.

I have a sense that when you make those things "taboo" you get a society that no-longer shares or passes on the knowledge or value that goes along with them. I was taught how to safely handle a gun, and so I don't fear that one, and I don't fear one in the hands of someone who is responsibly handling one, and I can tell the difference. But if I never grew up around that, I'd just have fear. Nothing else.

The thing is, though, that this is a slippery slope. Next pocket knives become scary and taboo. Then very arcane things like swords, which almost nobody ever uses to commit a crime, but someone eventually will. How long before practicing martial arts of any kind is taboo, and people feel threatened by you practicing in your backyard, or just learning of the fact that you practice?

I don't have any data to back this point up, but it is something I see anecdotally:

People who do Martial Arts, or any kind of empty hand or weapons training, tend to have a very keen respect for violence and don't engage in it without very good reason, because they know what can happen. They've visualized the outcomes. They've thought about the fact that if they hit somebody, that person could fall over backwards and bust his head on the cement. Most average people who haven't been exposed to violence in any form, however, haven't thought of these things. They haven't envisioned the potential consequences of getting into a fight, or how it could go horribly wrong. So they're more likely to engage in stupid brawls, for instance.

This is what I'm getting at. It's like the difference between handing a knife to a kid who grew up using one every day from the age of 6, versus a 15 year old today who has never held one, and suddenly wants to try carving or something. That second kid is going to have an accident.

Parents in the US shelter their kids to such a degree that they really struggle to get out into the real world. Childhood is about learning to take small, sequentially larger risks, in preperation for the realworld. It's about increasing your capacity for risk taking and learning to get along with others. There's a ton of scientific literature on this for both humans and animals, showing that both human and animal children who grow up without much physical interaction with their peers tend to become mal-adapted socially, and don't have a good sense of boundaries or what's appropriate. They've never tested the limits. They've never played and gotten a little too rough in play and provoked physical retaliation, and in so doing learn that they crossed the line. They've never learned all kinds of skills that they need to navigate the much greater challenges that they'll face when they get into the real world. Stepping out into the real world so unprepared like that is what leads to mental illness and the kind of senseless mass killings that have become common in the modern era, but were almost unheard of in any time prior. I don't know if there is literature making a direct connection there, but I think it's pretty clearly a result of mal-adjustment and we do know a lot about that.

Anyway, I totally lost you when you got to the last comment which I just consider totally asinine and not even in good faith:

"Perhaps we should preemptively lock up the quiet, weird kids before they pick up a gun and initiate a high school massacre."

You wouldn't even think up or suggest this tongue in cheek unless you made a number of assumptions, such as:
1) Totalitarianism is cool. We really should have a nanny state that controls everything.
2) Individual responsibility is irrelevant.
3) Anything that we might be doing as a society to encourage mental illness is irrelevant, and we can't improve on this front.
4) Values and social norms aren't important with regards to this, and shouldn't enter the discussion.
5) We should just legislate a one size fits all solution, lock up anyone who could be dangerous!

#5 is the logical conclusion of exactly the course that society has been on. Your mockery reveals a bias that you don't even realize, because it's just become so ingrained in our thinking.

I don't think this attitude is conducive of finding a more mature way forward. I believe we can basically be more mature about everything, from how we write law, implement, and measure the intended and unintended effects of a law and whether it's a net positive to society, to how we operate as a society and what we make the norm. People live down to the expectations that you set for them. If you tell them you don't trust them with anything, they behave in that manner. And just like a child, people want to live up to higher standards when that's what is expected of them. I just don't get the defeatest attitude or why everyone's okay with racing to the bottom on everything. That just doesn't end well for anyone.

 

[Dirty Dog]

ATTENTION ALL USERS:

This thread has, from the OP, had the potential to run afoul of the "no politics" rule. So here is your reminder.

Generally speaking, you're fine if you limit yourselves to "this is the law", but when you change to "this law is wrong because" you're pretty much guaranteed to see the thread locked.

Several recent posts are heading down that path. You are strongly encouraged consider your posts before you hit that Big Blue Button.

Mark A Cochran
@Dirty Dog
MartialTalk Senior Moderator

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I don't think we disagree nearly as much as you seem to think we do.

My point is precisely that we have these stupid over the top laws because we kind of deserve them. But I don't know if the problem is a chicken or egg thing, or if there's some kind of feed-back loop going on. I grew up around people who did a whole lot of potentially "risky" things responsibly. That responsibility was instilled in me and everyone I knew growing up. I never once felt uneasy around someone with a firearm, and never thought even for the briefest moment about someone with a knife.

Hell, learning to handle a weapon, or even a tool like a knife safely from a young age changed my entire approach to everything in life. I always am aware of when I am doing anything that could be potentially fatal, and treat it the same as if I were handling a loaded gun. Take driving, for example. I've always taken it very seriously -- probably far more seriously than most -- and feel a responsibility to anyone riding with me every time I get behind the wheel. I'm thoughtful about it and form habits that address all of the common ways that people expose themselves to accidents. A car is just as dangerous as a loaded gun and responsible for far more deaths, but nobody takes it nearly as serious, or serious enough. This is just one example.

I have a sense that when you make those things "taboo" you get a society that no-longer shares or passes on the knowledge or value that goes along with them. I was taught how to safely handle a gun, and so I don't fear that one, and I don't fear one in the hands of someone who is responsibly handling one, and I can tell the difference. But if I never grew up around that, I'd just have fear. Nothing else.

The thing is, though, that this is a slippery slope. Next pocket knives become scary and taboo. Then very arcane things like swords, which almost nobody ever uses to commit a crime, but someone eventually will. How long before practicing martial arts of any kind is taboo, and people feel threatened by you practicing in your backyard, or just learning of the fact that you practice?

I don't have any data to back this point up, but it is something I see anecdotally:

People who do Martial Arts, or any kind of empty hand or weapons training, tend to have a very keen respect for violence and don't engage in it without very good reason, because they know what can happen. They've visualized the outcomes. They've thought about the fact that if they hit somebody, that person could fall over backwards and bust his head on the cement. Most average people who haven't been exposed to violence in any form, however, haven't thought of these things. They haven't envisioned the potential consequences of getting into a fight, or how it could go horribly wrong. So they're more likely to engage in stupid brawls, for instance.

This is what I'm getting at. It's like the difference between handing a knife to a kid who grew up using one every day from the age of 6, versus a 15 year old today who has never held one, and suddenly wants to try carving or something. That second kid is going to have an accident.

Parents in the US shelter their kids to such a degree that they really struggle to get out into the real world. Childhood is about learning to take small, sequentially larger risks, in preperation for the realworld. It's about increasing your capacity for risk taking and learning to get along with others. There's a ton of scientific literature on this for both humans and animals, showing that both human and animal children who grow up without much physical interaction with their peers tend to become mal-adapted socially, and don't have a good sense of boundaries or what's appropriate. They've never tested the limits. They've never played and gotten a little too rough in play and provoked physical retaliation, and in so doing learn that they crossed the line. They've never learned all kinds of skills that they need to navigate the much greater challenges that they'll face when they get into the real world. Stepping out into the real world so unprepared like that is what leads to mental illness and the kind of senseless mass killings that have become common in the modern era, but were almost unheard of in any time prior. I don't know if there is literature making a direct connection there, but I think it's pretty clearly a result of mal-adjustment and we do know a lot about that.

Anyway, I totally lost you when you got to the last comment which I just consider totally asinine and not even in good faith:

"Perhaps we should preemptively lock up the quiet, weird kids before they pick up a gun and initiate a high school massacre."

You wouldn't even think up or suggest this tongue in cheek unless you made a number of assumptions, such as:
1) Totalitarianism is cool. We really should have a nanny state that controls everything.
2) Individual responsibility is irrelevant.
3) Anything that we might be doing as a society to encourage mental illness is irrelevant, and we can't improve on this front.
4) Values and social norms aren't important with regards to this, and shouldn't enter the discussion.
5) We should just legislate a one size fits all solution, lock up anyone who could be dangerous!

#5 is the logical conclusion of exactly the course that society has been on. Your mockery reveals a bias that you don't even realize, because it's just become so ingrained in our thinking.

I don't think this attitude is conducive of finding a more mature way forward. I believe we can basically be more mature about everything, from how we write law, implement, and measure the intended and unintended effects of a law and whether it's a net positive to society, to how we operate as a society and what we make the norm. People live down to the expectations that you set for them. If you tell them you don't trust them with anything, they behave in that manner. And just like a child, people want to live up to higher standards when that's what is expected of them. I just don't get the defeatest attitude or why everyone's okay with racing to the bottom on everything. That just doesn't end well for anyone.

While I agree with your sentiments, you risk breaking forum rules on politics. Also, while I agree with you and have similar experiences, our biases based on our experiences don’t really equate to strong evidence for the way we think about these things, or relate to the experiences of others in a meaningful way. It’s just the way we grew up, so we see it in the most positive light.

 

[Gyakuto]

I still haven’t heard back from Border Force about the arrangements to restore the sword to me. I’ve phoned them twice and can’t get through, my call being ‘cancelled’ after 5mins 17sec on hold and emailed the reviewing officer and the help line without reply. Being a worrier by nature, I’m worried I’ll try calling with my other halve’s phone on Monday in case BF are avoiding me, but that means I’ll have to tell her whole saga to her which I wanted to avoid at all costs. Shevwould be ‘disappointed’ with me wasting my money.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I still haven’t heard back from Border Force about the arrangements to restore the sword to me. I’ve phoned them twice and can’t get through, my call being ‘cancelled’ after 5mins 17sec on hold and emailed the reviewing officer and the help line without reply. Being a worrier by nature, I’m worried I’ll try calling with my other halve’s phone on Monday in case BF are avoiding me, but that means I’ll have to tell her whole saga to her which I wanted to avoid at all costs. Shevwould be ‘disappointed’ with me wasting my money.

Ooh don’t want to risk recriminations from the spouse! Those tend to come back like herpes.

 

[Gyakuto]

Ooh don’t want to risk recriminations from the spouse! Those tend to come back like herpes.

She’s extremely level-headed and rational since she’s not Western, but she thinks I spend too much of my money. She is correct.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

She’s extremely level-headed and rational since she’s not Western, but she thinks I spend too much of my money. She is correct.

Not Western?

 

[Gyakuto]

Not Western?

Burmese.

 

[Argus]

While I agree with your sentiments, you risk breaking forum rules on politics. Also, while I agree with you and have similar experiences, our biases based on our experiences don’t really equate to strong evidence for the way we think about these things, or relate to the experiences of others in a meaningful way. It’s just the way we grew up, so we see it in the most positive light.

Right. Sorry, I attempted to come at this from a non political perspective, but guess my thought process can fall into some political camp and/or carry implications.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Right. Sorry, I attempted to come at this from a non political perspective, but guess my thought process can fall into some political camp and/or carry implications.

Oh no need to apologize to me. I was just warning because we got a warning. Thread will get locked if we go political. It’s hard not to sometimes.

 

[Gyakuto]

The ‘seizing officer’ has been emailed for a second time, by the reviewing officer, to release the sword to me.

 

[Gyakuto]

I contacted Border Force’s reviewing officer, who released the sword to me (his are the only contact details I have) again yesterday saying three weeks had elapsed and I still hadn’t received my sword. He said his role was to review my case and nothing more, but he said the seizing team had been sent the sword back to UPS on 17th October (one day after he said it should be released to me) at East Midlands airport for delivery to me. He said I should chase it up with UPS. I contacted UPS and they said they had no record of any parcel to be sent to me from Border Force and they told me the last thing they had sent to me (a book). UPS said BF should have some sort of tracking number if they sent the sword to them. I have asked the reviewing officer for this which I have. He usually responds very quickly, but I’ve heard nothing from him yet.

What could be going on?

1) My sword is in one of the absent-minded seizing teams office and hasn’t been sent to UPS.

2) My sword has been lost on route to UPS at East Midlands airport.

3) My sword is at UPS, but isn’t on their system.

4) My sword was destroyed way back before the review and realising that the seizure was unlawful, they’re covering up it’s destruction.