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by gjm11
3363 days ago
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It seems plausible to me -- I don't claim any more than that, and I am no expert on this stuff -- that: 1. If possession (in public places) of knives above (say) 3" is illegal, fewer people will go about carrying knives above (say) 3". It probably won't make any difference to someone planning to get into a knife fight, of course. 2. If fewer people are casually carrying big knives, then there will be fewer opportunities for conflicts to escalate to fights involving big knives. For instance, a bar fight is less likely to end up fatal if fewer people in it are carrying serious knives. A burglary is less likely to end up fatal if the burglar isn't. Some muggers may choose to make do with musclepower rather than knives (so they're less likely to get into serious trouble if a policeman thinks they look suspicious). Etc. 3. Fights involving big knives are less dangerous than fights involving smaller knives, e.g. because a bigger knife is more likely to end up doing serious damage to internal organs. (If an expert fighter is specifically trying to do you serious harm, I'm sure they can do it with a small knife. Or a toothpick. But in cases where the goal is "establish dominance" or "get away safely from the house I just burgled" or "make my victim sorry he didn't just hand over his wallet" and there isn't serious intent to kill, I expect smaller knives to do less harm on average.) Astute readers will notice that I'm now talking about knife fights rather than knife crime. My guess is that premeditated crime-with-knives probably wouldn't be much affected by this sort of ban. So, though I'm sure all the things I'm hoping would be reduced would technically be knife crimes (i.e., crimes committed using a knife), I think my use of that term was unhelpful. Sorry about that. |
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