[nagrom]

So, we refuse to sell bats to people who want to play baseball in the middle of the summer (the item's main and intended innocent purpose) because other people want to use them for other purposes?

If you don't explicitly do that, you need to figure out a way to identify the potential nefarious users from the potential good ones. Do we allow a bat as long as you buy a mitt and a ball too? Only to people over the age of 25 because most of the looters are under 25? By postcode?

There's no way that any business should be expected to do that - it's a police action. If parliament wants to make bats illegal, or controlled items, that's one issue (resting with parliament, not Amazon and just as contentious). To refuse to sell sporting goods in case they're used for offense is just silly. Do we then refuse to sell cricket bats, or broom handles, or 2x4s, or javelins or kitchen knives if there's an upsurge in their sales?

Ultimately, the people responsible for the use of these items are the people who use them. Let's not try to increase the UK's tactics of using enterprises to carry out work to which the government doesn't want to admit.

[cchurch]

I believe Britain already has restrictions on knife ownership.

This is sad. Honest people resorting to ordering baseball bats on a website for their defense. Imagine that that was your grandmother left with no other option.

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." --Ghandi

[shrikant]

> I believe Britain already has restrictions on knife ownership.

I'm not sure about laws, but I've recently noticed that establishments that do sell knives and razors usually keep them behind the counter, instead of on the shelves. The idea being that you can't just pick a knife up off the shelf and make off with it.

[Knife crime is a serious issue in the UK - The Guardian even has a dedicated section to it! - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/ukcrime]

[nagrom]

Oh, if it became popular, I have no doubt that the government would happily ban baseball bats. Here in Glasgow, it's relatively popular to use a sawn-off golf club as an impromptu spear.

However, it shouldn't be up to a private company to regulate that.

[rcfox]

Grandma does have another option: She could leave the city.

[burgerbrain]

What makes you think she has that option?