Bushcraft banned!!

[santaman2000]

He must have got the idea from an episode of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected

Which part of the idea? Various movies and/or tv shows have used the frozen meat as a weapon bit as part of serious (or semi-serious) stories for a while. I first saw it almost 50 years ago in an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." In that episode the murderer/widow got rid of the evidence by feeding it to the investigating detective at the end of the show. A lot of jokes came out of that episode over the years; but Steve Martin was the first one I ever saw parody it in comparison to anti-gun laws.

 

[jimbo75]

Whatever. Your missing my point. Or maybe it is o.k. to have machetes marketed as toys on the high street?

 

[Ex member - Bilgerat]

Strewth..... Is this thread fer real........

 

[Martyn]

LOL. Just have a look at the people who show up at Walmart (AKA Walley World) on the night shift. www.rogerknecht.com/2010/12/14/walmartians

Good lord. For once, I'm lost for words.

But I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to sell any of those people a gun.

 

[shaggystu]

Which part of the idea? Various movies and/or tv shows have used the frozen meat as a weapon bit as part of serious (or semi-serious) stories for a while. I first saw it almost 50 years ago in an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." In that episode the murderer/widow got rid of the evidence by feeding it to the investigating detective at the end of the show. A lot of jokes came out of that episode over the years; but Steve Martin was the first one I ever saw parody it in comparison to anti-gun laws.

mesquite was referring to a short story called "lamb to the slaughter" from a collection entitled "someone like you" (not "switch bitch" strangley enough) by roald dahl, originally published in 1954. late 60's early 70's (i.e. 50 years ago) sounds about right for "tales of the unexpected", maybe is was broadcast in the US under a different title?

stuart

 

[Retired Member southey]

Whatever. Your missing my point. Or maybe it is o.k. to have machetes marketed as toys on the high street?

how are they marketed as toys, just because something has orange on it to help you not loose it?

 

[Martyn]

Whatever. Your missing my point. Or maybe it is o.k. to have machetes marketed as toys on the high street?

I find that odd as it's illegal to sell knives to anyone under the age of 18. Can you elaborate exactly how they were being marketed as toys?

 

[santaman2000]

mesquite was referring to a short story called "lamb to the slaughter" from a collection entitled "someone like you" (not "switch bitch" strangley enough) by roald dahl, originally published in 1954. late 60's early 70's (i.e. 50 years ago) sounds about right for "tales of the unexpected", maybe is was broadcast in the US under a different title?

stuart

No, we got Tales of the Unexpected here as well. It just wasn't broadcast on the channels we got in Covington County,Mississippi (we got a local NBC affiliate reliabley and an affiliate of ABC broadcast from down in Biloxi if the weather was good) Alfred Hitchcock did an adaptation the he showed on his weekly tv show The one I referenced) which aired on NBC.

 

[santaman2000]

Good lord. For once, I'm lost for words.

But I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to sell any of those people a gun.

LOL. I'm not sure any of them would even know which end to load.

 

[Cpt-Jack]

Sorry folks, but I'm really pi**ed off! Iv'e just been told by a friend that.. He saw loads of Bear Ghryls Machete's for sale over the counter very cheap, whilst he was on holiday!! Are these retailers stupid?? It's only a matter of time before some idiot gets hold of one! This is exactly what happened to airsoft! Cheap knives/guns on view to the public, will only help a government launch an all out ban on knives being sold, (to ANYONE...).
It's madness!!!!

So what are the retailers supposed to do? Stop selling machetes and knives all together, just incase they get banned in the future? That would be somewhat paradoxical wouldnt it? I dont see what the problem is, these items are completely legal and the shop has every right to sell them openly. There are plenty of items that are far far more dangerous avaliable openly in a hardware store or garden centre that idiots could also get their hands on. Why are you and your friend not taking issue with those too?

Its highly unlikely knives are ever going to be banned, for obvious reasons. An idiot can and always will find ways to use virtually anything in an idiotic manner to cause trouble. Most people including the government are slowly beginning to realise that you cant regulate for the minority of idiots in society. If you dont believe me just look at the Cumbria shootings last year, there has been no real kneejerk reactions and no "look we are doing something" bans. The response from the government and overall public has been almost entirely rational. The tables are turning.

 

[Paul_B]

Late to the thread but if anyone wants machetes we get them for work for something like a couple of quid. I've got a mate in a trade who gets trade catalogues for tools which one included machete for £1.49!! I tried to get one to see what it like but my mate took the **** out of me wanting a machete and refused to get it. I ain't no Bear Grylls type so why did I want a machete? Not the point it was to see what type of machete you get for the price of half a pint of beer.

I don't know if it has changed any but about 6 years ago I used to do martial arts and our instructor had a bit of a whinge about how it was hard for him to buy the weapons he needed to progress in his art and his career (full time martial artist as a job). Anyway his various arts included things like iaido (bad spelling) and other Japanese disciplines that used weapons such as a form of flexible bladed pike. He went to this shop on Liverpool I think which stocked martial arts equipment (in a rough area of Liverpool on the edge of thee centre IIRC as I've been past it as a kid once). He took a load of credentials such as communications with police to show he taught self defence and controlled takedown techniques for arrests, etc. All the paperwork showing he was a professional (also worked close protection and taught it too). He went in to get a particular knife/sword that he needed but got told he needed some special application then it had to be sent off somewhere and a few weeks down the line he gets to collect his sword. Obviously frustrated the shop owner told him that if he bought a stand with it for a few quid more he could take it home straight away as it was then classified as decoration!!!

Was a few years ago now so probably changed somewhat but at the time it was kind of ridiculous that the person with most use for the weapon and most likely to use it for legitimate reasons in a safe and controlled way and to store it safely is the one person who was restricted from getting it legally and according to the rules.

 

[wizard]

From my point of view, strickly speaking from my opinion, it looks to me that you've already gotten most sharp things banned, right? You can't have a locking SAK or Multitool, no fixed knives on your belt and most firearms are a no no as well. Who's going to miss a machete when they are illegal?

Where I am at, and you can understand there are those that think we are crazy as a state of the United States, we can carry about anything. I can conceal carry a handgun, wear a big belt knife or lock my SAK without fear of being illegal. What this means is I am free to own and carry. What it also means is to stay away from certain parts of the city at certain times of the day because the bad people are probably armed as well and a good firefight is never really that good. Way too much paperwork afterward for me. I think I would actually draw more attention as a weirdo if I had a machete showing on my person than if I carried an assault rifle.

Laws are always out to solve the world's problems and often only create new problems.:theyareon

 

[Paul_B]

Well I must admit to developing a major desire to fire a gun myself. That sound bad but bear me out it isn't.

I work at a company which has a few people who used to shoot a lot before it became a real hassle to own and use a gun. The stories they have about what they got up to sounds good. Their talk of gear also interests me as I am a self confessed gear freak. I am probably more about the gear than the activity sometimes to my shame (like it has made my week tonight when I found a gas stove I had forgotten I even had!! Puts my stove count at 11 which sounds soo much better than 10!! ). Stories about magazine size on their guns. One had what I took as a pump action shotgun with a magazine extension into double figures!!

Then it is the being outdoors side of shooting as well.

Also at work we deal a lot with Americans and Canadians (cue Newfie jokes like the well known Newfie deer poacher caught with his legal catch allowance in his pickup but it having way too many front left legs as to be a totally new species). Anyway they always talk about shooting. The Texans are the most amusing. Trying to explain gun control to a Texan who's idea of chilling out is getting drunk and shooting bottles and cans in his back yard. It was a friday and I should have left four hours earlier and the Texan customer called for tech advise. I answered it and he was happy as it was a bad week for him. He said to me that it had been a hard week, one of those weeks you just can;t wait to get over so you can shoot a bit in your back yard. I told him that IF I did that it would take about 20 minutes for a load of heavily armed men in body armour and police uniforms to cart me off to a little room with good locks!! He seriously asked me why? What is wrong with shooting in your back yard?? I then had about half an hour explaining that there is such a thing as gun control and not everywhere believes guns use and gun carrying is as much a part of life as breathing. It is interesting to learn about other country's attitudes to gun and knife control. However I do think Texas is kind of different even for Americans in the gun thing. A colleague (one of the shooters) was in Texas driving to meetings and stopped off at a cafe. On the way in there was a special type of cloakroom. It wasn't for coats but you could get a ticket in return for your hat (cowboy hat of course), spurs (the clientele got out of pickups wearing spurs on their boots!!) and various forms of firearms from six shooters to rifles and shotguns. All got handed in, stuffed in a pidgeonhole and a ticket handed out. It totally amazed me at the time but having since spoken to a few texans I have learnt to expect anything from them. Love the drawl too. I think they kind of have it right in many ways.

 

[demographic]

a special type of cloakroom. It wasn't for coats but you could get a ticket in return for your hat (cowboy hat of course), spurs (the clientele got out of pickups wearing spurs on their boots!!) and various forms of firearms from six shooters to rifles and shotguns.

Half reminds me of the motorcyclists who get off the bus with their lids on their arm...

 

[Barn Owl]

I'd love too be able to just go out and blast a few off too Paul.

I think guns are like knives, a beautiful tool ( or toy ), that can help destress by using against an inanimate object like a clay, bottle, or piece of wood.

Fair doos if it's for killing for food, I've no objections to that at all.

 

[Martyn]

If you dont believe me just look at the Cumbria shootings last year, there has been no real kneejerk reactions and no "look we are doing something" bans. The response from the government and overall public has been almost entirely rational. The tables are turning.

If the public in the UK are ever allowed private ownership of automatic weapons again, it wont be from an outbreak of common sense, it will be as a result of a rise in crime. Certainly, I think the public are coming round to the logic that banning dangerous things doesnt make the danger go away. In fact it invites it in. We've nothing left to ban really. But still illegally owned firearms are on the increase. It's not that hard to but a gun on the black market or so I'm told. Much easier now than it ever has been, and from my job I know that gang related shootings are not uncommon. But there has always been an uneasy truce between the gangs and the cops. We dont usually get running gun battles and we dont often see petty crime committed at gunpoint. As a result, the cops dont carry em and open warfare is not on the agenda. But particularly with the influx of certain elements from abroad, that is changing. Nobody is going to stop the Bulgarian/Serb/Croatian/Ukranian/Russian mafia from carrying and using guns. They play by different rules. I dont think we are far away from UK cops being issued with sidearms and when that happens, the stakes go up for everyone. Cumbria was an abject lesson in the inability for the police to protect civilians from just one gunman. The unarmed cops were running away. The recent riots in London have illustrated the same thing. The police were completely impotent. The cops are on thin ice. If they continue to fail the public in this way, the public WILL demand a change. The innocent public will demand to be protected, or failing that, demand the tools to protect themselves. It's crime and lawlessness that is driving it, not common sense.

 

[demographic]

If the public in the UK are ever allowed private ownership of automatic weapons again, it wont be from an outbreak of common sense, it will be as a result of a rise in crime. Certainly, I think the public are coming round to the logic that banning dangerous things doesnt make the danger go away. In fact it invites it in. We've nothing left to ban really. But still illegally owned firearms are on the increase. It's not that hard to but a gun on the black market or so I'm told. Much easier now than it ever has been, and from my job I know that gang related shootings are not uncommon. But there has always been an uneasy truce between the gangs and the cops. We dont usually get running gun battles and we dont often see petty crime committed at gunpoint. As a result, the cops dont carry em and open warfare is not on the agenda. But particularly with the influx of certain elements from abroad, that is changing. Nobody is going to stop the Bulgarian/Serb/Croatian/Ukranian/Russian mafia from carrying and using guns. They play by different rules. I dont think we are far away from UK cops being issued with sidearms and when that happens, the stakes go up for everyone. Cumbria was an abject lesson in the inability for the police to protect civilians from just one gunman. The unarmed cops were running away. The recent riots in London have illustrated the same thing. The police were completely impotent. The cops are on thin ice. If they continue to fail the public in this way, the public WILL demand a change. The innocent public will demand to be protected, or failing that, demand the tools to protect themselves. It's crime and lawlessness that is driving it, not common sense.

Meh, I'm not convinced armed dibble would make much difference.
Cumbrias a big county and the police are spread out a fair bit.

 

[JonathanD]

From my point of view, strickly speaking from my opinion, it looks to me that you've already gotten most sharp things banned, right? You can't have a locking SAK or Multitool, no fixed knives on your belt and most firearms are a no no as well. Who's going to miss a machete when they are illegal?

No, that's not true at all. Lockng SAKs and Multi-tools are perfectly legal, as are fixed blades and even firearms. It's just handguns, assault weapons and automatic knives and their kin that are illegal. It's one of those urban myths that abound that locking knives and fixed blades are banned. We can carry fixed and locking blades of any length perfectly legally as long as we have reason to do so.

 

[Barn Owl]

I know I could easily get hold of an illegal firearm and I'm in the country.

Much easier than getting a certificate for myself and I'm a retired cop. Lol.

Perhaps I shouldn't make light of that fact but it's true.

 

[Martyn]

Meh, I'm not convinced armed dibble would make much difference.
Cumbrias a big county and the police are spread out a fair bit.

The point is, early on in his killing spree, nobody was in a position to even confront him. The only option the cops had was to get out of his way. That's not acceptable. We'll never know if lives could have been saved if the cops had been armed, but the possibility certainly exists. If it was just that one incident, then you could let it go. But London proved the same point. It was a shambles and a national embarrassment. It was startlingly apparent that a couple of dozen motivated, armed and organised martyrs could put this country into a state of total anarchy in an instant and nobody would be in a position to do a thing about it until it was far too late. Imagine Cumbria x20, organised all over the country, with each martyr going nuts 24 hours apart from each other? It doesnt bear thinking about.