A Safer Planet?
May 28, 2005
Ban guns, some say in the United States, and crimes of violence will decrease.
Listen now to the chorus in Britain: Ban the sale of long, pointed kitchen knives, and crimes of violence will decrease.
An editorial in a recent edition of the British Medical Journal notes that a third of all murder victims in England are stabbed to death. The authors want knives refashioned: Manufacturers should make them with rounded, blunt tips.
I am awaiting a similar campaign in Saudia Arabia.
"Cut off the hands of the people," a prince will no doubt announce. All crimes of violence are committed with hands. A handless people means a safer society.
I own no guns -- my wife will not permit it. But I do not believe that guns kill people. And neither do kitchen knives. We kill one another with the tools at hand for reasons as old as the story of Cain and Abel.
Want a safer world? Get rid of people.