Sebastian’s and Kevin’s posts reminded me of an alternate history. A sample:

How would today’s America be different if politician’s feared citizens,rather than citizen’s fearing their government?

Imagine, if you will, the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. Where individual rights meant something, and every citizen believed they had the right, nay, the duty, to stand up to any and all aggressors, foreign and domestic. You know, just like the Constitution says.

…

Government only does a few things. Doesn’t take much. Most folks just pay the bill once a year. Never amounts to more than a few hundred dollars. Just as it should be. Hell, most folks get resentful at that much. Makes sense, I guess, given we founded the damn country over a tax on tea.

Since then, government on this side of the pond hasn’t seen much sense in pissing off the people. Sure, some try now and then. There’s always some petty jerk who thinks he can tell someone else what to do. But they never last. Sure, folks put up with them for a while, just like you do with a rash or a runny nose.

But after a little while folks get tired of the whining and crying the petty jerks make when people won’t do what he figures they ought to. The petty ones get a little too uppity, and someone smacks him down. Sometimes, it takes only a little slap across the face to bring the petty jerks to their senses.

Sometimes, someone like old Carl grabs the rifle off the wall, slaps a full mag in, and says, “Time to teach these bastards a lesson.”

Damn, if that doesn’t work every time.

I like alternate histories. It’s fun stuff. I especially like some of the stories from Harry Turtledove. But that’s all fantasy stuff for recreation. When you get serious then I like what Henry Ford had to say:

I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world.  History is more or less bunk.  It is tradition.  We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinkers damn is the history we make today.

        Henry Ford

You can connect the dots for yourself.

Most people in the U.S. would offer you a shiny aluminum foil hat if you were to claim our knife rights are in danger. I know even the most enthusiastic supporters of gun control I have talked to express extreme skepticism when I have brought up the regulations on knives in the U.K. “That’s just silly”, they say. Yup. It is silly. But it’s also true. Today’s QOTD was just one hint of what is going on in the U.K.

And even if you are up to speed on the sad state of affairs in the U.K. one may reasonably claim we don’t need to worry about that in this country because the ninnies who would take away our knives must first take away our guns. That claim sounds reasonable but is it?

While at the NRA convention I stopped by a booth with an intriguing banner:

I barely spoke to them as I took a picture of their banner, picked up a business card, and hurried on. But I knew at the time it was going to be a blog post.

Visiting their website I discovered a link to this WSJ article: Deadly pocketknives become a $1 billion business. It’s every bit as one sided and Chicken Little like as any Brady Campaign media release.

So what about someone who claims we don’t need to worry about knives when we are at least holding our own in the trenches on the gun rights front? My response is, “They are flanking us.” What is going to be your response when some hysterical activist or legislator says, “We already outlaw tactical knives why can’t we get rid of the guns as well?”

So, beyond the obvious commercial airplanes and John McCain public appearances, where are our defensive knives currently restricted? You know that switchblade knives are outlawed in many jurisdictions and the public opinion on them is roughly equivalent to that of machine guns. That battle is essentially lost. I don’t know for certain on the “assault weapon” analog–the locking blade, one handed opening knives, but the WSJ article linked to above reports that Atlanta prohibits people from carrying pocket knives in public with blades longer than two inches. Yet, according to the article this isn’t restrictive enough. Knife Rights could do those of us who carry defensive knives and pro-freedom activists a big service by compiling a list of political jurisdictions that are hostile to people even defending themselves using even a knife.

Another thing Knife Rights could do is work for preemption at the state level to remove the patchwork of laws that might trip of a visitor to some city that has no idea Chicken Little clones have taken over the city council. It would also be nice to see some D.C. versus Heller like cases involving knives and citing either/both state and federal constitutional protections for the right to keep and bear arms.

Here is what the Knife Rights Foundation [501(c)(3)] and Knife Rights [501(c)(4)] organizations have as their mission statements:

Knife Rights Foundation is dedicated to:

1. Encouraging safe and responsible use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach;
2. Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about the history of knives and edged tools;
3. Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about knife and edged tool related laws and regulations

Knife Rights is dedicated to:

1. Providing knife and edged tool owners an effective voice to influence public policy and to oppose efforts to restrict the right to own, use and carry knives and edged tools;
2. Encouraging safe, responsible and lawful use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach, enhancing positive perceptions of knives and edged tools and their owners and users;
3. Encouraging the marketing of knives and edged tools in a responsible manner conducive to the organization’s goals;
4. Cooperating with advocacy organizations having complimentary interests and goals;
5. Providing knife and edged tool owners with services that they will find valuable in order to build membership to enable success in our primary objectives.

I wish them success not just because its the right thing to do but because they are defending my flank on the gun rights issue.

Both the ATF and FBI are banned by the 10^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so it’s rare that I can be happy about their actions. But at least some of their time is spent doing things that don’t cause innocent people harm. From the WaPo we discover the FBI, ATF Battle for Control Of Cases Cooperation Lags Despite Merger:

In the five years since the FBI and ATF were merged under the Justice Department to coordinate the fight against terrorism, the rival law enforcement agencies have fought each other for control, wasting time and money and causing duplication of effort, according to law enforcement sources and internal documents.

…

At crime scenes, FBI and ATF agents have threatened to arrest one another and battled over jurisdiction and key evidence. The ATF inadvertently bought counterfeit cigarettes from the FBI — the government selling to the government — because the agencies are running parallel investigations of tobacco smuggling between Virginia and other states.

There is lots of other good stuff to be found in the article, for example:

Some question whether the ATF can survive. “It just doesn’t make sense to have two agencies . . . responding anytime a bomb goes off,” one Justice Department official said.

One could claim that if we can get rid of one then we are half-way there. But that isn’t the way it really works but I will agree it’s a good start.