[Sca-cooks] English Doctors want to ban pointy knives...

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 12:31 PM 5/31/2005, you wrote:
>'Lainie
>
> > Good grief... you can kill a person with a pencil- will they
> > outlaw them too?
> >
> > If you look at their argument though, it fails on this:
> > Knives has useful and valuable purposes, and using them as a
> > weapon represents a misuse.
> > Guns, on the other hand, have no purpose other than violence.
>
>I would have to disagree on this point.  There are still people who hunt for
>sustainance.  Coming from a family of tobacco farmers from rural Tennessee
>who hunt (large and small game) to put meat on the table,  I know this from
>direct experience.  So *some* guns do have a purpose rather than "violence",
>at least if by "violence" we mean violence against people.  Handguns,
>however, are not made for, nor practical for, hunting, so you would have a
>partial point there (if you disregard their use for self protection, which
>is a completely separate debate), and automatic weapons are a completely
>different topic, but some guns, do certainly have a purpose other than
>violence, they are used to provide food for the family.

Ok, I have to agree with you in part- but in part my argument is simpler 
than that. I was simply arguing the absolute basic, rock bottom purpose. 
Knives cut things, gun kill things. Yes, there are times when that killing 
serves a useful purpose, such as hunting food. In that instance, violence 
is not a negative thing. What I was trying to point out however, was the 
logical fallacy of the doctors' position, because knives have a great many 
non-violent purposes.

'Lainie
___________________________________________________________________________
O it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it 
like a giant--Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II