Swords....

[hobbitomm]

Our delightful First Minister, Jack McConnell, has introduced a bill to ban, amongst other generally sensible ideas, the sale and carrying in public of swords in Scotland. A recent Scotsman
article on the subject can be found at the following page, ~ http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1345182004

Which is all very well and good, but it's not likely to reduce the number of blade wounds significantly, which is the supposed point. Obviously this will have an effect on, amongst other things....

Tourism
Antiques Sales
Fencing
Historical Re-enactments
Highland Dancing
Religious/Masonic ritualists

If you are against this concept, you can mail the First Minister, or the Justice Minister at jack.mcconnell.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
cathy.jamieson.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
respectively, or you can join in the petition at

http://www.petitiononline.com/Swords/petition.html

Comments

[ggreig]

I think the politicians' approach is an over-reaction, but put yourself in the shoes of an average member of the public. To them, a car is a liberating, useful, if not indispensible, tool which also unfortunately happens to be dangerous if mishandled. That doesn't compare to something deliberately designed as a weapon for which they see no use in their every day lives and which they know criminals may be using as their weapon of choice. It doesn't matter if knife crime is relatively rare, and sword crime even rarer. It's horrific when it happens, it's personal - not an accident, as might happen to any car driver - and banning it would have very little impact on the life of the average citizen. Those things make a big difference in people's attitudes towards the justification for owning a sword as against owning a car, and have nothing to do with relative numbers.

Although I'm not personally involved in any of them, I support the legitimate use of swords for the activities hobbitomm mentions. However, I think you're starting on the back foot in terms of defending that position, for the reasons that both you and I have given.

It seems to me, then, that the way to get the politicians to listen, especially when they have already spoken out against sword ownership so vehemently in the first place, is not to be too defensive about it but to be willing, co-operative and (horrendous word) pro-active in finding constructive alternatives that could make it more difficult for the thugs to own and misuse blades while preserving your legitimate interests. Sure, licensing (or some other limitation scheme) won't stop a determined criminal getting hold of a blade - but then, neither will an outright ban, so maybe licensing (or some other scheme) will actually be good enough for the politicians and the public if actively proposed and supported.

As regards the petition, I think it might be productive to have a look at the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee pages, which include guidelines on how to submit a petition and a dedicated ePetition system.