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Scouts No Longer Allowed To Have Knives On Camping Trips

Scouts in the UK are no longer allowed to bring penknives on camping trips because they have been deemed too dangerous. Traditionally scouts have learned knife safety skills, using them to cut firewood or make tools. Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades wrote, "Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife. The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK. I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required." There is no doubt that soon scouts will get rid of their tents for large sound-proof lucite containers, which will be able to protect the children from the horrors of campfire embers, bug bites and foul language.

28 comments

  1. sound-proof lucite containers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sign me up for one if it can shield me from these I-don't-fucking-care-if-I-annoy-everybody-else-because-I'm-a-lowlife-scum-who-doesn't-respect-anyone 5,000,000 watts boomcars.

    1. Re:sound-proof lucite containers? by symbolic · · Score: 1

      Me too! What a bunch of low-life pussies.

    2. Re:sound-proof lucite containers? by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

      I can't help but think that a bazooka, although counter-productive in short term, would be a much more satisfying solution to that particular problem ;)

  2. Such bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...

  3. Wow... by snspdaarf · · Score: 1

    Scouts not allowed to carry knives. What next? Pointed sticks? Bananas? Cherries (black and red)? If the UK now bans all knives, what will they do when the street thugs start beating people to death with their fists? Cut off hands? At some point one would think they need address the underlying problem, and not the inanimate objects used to express it.

    --
    Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
    1. Re:Wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It started long ago. When I was in the scouts we had firearm safety lessons. We learned how to make slingshots. We each had pocket knives. I'll still teach my kid how to use those things, but it's a different experience learning alongside other kids your age.

  4. Knives Are Tools by beckett · · Score: 0, Troll
    An axe, a knife, and a waterproof firestarter are the three things you need to survive in a wooded area. When i was in scouts, I learned how to survive and live when away from the comforting teat of metropolitan civilisation. I was taught that the knife and axe were essential tools, not weapons. Scouts provide unique opportunities for hetrosexual children to empower self sufficiency. By caving into a media-driven, ASBO fueled panic, UK Scouts have done a huge disservice by banning blades.

    Break the "growing knife culture" by showing a generation how to use a pocket knife. What's next: kitchen knives banned from culinary schools? It makes me sad to think that MacGyver is the new Mary Whitehouse scapegoat.

    note to UK Scouts: Teaching knot tying leads to bondage, teaching sharing leads to communism, and camping trips leads to underage buggery. What crusade will you champion next?

    1. Re:Knives Are Tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure scouts can provide the same lessons to {homo|ambi|pan}sexuals as well as the hetero type, as long as they remain in the closet and are not driven out of course.

    2. Re:Knives Are Tools by Mike_EE_U_of_I · · Score: 1

      Indeed, you are very correct. Specifically, you wrote "What's next: kitchen knives banned from culinary schools?"

          Unfortunately, some of the knives in kitchens are far superior weapons than the knives scouts are generally using. What's next? Licenses to have kitchen knives with blades longer than 4"? A ban on steak knives perhaps?

         

    3. Re:Knives Are Tools by Jerslan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Scouts provide opportunities for children to learn self sufficiency.

      This would have been a better sentence to use. Less hate mongering, correct spelling, and correct grammar make everyone happy and still get the point across.

    4. Re:Knives Are Tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently they do regulate kitchen knives in the UK. It would make slightly more sense if they only controlled the ones with pointy tips (I use a Chinese cleaver-style knife with a completely squared-off tip and it works just fine for cooking while useless for stabbing) but even that seems to have escaped them.

    5. Re:Knives Are Tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Hetrosexual children?

      How about you go fuck yourself?

    6. Re:Knives Are Tools by meowhous · · Score: 1

      In San Jose, if the police see you, you'd better not be holding a vegetable peeler! (Particularly not if you're a dinky Asian woman.)

    7. Re:Knives Are Tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately the GGP was probably correct. Scouts DON'T provide those opportunities for homosexual children. Oh, sure, they could, but instead they kick them out. Atheist children, too. At least that's true in the US (I'd love to hear that it's different in the UK).

    8. Re:Knives Are Tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Wow, I should have read further down in the Wiki article:

      in contrast to the BSA's policy, homosexuals are not restricted from membership or leadership positions in Scouts Canada and most European associations, including The Scout Association in the United Kingdom, Ring deutscher PfadfinderverbÃnde of Germany (German Scout Federation), and the Swedish Guide and Scout Association

      I'm both happy (that the UK isn't so bigoted) and sad (that the BSA is).

  5. Wrong Direction by ComputerGeek01 · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it make more scence to instead of banning knives teach first aid and self defence? That way when the thuggie teenager comes at the boy scout (Who doesn't have a knife because little Willy Whinealot is afraid of them) he will be able to defend himself?

    1. Re:Wrong Direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouldn't it make more sense to instead of banning knives teach ... self defence?

      Yeah, I learned how to shoot a rifle and shotgun when I was in scouts.

    2. Re:Wrong Direction by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Me too, plus archery, chainsaws and the basics of tae kwon do as well, in addition to the usual hitting each other with the handy six foot long sticks in each scout hall.

  6. Independent corroboration? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anyone been able to confirm this from another source other than the Telegraph? I've already seen cases where they've strung together out-of-context quotes and tenuous threads of half-truths or barely related stories to create a sensationalist article designed to cause outrage. This may turn out to be the misguided direction of a small group that has been blown out of proportion, or maybe missing most of the relevant facts. I'd love to hear from someone who actually reads "Scouting" in the UK to hear the rest of the story. That said, I too would be saddened to hear that such an absurd policy had been instituted, if it is indeed true. A knife is a tool, a very inexpensive, small, lightweight and versatile tool, that when used properly can save lives. Sure, it could also be a weapon, or a danger to its user, but that's what training is about. The real world is dangerous, and people have to... um... "be prepared."

  7. UK Scouting refutes knife ban claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://scouts.org.uk/news/223/scouting-refutes-knife-ban-claims

    1. Re:UK Scouting refutes knife ban claims by Nutria · · Score: 2, Informative

      Did you actually read the article, and the linked PDF file?

      From http://scouts.org.uk/documents/News/080909/Pages%20from%20scouting.pdf

      Knives should be carried to and
      from meetings by an adult.
        Knives should be stowed in the
      middle of a bag/rucksack
      when transporting.
        Knives should be stored away until there is
      a need for them to be used.
        Campsites are considered public places (when
      used for a camp) and so knives are not to be carried.

      As bad as the US is, Britain has not just "crossed the line", but leaped head-first into outright nanny-state stupidity.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  8. Re:You're a tool by symbolic · · Score: 1

    Scouts provide unique opportunities for hetrosexual children to empower self sufficiency

    Um, yeah. There has never been a gay scout before, and by gummit, there will never be one. Oh, but if they're gay, they're immune to empowerment and self-sufficiency. Is that how it works?

  9. you're a by beckett · · Score: 1

    Is that how it works?

    first of all, i'd like to apologise for "grammar", and for derailing the discussion. this should really be about stabbing weapons and not about gays.

    "how it works" is I was trying to make a deft parallel between this shortsighted knife policy by one Scouts organisation with a shortsighted sexual orientation policy by another Scouts organisation. partly tongue in cheek, and partly to show that these organisations have done some pretty backwards things before. Unfortunately, the discussion turned into mostly knee jerk reactions about how I am such a "hate monger". dont' shoot the messenger; i figured it was covered so extensively that it would be a short stretch for most to make the connection. i know that most of my gay friends would have, and chuckled.

    Feel free to pick out all of my grammatical errors; they are legion, and it appears to calm some down.

    1. Re:you're a by CorporateSuit · · Score: 1

      "how it works" is I was trying to make a deft parallel between this shortsighted knife policy by one Scouts organisation with a shortsighted sexual orientation policy by another Scouts organisation. partly tongue in cheek, and partly to show that these organisations have done some pretty backwards things before.

      Pro tip: Gay people on the internet don't have a sense of humor. They get butthurt over just about everything!

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
    2. Re:you're a by beckett · · Score: 1

      i think most of the most vehement responses were from hetro posters and moderators. i have no way of verifying their sexual preference of course, but there seems to be a general PC over-reaction to anything but a very narrow, but serious amount of deference to homosexuals. we can make all the sex jokes, ethnic jokes, slashdot girlfriend jokes, and penis jokes on slashdot and many times e modded funny, but nothing but the most tepid amount of humour is acceptable for the homos. This response feels more like hetro guilt driven overcompensation than gay anger.

    3. Re:you're a by symbolic · · Score: 1

      My apologies- I didn't intend to comment on grammar at all, and I didn't realize that your comment was tongue-in-cheek. We are certainly in agreement with respect to the 'backwardness.' I appreciate the civilized response.

  10. Knives should be considered ARMS by OhHellWithIt · · Score: 1

    Frankly, I'm fed up with it. Here in the U.S., firearms enjoy respect because they are considered to be weapons and protected by the Second Amendment:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    Any attempt to control or reduce the incidence of carrying firearms is met with stiff resistance, and politicians trip all over themselves trying to avoid any suggestion that they might infringe upon this right.

    But knives? After boxcutter knives were apparently used in the September 11th hijackings, virtually anything having an edge was banned from the possession of airline travelers, even though no one would ever be to hijack a plane with anything short of a gun or a bomb on September 12, 2001. (Richard Reid proved that.) State legislatures introduced legislation to ban boxcutter knives. A person can't get into a courthouse or even board the ferry to the Statue of Liberty with a common pocket knife with a street-legal 2-1/4" blade. ("No tools or dual-use items", the Statue of Liberty brochure says, somewhat indirectly referring to knives.)

    Our right to carry one of the most basic weapons, which Man has been carrying in one form or another for over 10,000 years, is being whittled away because the knife is considered a lowly tool.

    So, dammit, I've had enough. This Swiss Army knife here in my pocket is not a tool, it's a weapon, and I insist on my right to carry it under the Second Amendment. The fact that I can also open a bottle of wine or tighten a loose screw is purely incidental.

    --
    "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
  11. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What happens when a boy scout doesn't carry a knife?
    http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/mar/31/bobcat-attacks-boy-scout-man-citrus-county/news-breaking/
    What happens when a boy scout carries a knife?
    http://www.dogsbite.org/blog/2008/09/boy-scout-stabs-kills-pit-bulls.html
    What happens when boy scouts spot danger with a knife?
    http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/01/08/maldives-attack.html?ref=rss
    Yeah, we can't have any of that stuff going on.
    Criminals are the problem, not guns and knives.
    Take the guns and knives away from boy scouts & you have no self defense.
    Criminals will still carry unregistered stolen guns... & knives... you can't stop them.
    But you can defend yourself, if you are allowed to carry your own gun or knife.
    Goodbye, I won't be back.
    Life's too short to register with your website just so I can constantly bicker with a bunch of brainless idiots.
    Have a nice life.
    Get some common sense.