Why would you want to gum a steak? Well, because London’s murder rate now exceeds New York’s. London’s gun laws are tougher than Chuck Norris, so would be murders have resorted to knives. There seems to be no limit to human ingenuity when homicide is the issue. London’s mayor, Shadiq Khan, has responded as any any Western bien pensant would, he announced new knife control measures. “No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife,” Khan said on Twitter. “Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.”
How are they going to tell whether you’re carrying? Stop and frisk seems the only way. Your walking down the avenue or lane and a bobby demands you turn your pockets out. Your Swiss Army knife falls to the ground and you’re terrorist toast. But your Swiss Army knife is nothing compared to a baseball bat or in merry old England a cricket bat. You think you’re on your way to the pitch and Mayor Kahn’s security initiative lands you in the hoosegow.
Here are a few of the items that the London bulls have so far confiscated in their zeal to make Londoners safe.
I would add more items needed to be removed from the city’s public spaces: scissors, toothbrushes (you can easily put out an eye with its handle), needles, the tops of cans, croquet mallets, loose change (wrap your hand around a pack of shillings and you’ll be able to deal a devastating wallop), tennis rackets, golf clubs, rolling pins, high heeled shoes, belts (they can be used to strangle), pens, pencils, the list is almost endless; you can add to add on your own. Of course teeth will have to go. We all know how dangerous a human bite is. But we can’t stop at the dentist’s office. We’ll have to get rid of fists and feet. You can kill with punches and kicks. I suppose we’ll have to leave the surgeons for last as it’s very hard to do an amputation without hands.
Thus the descendants of the men who beat Napoleon, the Kaiser, and Hitler will be hobbling down the street with their pants around their ankles, which is as far down as their lower extremities will go, trying to get on a bus driven by the stumps of its driver.
When they go for a juicy American style steak at the Flat Iron they’re going to have to gum it since knives will no longer be on the table and your teeth will be in police custody. I suppose the Flat Iron folks could give you one of plastic knives favored by the airlines, but the Mayor’s anti-weapons ukase may include them as well the items above. And what good is a plastic knife if all you have to use it with are wrists?
But what use is a system that can’t be gamed? We’ll have an exemption process. MPs and bureaucrats will be granted ukase immunity. This relief can be total or partial. If one has the latter type he (I would exempt all women as they constitute so low a mayhem risk that they can be ignored) can be risk stratified, but this type of assessment may be relinquished as odious; profiling is worse than mayhem. If you have partial immunity you can keep one hand or foot, or your upper or lower teeth. Government must show both mercy and discretion.
I would favor letting Londoners keep their hands and feet if they agree to appear in public handcuffed and shackled, but teeth have to go. The utensils of daily living are too dangerous to be let into the general population without strict regulation for without such regulation they may make the activities of daily living impossible to enjoy.
So how do you gum a steak? I haven’t got a clue. But I don’t intend to make a trip to London.
