In our current debate around gun control and the Second Amendment, those who support regulation often say they don’t want to take our guns away from us. On the contrary, they just want what they call some “commonsense” regulations.

We on this side of the debate see how that will go in the long term.

It starts with, say, background checks on gun sales, then morphs into red flag laws and assault weapon bans, then into more and more restrictions until, in time, the firearms are essentially gone. No one can have them without so many regulations that they might as well be totally banned.

Some will argue that this will make crime disappear, though we call those people idiots. Gun control won’t stop guns coming up through our borders anymore than drug laws have prevented cocaine and meth from coming up from Mexico.

But even if it did stop guns somehow, it won’t stop violent crime.

In fact, a post from the UK Home Office, which is in charge of things like immigration and security, makes it pretty clear that gun control doesn’t solve violent crime.

We are changing the law to ban zombie-style machetes.

It will be illegal to possess, sell, manufacture or transport these potentially-deadly weapons.

We will do what is necessary to make our streets safer – and protect the public. pic.twitter.com/UqIWGwsaji

— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) January 24, 2024

Now, “zombie-style machetes” sounds like a made-up term that lacks anything coherent behind it, kind of like “assault weapon” really.

And, in fact, the parallels to “assault weapons” don’t end there. It also seems there’s a set of “evil features” that makes a bladed weapon a “zombie knife.”

The Home Office explains that after 2016 “some retailers continued to sell these kinds of weapons but evaded breaking the law by removing the threatening wording on the blade or handle that incites violence”.

But the new law will mean that blades without images or words will also be recognised as zombie knives if they have other key features, such as a cutting or serrated edge.

Of course, what they mean by a “cutting” edge may be a mystery, since that’s kind of a defining characteristic of, you know, knives.

But let’s remember that the UK didn’t start out like this.

While they may never have been as free with regard to firearms as we were, a lot of people still had them and owned them lawfully. A single instant of someone misusing a firearm triggered a wave of legislation that not only hasn’t stopped mass shootings or so-called gun crime, but also pushed more and more people to use knives instead.

The difference, however, is that a good guy can use a gun to defend themselves and it not matter who’s bigger, stronger, or any of that. Guns are equalizers. Knives, however, aren’t.

Knives will always favor not just those who know how to use them but also favors the bigger and stronger among us.

Gun control didn’t stop the criminals in the UK, it ultimately gave them a more favorable outcome.

Meanwhile, now they’re cracking down on knives because gun control required them to focus on the weapon rather than the individual. They focused on the tool, not the tool using it, and as a result, the tool used changed. The tool using it really hasn’t though.