German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to further restrict the carrying of knives in public, to combat a perceived rise in knife crime. The opposition has criticized the plan as impractical.
The German government has promised tougher knife laws after the police reported a rise in the number of stabbings, especially near train stations — though the statistics remain controversial.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has called for the law to be changed so that only blades of 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) would be allowed to be carried in public, rather than the current 12 centimeters. An exception would be made for household knives in their original packaging. Switchblades would be banned altogether.
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The government pronouncement came after police statistics recorded a 5.6% year-on-year rise in cases of serious bodily harm involving a knife, with 8,951 incidents in 2023. The federal police, which is responsible for safety at Germany’s airports and major railway stations, also reported a significant increase in knife attacks in and around stations, with 430 in the first six months of this year.
I know it doesn’t lead to any particular right being set, but your argument that rights are set by the government still leads to the conclusion that, because the Nazis were in power, they had the right to decide that Jews, gay people, other ethnicities, etc. no longer had a right to life. It would also lead to the belief that the Nazis had the right to protect those people if they wanted to. It would open the door to whatever oppression, discrimination, protection, liberty, and whatever else the ever-fickle government decided. Nobody would be right to resist it because “the government sets the rights, therefore it’s okay”.
OK, what I’m trying to communicate is that the door is already open. It always has been. The only thing that stands in the way of oppression coming through is the persistent, collective action of citizens who disagree via multiple avenues, not just voting. If a significant enough proportion of people want the government to kill some group and there’s insufficient pushback, the constitution won’t stop it. It just makes it so that a larger proportion of people is needed. If >2/3 want ban on gun ownership, the door is wide open. If 2/3 want to exterminate LGBTQ people, it’s just as open. Your chance of stopping any of it is to not let 2/3 want it.
And my point is that it isn’t the government that decides what rights are. You started this whole “can the government decide what rights are” discussion by dismissing out of hand the right of a person to defend themselves. I’d like for you to go up to a sexual assault victim, especially one who defended themselves with a gun, and tell them “um ackshually you didn’t have the right to defend yourself because guns are evil 🤓”. Or would you only do that after the Second Amendment is deleted from the Constitution?