Dano, it really wasn't a comparison between the two, it was just my surprise at the UK official mindset combined with a little nudge at our California gun laws, especially our continuing, ever growing, retroactive, and unbounded bans on "assault" weapons and high capacity magazine (even after Federal laws were repealed... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon8.gif).
California knife laws are OK (..4" blades, 2" switchblades...).
BTW, I was in Singapore once where guns are of course completely illegal (my associates found it astounding that I had my own collection...). However when I asked about knives, I was told (Singaporeans please correct me if I'm wrong here) that knives up to 6" were OK. They also said that some of the Malay type people were very, very expert with knives, so it's not like you can't get hurt there. It's more like the Singaporeans have a culture - some might say a rigid culture - of everyone OBEYING THE LAW, and that culture, more than the limitation on weapons, is the reason for their low crime rates. Also a no nonsense judicial system with real punishments, i.e. if you use a gun in a crime, they tack 5 years on, if the gun goes off, it's life, if anyone is hurt as a result of the gun going off, it's death (and they aren't kidding like us when they say death).
At least parts of that sounded good to me... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif.