@XKCobraDraconis "...
silence when it comes to sharing shipping and licencing details
..."
You do realise that keeping this hobby obscure, mysterious and
rare, will just make this hobby stay obscure and mysterious. With
the few responsible collectors lurking in the sidelines. People
will continue trying to buy knives out of plain ignorance, just to
own something scary, or "edgy" (pun not intended), or because it's
mysterious.
Continuing the general trend of ignorance is not the way.
Only when the potential owners are given good information to
become careful and *responsible* owners - will this hobby be
accepted, not mistrusted and lurking in grey areas of the law.
I understand your reasoning, but I find it rather
idealistic.
Honestly, I'd rather it'd be an obscure hobby. Singapore has no
knife culture, even if you were to openly publicize and attempt to
educate people, the majority of Singaporeans will still stick to
the mindset of it being an obscure and mysterious hobby. Maybe
after 10-15years will you see some shift in mindsets.
You could argue though that this is why we should begin
educating people now, but I'd like to bring up the fact that
Singaporeans lead far too sheltered lifestyles and many take their
personal safety forgranted. Singaporeans in my opinion, are still
too immature to begin a weapon-culture of any sort. In fact many
Singaporeans become easy targets when they travel abroad (I didn't
say this, it was statistics published in the news), and its really
because Singapore is a safe country to live in compared to many
neighbouring countries. But recent events have shown that weapon
assault rates have gone up.
To be honest, there's not much restriction on owning knives.
People can already buy reasonably good knives from Sheares and
Caesars. If a newbie wishes to buy a knife, I always suggest them
to go take a look at those places first. So no biggie, yet all
these years people still think the hobby is obscure and mysterious
and rare. It's only that way because the only people actually
interested in knives and swords are collectors and morons up to no
good. Needless to say, the morons get more publicitiy and attention
when they do shit with their items.
The sharing of shipping and licencing info should only be shared
to people whom a collector discerns is of mature and sound mind.
There's no hard and fuss rule about this and there's no full-proof
way of any of us doing a 'quality check' on the person whom we
share this info with. However, if you have a heart for innocent
people who got attacked with weapons and feel a need to help keep
this country safe, then play your part.
Take note, I never said, not to share info. I just said, be
discerning to whom you share the info with.
