It's a steak and salad without the steak. It's Wham! without George Michael*. It's Presidentish Joe Biden without his teleprompter. Hell, it might even be Biden with his teleprompter.
It's a Swiss Army knife... without that bothersome knife part.
Swiss firm Victorinox has made a huge assortment of its iconic pocket knives for more than a century, going all the way back to 1897. Depending on the size, you might find everything from a can opener to a saw to a magnifying glass and even surprisingly sharp little scissors.
The one thing — two things, actually — you could count on finding in the bigger models were a longer blade of almost three inches and a shorter blade an inch or so long.
Until now. In Britain. That's where Victorinox will soon introduce "the first range of bladeless products designed specifically for activities where a blade would not be required," according to the Guardian. The reason, if you hadn't already guessed, is to combat ("Word choice!") "what an English judge last week called the 'plague of knife crime.'"
Have they not considered what someone could do with the hole punch found on many of the larger models?
ASIDE: I used an AI generator to make the image atop this article, hoping that it would come up with something just as ridiculous as a knifeless pocket knife — and it delivered.
“In some markets," Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of Victorinox explained, "the blade creates an image of a weapon. I have in mind creating a tool that would be useful for cyclists. Cyclists have a need for specific tools but not necessarily a blade,” he said. “We already have a tool specifically for golfers.”
If you've never owned a Swiss Army knife, you should know that the blades don't lock, so you wouldn't want to try to stab someone with one. Most likely, the blade would fold in, slicing the would-be stabber's fingers right open. But facts hardly matter in the increasingly kindergarten-like, multicultural, and once-great country known as Great Britain.
*You'll earn up to 250 PJ Media Bonus Points™ (no intrinsic value and not redeemable for anything for anything but bragging rights) if you can name the other guy from Wham! without looking it up.
And poor Elsener is just bowing to regulatory pressures. The UK has some of the strictest knife-control laws (really!) in the world, and due to that mysterious "plague of knife crime," more laws are sure to come.
Britons, you see, can't be trusted with as much responsibility as 11-year-old VodkaPundit was, way back in the day. My first pocketknife — a gift at age 11, 44 years ago — was something close to today's Huntsman model. I used it for everything from whittling to assembling a desk to removing the flashing from model X-Wing parts to first aid.
That Swiss Army knife taught me how not to cut myself or others, how to care for a blade, and how to get stuff done without asking an adult. In short, it taught me how to be responsible. My sons, ages 13 and 18, have all kinds of knives, and they're coming along quite nicely.
Britain, on the other hand, is being regressed to the status of an unruly 10-year-old who can't yet be trusted with sharp things.
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