Michael Dorosh said:
I see no rationale here besides sour grapes, petty jealousy and irrational fear. Did you actually have a reason for this opinion or did you just like the way the keyboard feels under your fingers?
Michael, I am attracted to this Forum due to it's high level of reasonable, rationale debate. Posts such as your most recent one contribute very little. Perhaps if you have nothing thoughtful to post, consider not posting.
That said, it should be noted that in a recent (Centre Left) Globe and Mail poll, 75% of over 20,000 responders were not in favour of the recent Supreme Court decision. I think many rationale Canadians recognize the folly of a decision that allows minors to introduce edged weapons into an otherwise weapons free environment. Although I realize almost anything can be used as a weapon, a knife is considerably more dangerous than, say, a pencil or a chair.
The Young Offenders Act exists because Canadian society accepts that children are often far less reasonable and rationale that adults. Therefore, although crimes committed by youth are punished, they are generally held less accountable than if they were adults. However, someone who is stabbed or slashed to death by a Kirpan used by a student is not any less dead or injured.
A number of negative scenarios come to mind, however here is a simple one that many could understand. A baptized Sikh youth is tormented, for whatever reason (too smart, too fat, too ugly, too nerdy) by a group of similarly immature youth. The Sikh youth does not show restraint, and finds himself engaged in a fight. Somehow, the Kirpan is unsheathed and is used to cause grievous bodily harm or death to one of the combatants. Although this scenario has never or rarely ever happened in Canada, it would be cold comfort for the parents of the dead or injured child if it did.
Although many youth carry weapons outside of school, schools must be considered as sanctuaries of safety for all those who attend. The simple fact that Kirpans are not allowed on commercial aircraft is recognition by government and society as a whole that they do indeed pose a safety risk if they are in the wrong hands.
Every religion has whack jobs. Timothy McVeigh....The Taliban....the Orthodox, Muslim and Catholic Serbs, and of course, the Air India bombers. The simple fact that a Kirpan should never be used in anger or during a period of irrationality doesn't mean that it won't. I'm sure that even Baptized Sikhs suffer from schizophrenia.
Two questions that I don't have the answer to:
1. What do Kirpan wearing Sikhs do when faced with commercial air travel? Do they abstain and take ground and sea travel only?
2. Is there a size limit to Kirpans. Can they come in miniaturized form? Could the Swiss make a 1 cm long, fully functioning Kirpan that could be worn around the neck? Or, does the Kirpan have to be large enough to hurt someone if required? If the answer is the latter, I think it's all the more reason that a child should not be allowed to bring one into an institution of learning.
