Ban the guns! (Opps, ban the knives!?)

You almost have to laugh (or cringe) whenever the government goes a little crazy with regulatory proposals.

Now comes word that the Department of Homeland Security wants to prohibit knives that can be opened with one hand. Yep, knives. Call it the Great Knife Grab.

Such products would be covered under a 50-year-old federal provisions that bars the interstate sale of switchblades.

As any knife-carrying, knife-buying citizen of these here United States knows, one-handed knives are common and used for a whole big world of recreational activities from hunting and fishing to just plain whittling.

So broadly written is this rule that it would impact a big bunch of U.S. knife makers and all-ready existing blades. It could, according to a letter written by 79 U.S. legislators on both sides of the isle and members of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, make millions of knife-owning Americans federal felons.

It might even impact makers and owners of Swiss Army knives and those blades bearing the mark of the Boy Scouts.

This totally useless and mind-numbing piece regulatory misstep just shows how far the Obama administration goes in not thinking things through thoroughly enough.

One-hand-opening hunting or general-purpose knives are hardly the stuff that either terrorists, gang-bangers, thugs or criminals are likely to use.

This is just plain stupid. But at least responsible legislators such as Rep. Bob Latta - an Ohio Republican - and Rep. Walt Minnick - an Idaho Democrat - have enough common sense to thwart this ridiculous stuff by amending Homeland Security's budget that would block it from enforcing this terribly misguided piece of drivel.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
jfrischkorn@news-herald.com