Virginia Ivory Ban Bill Defeated

[ron_m80]

The U.S. F & WS is an enforcent agency. They do not make laws and regulations?

 

[SidTheMuss]

There is no such thing as a Global Illegal Ivory trade except in your posts.

yeah i took that as the poster stating that illegal ivory trade wasn't global, my mistake

 

[Mark Knapp]

Just my $.02,

Having done a little, and I mean little, research I'm going to have to throw my hat in the pro-elephant department. I don't have anything against the use of pre-ban or mammoth ivory, but especially with the pre-ban, forgery seems possible and that puts a lovely group of animals at risk for poaching. Globally criminalizing the consumption of that material seems the only effective way to hinder the slaughter of those animals.

That said, I do think that, should the bill(s) pass they should allow an appropriate amount of time for and even subsidies and rebates for ivory based businesses to retool their workshops or transition to another product. I'd hate to see valuable member of the knife community fall on hardship because of this transition. Necessary as it may be.

You do know that, it is impossible to globally ban anything, we cannot do it with beheading and we cannot do it with ivory. The best we can do is make sure we are part of the solution and not part, (to the best of our ability) of the problem, I believe we are doing that. We can do more but the import of new ivory is already banned in the U.S. The studies suggest that local bans can't stop poaching abroad.

I said before, if my neighbor had a fire on his kitchen stove, I can't put it out by throwing fire on my stove.

Thanks for giving it some thought.

 

[Twindog]

Does anyone know what Knife Rights' position is on the current federal limited ban on elephant ivory, which has exclusions for old elephant ivory and non-elephant ivory?

 

[RedLynx]

Does anyone know what Knife Rights' position is on the current federal limited ban on elephant ivory, which has exclusions for old elephant ivory and non-elephant ivory?

That's a very interesting question.

 

[Mark Knapp]

The U.S. F & WS is an enforcent agency. They do not make laws and regulations?

The problem is that the President signed an executive order making the sale of pre-act elephant ivory in the U.S. for all intents and purposes illegal. No legislative action, no judicial review. He sent directives to the director of the U.S.F&W Service. The director of that service started to implement those directives with directives of his own. We have been able to block them legislatively so far, so the states started to enact their own bans.

That's where we stand now. If you live in a state that is deliberating on an ivory ban and you don't like it, you need to let them know. We all need to let our national representative know that we don't want the bans, that they need to consider them carefully. If you like the bans, don't worry, no action is required on your part, you are sitting pretty.

 

[Jens Schuetz]

Why should posessing somehing preban not be illegal?
I'm sure I wouldn't be allowed to have some ancient back then legal cough syrup or filled opium pipes in my possession.

 

[RedLynx]

Just my $.02,

Having done a little, and I mean little, research I'm going to have to throw my hat in the pro-elephant department.

I know this gets a little confusing for all of us with at least two threads and multiple opinions flying around... But I think everyone in this and the previous thread is in the pro-elephant department. While I'm pro-ban and Mark is anti-ban (though, again, he presents some of the most logical arguments, in my opinion) I don't for a second believe he wishes to "protect his investment" or whatever words one might want to use there, at the expense of African elephants. (Not saying you're saying that, but there is a belief that being anti-ban is indirect or tacit approval of poaching and I'm not sure that's true or that I could go as far as stating such, myself.) I don't believe anyone who is fighting this ban is anti-elephant in any way. I certainly don't think D. Ritter is. I understand, in some sense, why it is being fought. I'm very anti-ban on pretty much anything, so for me to take a pro-ban stance is pretty rare.

I know that whatever the outcome of all of this stuff (I know the VA one is decided, but other states as well) I don't want business owners like Mark to be hurt and I don't see the harm in someone selling old heirlooms for profit. That's just me.

Do I think the ban will have a measurable effect resulting in X number of elephant lives saved? Not really, if I'm honest. There's probably more effective things we can, should, and hopefully are doing to really fight poaching when and where it happens.

I still support it, because I feel I have to if there is even a small chance it can help. It's just how I feel about it... My position isn't entirely logical, and perhaps because of that, could even be seen as a naive or foolish position. That's fair. I'd like to come up with a bunch of facts and stats saying I know it will help the African elephant a great deal, but I'm not sure that's true. But I do believe we have to try. Hopefully not the expense of people who want or need to pawn or sell such items in their old age.

We all want the poaching to stop, we're just at odds as to how to get there.

If we can take a step back and look at this not as a knife issue, or an ivory issue, or even an elephant issue, it may help. At its very core, it's just a conservation issue. I believe all of us here on either side of this ban are responsible, adult conservationists who want to wisely utilize the resources we've been given. Some take issue seeing ivory as a resource at all and I think that's perfectly fair too. I only use the term to illustrate that if the situation were different, if they weren't endangered or more of their bodies were used, this issue might be different. But, for now it is what it is and I think for many here, it offends our "conservationist" sensibilities just as much as our "we love animals" sensibilities.

That was much more long-winded than I thought it would be, sorry about that.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Why should posessing somehing preban not be illegal?
I'm sure I wouldn't be allowed to have some ancient back then legal cough syrup or filled opium pipes in my possession.

Because, pre-ban ivory cannot harm a person or an elephant like pre-ban opium or snake oil cough syrup can. I don't think it is illegal to own ancient cough syrup though.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Does anyone know what Knife Rights' position is on the current federal limited ban on elephant ivory, which has exclusions for old elephant ivory and non-elephant ivory?

Their official stance is the same as it is on the state bans. Many people that have studied the federal ban agree that the burden of proof required to make any elephant ivory in the U.S. legal to trade in is so high that it makes any of the exclusions for old elephant ivory and even some non-elephant ivories not obtainable.

First it puts the burden of proof as to what it is and how old it is on the owner. One would have to prove what species it is first, and then prove when it came here.

Long time excepted methods of proof like family history and affidavits from previous owners (provenance) will not be acceptable under the new regulations. Only government documents, or bills of lading from the time the ivory was originally imported will be acceptable if the directives are enforced as currently written.

The problem is, before there was a problem with elephant populations, poaching ect. before the CITES treaties, there were no government documents required to import elephant ivory. The documents required did not exist. It seems silly to require a document that does not exist and was never required but that's how the federal ban now reads. How many of us still have the original shipping invoices from things that came to the U.S. over 36 years ago, and could be much more than that, maybe 150 years ago.

The antiquity exclusions are even worse, for that you would need to prove the item was over 100 years old, what species the ivory in it was from and you would have to prove it was never repaired with any ivory newer than when it was originally built.

 

[Twindog]

Their official stance is the same as it is on the state bans. Many people that have studied the federal ban agree that the burden of proof required to make any elephant ivory in the U.S. legal to trade in is so high that it makes any of the exclusions for old elephant ivory and even some non-elephant ivories not obtainable.

So Knife Rights is against all bans on trading ivory, limited or not. And the reason is that partial bans are not enforceable.

We know the limited ban is not sufficient. I don't know if a full ban on all types of ivory would be sufficient, either, but it seems to be our only move. And if we are to force China to stop trading in ivory, we'll certainly have to stop ourselves.

I'm much more confident that if we take Knife Rights' advice and repeal all bans on ivory selling and buying, a lot more elephants will die.

 

[Mark Knapp]

So Knife Rights is against all bans on trading ivory, limited or not. And the reason is that partial bans are not enforceable.

We know the limited ban is not sufficient. I don't know if a full ban on all types of ivory would be sufficient, either, but it seems to be our only move. And if we are to force China to stop trading in ivory, we'll certainly have to stop ourselves.

I'm much more confident that if we take Knife Rights' advice and repeal all bans on ivory selling and buying, a lot more elephants will die.

No, I believe they are for enforcing the ban that we already have. We believe it has been doing a pretty good job of keeping new ivory out of the U.S. and to impose more bans on the U.S. will do the same thing that the last ban did in regards to the poaching problem and China's imports - nothing.

We will never be able to force China to do or not do anything. Bans are certainly not our only move. Yao Ming (a Chinese superstar) might be able to influence some of the Chinese people. Sanctions against the countries that allow smuggling to occur or allow poaching to occur might help. Aiding African nations with technology and funds to combat poaching could help. We should support these things.

All of those things have proven successful in other instances, and none of them will harm good, law abiding people. I think we all should be able to get behind these things, work toward putting programs into action and stop fighting amongst ourselves. It just makes better sense to me that we are stronger if we all work on things we can all get behind.

 

[SunOfAtom]

Wait a minute, are you trying to say that the "pro-ivory" lobby is getting more funds donated than the "anti-ivory" lobby? You probably should re-think that.

I wanted to give Wildaid $5,000.00 dollars that some hard working knife makers raised (that happen to use ivory) for their Yao Ming project, because we think it is a very good approach to quelling the demand of ivory in China. They would not take our money for fear the word would get out, and it would cost them some real money that high rollers donate. They could throw our money away and not even miss it. In fact, that is what they did.

No, I am saying that Knife Rights is in this fight because of contributions from ivory investors.

Why does Doug post these threads, then stay out of them? How is it that you just happen to be here to argue Knife Right's position on this? Why is Knife Rights even involved in this fight? It is an incredible stretch to call the sale of ivory a knife rights issue. The same can be said for the NRA calling it a gun rights issue. Fighting for the legal sale of ivory also appears to be an unpopular stance, even among knife enthusiasts.

To me it just does not make any sense. Then I read posts like these (emphasis mine):

Didn't you say the thread did not belong here? It may have been someone else with the idea that this thread is about ivory and not knives. Some of those comments sounded like the poster did not think it belonged here. That's why I assumed it didn't interest you, I stand corrected.

I know for a fact that Doug Ritter has no particular interest in ivory, the only reason, I can see, that he would make these posts because it's important to some knife makers and collectors, not to further a pro-ivory ideology, he has none that I can see.

link

Doug Ritter was brought into this fight because we asked him in, he was the one best suited to help us on this issue. He posts here because we asked him to keep us up to date on the bans. He told me when we joined in this fight together that he did not know about ivory and as he got further involved he learned more about it than he ever thought he wanted to know.

There are other sub-forums in Blade forums (The knife collector sub-forum and the knife making sub-forum that view the ivory issue as a very important thing to talk about on Blade forums, even though to some here, it is not.

I also do not want any animal (not just elephants) to die just so that someone has something to put on a knife handle. You can rest assured that knife makers in the U.S. are not buying ivory from elephants poached in Africa today, it is too expensive. It's selling for $1500.00 to $2,000.00 a pound in China. The going price for raw elephant ivory in the U.S. is $100.00 a pound. A smuggler would be a fool to bring raw ivory here. There are some that say smugglers are still bringing it here but that is not what the studies suggest.

link

Don't beat up on old Doug too much for spending your money on the ivory battle, along with the money we raised to stop poachers we also raised of $13,000.00 to donate to Doug to help us out with the ivory thing.

link

Now tell me again why Knife Rights is involved in this fight?

I appreciate Doug's response (not sure why it came through you), and I did not mean state that he personally was making money on this. If that is how it sounded, I apologize to him. I use his name, because he is the one posting these threads, and he is the name I associate with the Knife Rights organization. I stated that when ivory groups financially support Knife Rights, and Knife Rights helps prevent ivory legislation, both Knife Rights and the ivory groups benefit.

To me, this comment:

(From Doug Ritter)
We certainly don't get much money at all from good folks such as Mark or other "ivory investors" as you want to refer to them. As I recall, the only donation Mark has ever made to Knife Rights was that of two small slabs of pre-ban, documented ivory that were used in a collaboration knife that was auctioned off to raise money for this fight (purchased by a collector). Mark has never, to my knowledge, made any direct financial donation to the organizations, nor has anyone else in the wholesale ivory trade, or at least nothing substantial enough to have come to my attention. Some few have made donations of ivory or mammoth ivory for knife handles, but that's about it. We have had a few collectors of ivory handled knives and mammoth ivory handled knives make some modest contributions earmarked for this fight, but, quite frankly, it is a drop in the bucket compared to our funds already expended fighting this.

and your earlier comment:

Don't beat up on old Doug too much for spending your money on the ivory battle, along with the money we raised to stop poachers we also raised of $13,000.00 to donate to Doug to help us out with the ivory thing.

seem to be in direct contradiction.

So again, why is Knife Rights fighting such an unpopular fight, which is kind-of, sort-of, not really even a knife rights issue, when there are much more relevant knife rights battles to choose from?

 

[leghog]

Yeah, I asked both my Delegate and my Senator in the Virginia General Assembly to support legislation banning trade in ivory. Next year maybe. It's coming. Just a matter of time.

We did have a clean sweep on anti-gun bills though. Not a single one survived, so it wasn't all bad news.

Do you guys ever get tired of repeating yourselves?

Who? The pro-ivory trade crowd or the anti-ivory trade crowd? Both sides are equally guilty of the behavior you lament in your post.

Calling the pro ivory stance emotionally charged? Come on now, that's rich coming from you.

The way I see it, it's rich if either the side in this argument calls the other emotionally charged. Both sides are guilty of it. One just has to read the multiple BF threads on the subject.

I have to say this is pure BS. Do you think the organizations put out their information to be critiqued by "professionals"?

Experts in any number of fields do it all the time, especially when they want to ensure they've got it right or have considered all needing consideration. That is simply what was suggested Mark do.

Sadly, this is a great example of why the lobbying system is broken. Doug Ritter and the Knife Rights organization gets way more money from special interest groups than they do from us common people. Mark and other ivory investors fill the Knife Rights coffers, Knife rights lobbies for pro ivory legislation. They both come out with money in their pockets and call it a win for democracy. Same thing goes on with the NRA. While they certainly could focus just on relevant knife issues, that is not where the money is.

Anyone can view Knife Rights' IRS 990s

http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/74-3197990/knife-rights.aspx#forms-docs

Nobody is "anti-ivory." We're pro-elephant. We don't want to see the African elephant go extinct -- or suffer from the continuing devastation that poachers are inflicting on the species.

Oh, I'm anti-ivory TRADE. Make no mistake about that. I won't buy, sell, or trade in it. That said if it's in a family, I don't have a problem with it staying in that family for the next several generations.

 

[leghog]

.....

 

[22-rimfire]

Experts in any number of fields do it all the time, especially when they want to ensure they've got it right or have considered all needing consideration. That is simply what was suggested Mark do.

Oh, I'm anti-ivory TRADE. Make no mistake about that. I won't buy, sell, or trade in it. That said if it's in a family, I don't have a problem with it staying in that family for the next several generations.

Yes, experts in the professional fields write papers all the time and they are critiqued by professionals in the field. But this sort of article (most anyway) is more geared toward swaying opinions than presenting facts objectively for the most part. Professional papers are used to show that the data supports conclusions that the author is making versus trying to sway political opinion. Take for example Fish & Wildlife.... saying now that there is a lot of illegal ivory (I believe 6x what they catch through enforcement) that gets into the US has been presented as fact. It is a fact that it was said, but it is not a fact. Mark used Fish & Wildlife's pre-executive order data to show it was only a tiny amount getting into the US. And yet, this tid bit is used to sway public or BF member opinion.

I can't support a ban that makes it nearly impossible for regular people to sell pre-77 ivory in the US for any reason. Fish & Wildlife need to develop a practical way for people to certify that their ivory or ivory product is legal and being legal is permissable for re-sale versus handing it down to people within a family. Other than that I don't really care about the new ban and I believe it will be just as effective as the old ban in preventing the poaching of African elephants for their ivory in Africa.

 

[AVigil]

Is "Knife Rights" also lobbying against the Tortise shell ban?

Tortise shell had been used in knifes just as long as Ivory.

So does Doug have an update about banning Tortise shells is taking away our knife rights as well?

 

[22-rimfire]

As many know I like to make antidotal comparisons to illustrate points..... let's use the Ebola virus to ivory this time. Obviously one is a infectious disease and other is mostly obtained by killing African elephants for their tusks. The virus was killing many in several West African nations and it was out of control. Some would say that the elephant poaching is out of control. When the virus because really news worthy here in the US, all kinds of public opinion were raised against what the CDC was saying that the US medical industry had the means to deal with it in the US if it became an issue. You might call that "enforcement" relative to elephant ivory. We didn't quarantine people with flu like symtoms even though they mimicked the Ebola virus unless the person's exposure pathway had the potential for it to be ebola and then these people were tested.

The US funded attacking the ebola problem at the source and placed preventative measures here in the US to detect the virus. Why is it so hard to believe that with the resources of the US and people supporting a ban, that enforcement and conservation practices won't be just as effective as a ban on a practical basis?

But still a few ebola cases got through the screening. They were dealt with. Illegal ivory is only a small portion of the elephant ivory presently inside the US and certainly only a small portion of the new ivory that might be coming into the country. It was dealt with. Why is it so far fetched to simply enforce the existing ban (pre-obama) here rather than quarantining most of the ivory inside the US now? We didn't do it with Ebola, so why do it with ivory? The answer is politics pure and simple, not factual data to back up a significant movement of illegal elephant ivory into the US.

 

[Mark Knapp]

No, I am saying that Knife Rights is in this fight because of contributions from ivory investors.

Why does Doug post these threads, then stay out of them? How is it that you just happen to be here to argue Knife Right's position on this? Why is Knife Rights even involved in this fight? It is an incredible stretch to call the sale of ivory a knife rights issue. The same can be said for the NRA calling it a gun rights issue. Fighting for the legal sale of ivory also appears to be an unpopular stance, even among knife enthusiasts.

To me it just does not make any sense. Then I read posts like these (emphasis mine):

link


link


link

Now tell me again why Knife Rights is involved in this fight?

I appreciate Doug's response (not sure why it came through you), and I did not mean state that he personally was making money on this. If that is how it sounded, I apologize to him. I use his name, because he is the one posting these threads, and he is the name I associate with the Knife Rights organization. I stated that when ivory groups financially support Knife Rights, and Knife Rights helps prevent ivory legislation, both Knife Rights and the ivory groups benefit.

To me, this comment:



and your earlier comment:



seem to be in direct contradiction.

So again, why is Knife Rights fighting such an unpopular fight, which is kind-of, sort-of, not really even a knife rights issue, when there are much more relevant knife rights battles to choose from?

The answers to all your questions have already been covered in the very same posts that you quote from.

I don't want to waist anymore time on the issue of weather or not this is a knife rights issue. You feel from your rather small perspective that ivory is a small part of knives in general. If you look around, go to knife shows, check out other parts of this forum, and go to museums you will see that ivory plays a much bigger role in knives and guns than you seem to think.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Is "Knife Rights" also lobbying against the Tortise shell ban?

Tortise shell had been used in knifes just as long as Ivory.

So does Doug have an update about banning Tortise shells is taking away our knife rights as well?

There is no new tortoise shell ban to fight. We are fighting a new ivory ban. Leave the ivory ban the same as it was, we are happy.