Ravenwood - 04/06/04 06:45 AM
Australia has banned guns, knives and now swords. So what's next? Nail guns?
"Giving a nail gun to an inexperienced operator is like giving a machinegun to a baby," [said Chris Atkins, executive director of the Master Builders Association of Tasmania.]If it weren't so tragically asinine, it'd be hilarious. Chainsaw ticket? In the U.S. if a guy still has both his arms, it's okay to sell him a chain saw.Mr Atkins said professional builders did on-the-job and technical training before using nail guns, and DIY users should not use the tools until they had completed a training course.
He believed the industry should be moving to establish a nail gun licence, similar to a chainsaw ticket, issued only after a safety course was passed. [...]
Mr Atkins said everyone on a building site should be aware of who was operating a nail gun and where.
Category: Cold Dead Hands
Comments (6) top link me
Sounds like job protectionism to me ... one of the many ways to keep out competition.
Posted by: rkb at April 6, 2004 1:16 PM- When swords are outlawed, only... uh... only...
um... only *pirates* will have swords.
- Nail guns save thumbs!
- What's next? Nail guns with trigger locks?
- How do I apply for a concealed chainsaw permit?
- Do you need a separate permit for a hockey mask?
- And how about those nasty halberds, huh?
- Liberal: They can take my gun when they pry it from by bodyguard's cold, dead hands.
A contractor friend had one of his guys put a nail through his foot with a nail gun while working on a roof. Nailed him right to the roof. His co workers cut a circular piece of the roof out with a power saw and they took him to a hospital with that piece of roof still attached. The emergency room doctor asked why he didn't stop hammering when the nail first went through the boot...
Posted by: Fred Boness at April 6, 2004 11:46 PMIt's ridiculous, but if they already require certificates for chainsaws, nail guns are probably more dangerous overall - and certainly more dangerous to others. You can't cut someone else's head off with a chainsaw unless he got way too close, but if you are dry-walling with a nail gun and miss the stud, the nail can come out the other side with enough force to kill.
Around here, we handle that by expecting construction bosses to know what their men know how to do, and schedule things so someone isn't standing on the other side of the drywall partition while the nail gunner is working. Government regulation? You are required to send your guy to a training course, written by bureaucrats with no experience in construction. But then other bureaucrats intervene to prevent the guy with an IQ too low to comprehend "don't fire when someone's foot is in the way" from being discriminated against and humiliated by being denied certification...
Posted by: markm at April 11, 2004 10:57 PMChainsaw salesman in garden center in Cowbridge, South Wales has only one arm.
I remember trying to judge how much I should believe his sales pitch about chainsaw safety...
Posted by: David at April 12, 2004 9:17 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
