Machete Registration in Massachusetts

One of the common arguments about gun control goes something like this:

Anti-Gun:
If we ban guns, we make the world safer because criminals won't be able to use them to hurt people.

Pro-gun:
If we ban guns, only criminals will have guns and more good people will be victimized. If we somehow succeed in making guns disappear, criminals will simply find something else to use. Law abiding people should be able to own whatever they want to defend themselves against criminals. Government shouldn't be allowed to decide what good people can and can't own, as once they start banning things, they will go down a slippery slope and ban too many things.

Anti-Gun:
The slippery slope is a gun-nut myth. Government will never actually go too far and take away useful tools and other things. We only want to take away certain kinds of guns to lower crime.

Well, here's proof that the anti-gun stance is false. The following is an excerpt from a 2005 Massachusetts law created to supposedly to reduce gang violence:

Any individual who requires a machete for the purposes of cutting vegetation shall register the machete with the local police department on an annual basis and, upon payment of an appropriate annual registration fee as determined by the local granting authority, shall be issued a permit authorizing him to possess the machete solely for the purposes of cutting vegetation.

If you click on the title link and read the whole law, you will the full text of the law.

Machetes have been used for literally hundreds of years to cleave through vegetation, clear brush etc. Suddenly, because of this law, they are now illegal to own unless you pay money to the government every year and obtain permission to own one. What's next? Chainsaws can kill. So can long-bladed pruning shears, hoes, pitchforks, axes, hatchets, shovels, splitting mauls, rake handles, screwdrivers, scissors, wrenches, hammers, clotheslines, and an infinite number of other items. If gang members start strangling people with scarves will Massachusetts react with a scarf registry?

It is not logical to assume that banning items used to commit crimes will reduce crime. I doubt the gang members of Massachusetts will run the police station to register their gardening tools, find out they are only supposed to be used on plants and then decide to give up their life of crimes and become productive young men. Even if this law does somehow manage reduce machete murders, the bad guys will just pick a new weapon to kill with. The solution to crime is to punish the bad guys, and empower the good guys to defend themselves.