When Kites Kill

Reader Thom Burnett points to a new dread menace in Pakistan: killer kites. From Australia's The World Today show:

Every year in India and Pakistan dozens of people are killed by kites, most of them young children. The deaths are caused by special "dog-fighting" kite strings carrying razor-like metal strips and abrasives designed to slice through an opponents string but which can cause severe injury to bystanders and in some cases even decapitation.

In Pakistan alone, five children have died in the last four months and now in Punjab province police have been ordered to treat all such fatalities as murder….

Police in Punjab province have now been instructed to raid shops, which sell the banned deadly strings and make arrests.

Whole thing here.

Comments

[gaijin]

Pakistan's version of Jarts?

[gaijin]

or maybe it's just the latest tribal weapon to be employed in the fight against Predator drones...

[Sandy]

Decapitation? I'm having a bit of a hard time believing that you can get enough velocity out of a kite to sever the spinal column.

[thoreau]

How long before the Department of Homeland Security issues a warning that Pakistanis with kites and lawn darts may be targeting the US?

[jf]

This looks like something Stephen Glass might have written.

[The Pakistani Kite Association]

Kites don't kill people, lawn darts do.

[Unitended Humor Dep't.]

"This week, he announced that from now on death by kite will be treated as death by an offensive weapon, in other words, murder. "

[Warren]

The mostly Muslim country of Pakistan is hysterical with fear of jews going around cutting off children's heads. This story is the sort of grotesque stereo type that...

What? Ooooooh. Well that's different.
nevermind.

[mk]

I almost creamed someone with a kite once while I was at the beach. It was unintentional, of course, but I was grateful that the person was of the forgiving sort (and that she saw it coming in time).

Be afraid of kites. very afraid.

[Ed]

Why do kites hate Muslims?

[linguist]

Did anyone else read this and instantly think, "Darwin Awards"?

[Eryk Boston]

It's only good for a Darwin award if the kite owner gets killed.

[Dan T.]

Keeping with my anti-libertarian theme today, assuming this story is true I submit that if people are willing to fly kites using razor-wire string, it proves that the nanny state is probably necessary and freedom is a bad idea.

[TomHynes]

10 comments so far and nobody has pointed out that "It's for the children". What the hell is happening to this comment board?

[mitch]

I love this idea. When I was a kid, I loved the Foghorn Leghorn cartoon in which the nerdy kid made a paper airplane that shot down Foghorn Leghorn's paper airplane. This is like that idea come to life. Those foreign kids are creative... tell John Stossel that not only are foreign kids doing better in school, it sounds like they are better at having fun, too!

[s.m. koppelman]

Animal-protection groups should promote this in the US as a humane alternative to cockfighting and dogfighting.

[Dan T.]

10 comments so far and nobody has pointed out that "It's for the children". What the hell is happening to this comment board?

I was going to offer that as a reply, but I didn?t want to be hit with 10 responses claiming that the real victim here is the Pakistani Razor-Kite Wire industry.

[JS]

This story is from June 13, 2003. Not exactly a new dread menace.

[Qbryzan]

Kite-eating Tree: vexing problem, or benevolent protector?

[Jennifer]

I must say: banning kites is asinine, but banning the use of razor wire or barbed wire for kite strings makes sense to me.

[Qbryzan]

I must say: banning kites is asinine, but banning the use of razor wire or barbed wire for kite strings makes sense to me.

So you're in favor of the nanny state! This is a slippery slope which will lead to me not being able to garotte anyone with razor wire...and...actually that makes sense, I agree.

[feek]

As a related but peripheral comment--read "The Kite Runner". It's one of the better books I read in 2005, and involves 'kite-fighting'. They made their own razor strings, by taking regular kite string and gluing ground glass to it.

[thoreau]

Kite Runner is an excellent book.

On the bright side, at least the kites don't spray corn syrup 🙂

[keith]

Let us not be cultural imperialists. Whatever liability solutions our culture's deathsports that risk spectator injury employ (to wit, NASCAR; even baseball - I was present once when a man was concussed and evacuated from a fly ball) should provide analogs in Pakistan. At the very least given this new legal enforcement, kite competitors should move to wide areas of unoccupied ground, and notice is on them to either collect or imply releases from spectators; or manage their own attractive nuisances.

[Jennifer]

Cultural imperialists? Keith, I'm not suggesting we invade Pakistan and force them to fly kites the American way; I'm saying that a ban on kite-string razor wire sounds sensible to me.

[Warren]

I was present once when a man was concussed and evacuated from a fly ball

ROFL funny

[Eric the .5b]

I'm not seeing the anti-libertarian (maybe anti-anarchist, but who cares?) aspect of, say, a law banning waving the equivalent of hundred-foot-long blades in the air in public places. If someone injures or kills somebody else with such a kite, handle it as any other sort of injury or death (murder, manslaughter, etc. determined by circumstances).

[R C Dean]

banning the use of razor wire or barbed wire for kite strings makes sense to me

Since both razor wire and barbed wire are made out of metal, both are far too heavy and inflexible to be used as kite string.

Whatever is going in Pakistan, I doubt it involves people being beheaded by kites flown with razor wire.

[Jennifer]

RC, did you read the article? They'd put razors on their strings in order to hopefully cut the strings of their opponent's kites.

[Pfc. Charlie Brown]

Meet the kite-eating tree, Pervez.

[Larry N. Martin]

Dog-fights with kites has been going on for a long time, even with the razors. But I can't imagine how the kids are being killed by them--hurt, yes, but killed?

[Jennifer]

Larry--it depends on where exactly the razor cut them. Hit the right vein or artery, and it wouldn't take long for even the smallest cut to make a child bleed to dedth.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Wasn't there something like this in one of those Roger Moore Bond movies?

[R C Dean]

I glanced at the article, Jennifer. It didn't say anything about people using razor wire or barbed wire to fly kites, so I'm not sure why you are calling for this practice to be outlawed.

There is a big difference, BTW, between kite string with a shard of straight razor on it and barbed wire or razor wire.

[Jennifer]

RC--I said "razor wire" when I should have said "string with razors." Either way, I'd think a ban like that makes perfect sense, but banning kites altogether is insane.

[Mr. Average]

Kite fighting in India and Pakistan has been around for a long long time. The object is to cut your opponent's line thus knocking his kite from the sky. Traditionally, the line near the kite was coated with ground glass (the last 10 - 20 feet, not the whole line 'cause it would cut your hands while flying the thing). It appears that lengths of razor wire have replaced the ground glass.

Kite fights take place anywhere and eveywhere including in crowded cities. One person will send up a kite as a challenge and others will respond.The competeors do not have to be standing near each other. They can be blocks away and unable to see each other. All that matters is that the kites are visable and have enough clear air to maneuver. The kites are capable of moving very rapidly, depending on wind conditions. The fliers control the movements by slacking and then pulling on the lines. The kites were traditionally made of tissue paper on split bamboo frames, but now nylon, plastic and other materials may be used.

Having suffered a deep and painful cut on my left index finger from the friction of a normal (unglassed, no razor witre, etc.) dacron kite string while flying a small kite in a stiff breeze (I still have the scar 12 years after it happened), I can easily understand how bystanders could be cut and injured by these fighting kites. Decapitated? Doubtful, as the kites are too small to exert that much force. Now, if we're talking about Japanese fighting kites, that's an entirely different story. People have gotten killed while flying them (they get wrapped up in the lines and strangled or lifted off the ground and dropped), but they're much bigger and more powerful than the Indian fighters.