Heads up that there’s a difference between zip ties, which hold 90% of my life together, and zip cuffs, which have a double locking mechanism and two tails, and cost a hell of a lot more per unit as they are much larger than even large gauge zip ties. To my reading, VeronicaConnor is clear on which they meant but like a thousand commenters are are all like ‘butwhaddabout …?’ and then say garden variety zip tie uses.
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That’s kinda shitty. @VeronicaConnor specifically mentioned purpose-built sexplay handcuffs that are actually easier to acquire and cheaper than police handcuffs.
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While you can overpay for any item because it’s “tactical”, the wiki you sent me notes the ones the police use cost “tens of cents each” and they often use single loops around both wrists. Stronger ones than you need to restrain a person are widely available for industrial uses, including double looped ones. 
Had the person said the exact same shit he said while displaying duct tape, or rope, or garden variety zip ties, I don’t think that would have been any better. So, I pointed out it was less about the zip ties, and more his intent. And zip ties are a cool tool for holding stuff together.
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Did you ever notice how it’s always right-wing nutjob men threatening to zip-tie women who hold authority?
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Real handcuffs, novelty handcuffs, zip ties (cuff and standard), rope, duct tape, leather cuffs, silk ties, etc. I am sure there are whole catalogs of things out there. Many of them you could use to illegally detain someone.
My point is, none of them should get you on a list or be grounds for a search warrant.
I am aware there is a difference, and there are people who use the real deal flexi-cuffs too. Just like some people use novelty cuffs, and some people use real cuffs the police use. It’s a big weird world out there. Let’s not paint a broad picture that everyone using X must be doing it for Y reasons.
Big difference. If you don’t know the difference, that’s OK, but don’t assume you know.
Two of those things are not like the others. Two of those things are meant to restrain people who don’t want to be restrained, and keep them restrained. The rest are NOT.
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Some people use restraints that can’t be broken out of. Using something they can wriggle or break open defeats the whole point for them. Not everyone of course, YMMV.
Probably has a fake cop car and a CHiPs Harley…
See, though, their heroes, the Jan.6 traitors, had bundles of zip-ties with them. So, y’know, follow your role models, etc.
Plus, you can easily buy bags of those zip ties for cheap. Actual cuffs can be pretty pricey.
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I hear you, really. And I am aware that my local 3rd world police force use regular zip ties for crowd arrests rather than spending on the flexicuffs, and that ‘you can’ and that others do as well.
The thing that was bugging me was the way so many commenters rushed in to whaddabout a reasonable observation: Flexicuffs have become a new right wing terrorist (or wannabe terrorist) fashion accessory, to look extra hardcore and tactical in front of their peers. Such as in this video.
So then the argument was made that it’s gotten to where the vast majority of people buying flexicuffs are probably up to wannabe terrorism and could theoretically be monitored if that were what you wanted to do.
And then a million people were like ‘I have 1/8th inch width common zip ties!!!1!! You’re so wrong about flexicuffs, which I call zip ties!’
And I pointed out that a better argument would be such as the one you put in your reply, debating zip cuffs vs zip cuffs. I get fidgety when apples are being compared to oranges.
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I love zip ties and have recently found that in addition to all the other sizes, I needed the teeeny teeeny adorable ones that are about 3 inches long and I get happy every time I find a new use for them. The sound they make zipping is enough to set me straight. Seriously, my reliance on zip ties is running joke at home. I never said there were no legitimate uses for zip ties. But neither did VeronicaConnor - they said that tactical flexicuffs have become a new alt-right status symbol. They are not wrong. And all the ‘but I’m right about something adjacent, too’ doesn’t make them wrong.
Flexicuffs quack like a duck since a couple years ago now.
Flexicuffs can be versatile and fun for kinky sex, and there are other non-fascist uses.
Rehashing the ‘we can’t monitor people who buy semi-automatic weapons because I like to imagine a farmer shooting a coyote with a double barrel shot gun and anyway, they are mostly ‘long guns’’ now here, over flexicuffs, is tedious.
FWIW I am not necessarily in support of monitoring purchases of flexicuffs. But I would have enjoyed a debate on that topic instead of hearing about how so and so uses 1/4" zip ties to organize their cables.
EDIT: I originally put “legitimate uses” but I hate that concept and think a more specific term is fascist use and non-fascist use.
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OMG - know what I’m getting my partner for their next birthday. They have always been a huge fan of the ordinary velcros that come on some charging cables; these would make them so happy. Also- I do feel badly when I throw away the plastic in used zip ties. Thank you; Much love.
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One last thing about zip ties. Cut the dang tail off!
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Not disagreeing with that. The Jan 6th pictures are chilling in that regard.
Well I guess I didn’t read every reply, but yes, 1/8th" zip ties are not zip cuffs. There are zip ties that are much larger and thicker and would do a similar job, and there are zip cuffs that are held to specific standards for police/military use - and there are those that aren’t. So I agree not all zip cuffs/ties are created equal, and real police flexi-cuffs are way beefier than standard zip ties or cheap zip cuffs. (Though to be fair, some of these nut jobs running around are probably also saving a buck using cheap ones as well. )
This is where we part ways. I will have to concede I don’t have hard data on who is buying what. But this topic has popped up more or less in the last year with the insurrection and some of the Trump protests and this specific example. But I know zip cuffs have been a thing in the kink community for a long time.
I was at work earlier, but I got on my personal computer and fired up the the incognito browser and typed in some key search words. Yes, it confirms what I have been saying - pages of returns for sites that sell bondage gear selling police flexi-cuffs. Apples to apples. Pages of media of them being used in that matter. Pages of forum/reddit posts of people asking about them and people replying about their safe use.
So I reject the premise that owning/using them is grounds for assuming someone is “probably up to wannabe terrorism”.
I am dismayed at the thought that buying some would be grounds to “be monitored”. Like, are people serious??
I don’t understand how some members of this site who are generally so accepting of general weirdness, and vocally support privacy rights, and the rights for body autonomy, and staunch resistors of authoritarianism, and accepting of sorts of flavors of sexuality are now willing to brand users of zip cuffs as all being right-wing wanna be terrorists when I can pretty confidently say that is not the case a majority of the time. (And certainly one has no proof to the contrary. Just their perception of what they are most used for.)
If we want to monitor domestic terrorist - and we do, you monitor the people out there doing things, like this guy. Like the Jan 6 people. You monitor their social media and online hide outs. You monitor their network of people they talk to. You find dangerous rhetoric being espoused and flag it for being monitored. If someone is buying zip cuffs and ammo and The Turner Diaries and large quantities of ammonia nitrate, then you definitely want to watch that person. Buying any one of those items isn’t by itself grounds for being on a list.
And then when pointed out that, no, people do use have a “legitimate use” - or at least a use not involving right-wing domestic terrorism - it is side tracked into “Well they could/should use something else.” I got off track with that too. Oops. But that isn’t the point. The point is people ARE using it for those reasons and to assume they are only using it for the reason they have in their heads isn’t right. YMMV.
I agree with that as well.
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But wouldn’t that be like declawing your cat, or docking your dog’s tail/ears? /s
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Handcuffing TFG?
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Hang you by your thumbs?
I believe a digression on a thread about zip ties flexicuff uses, including oddball aesthetic uses, as well as privacy issues, is an inherently on-brand topic appropriate for BB. There are a tremendous amount of events and actions in the US and other countries that concern me that fascism has a foothold and is looking to overturn democracy. That said, if you, I or VeronicaConnor were the Queen/King/Ruler of the FBI or such, would knowing exactly who bought zip cuffs be helpful? How would you then proceed? There’s a tremendous amount of firepower regularly being purchased, and there are frequent fascist wannabe marches, and there’s a huge online crowd hang out talking fascism on a regular basis. Shouldn’t that be the focus? The zipcuffs, in my mind, seem low on the list of priorities. Laws exist now for menacing, false imprisonment etc, enforcing those should be sufficient.
On Monday, Tainatongo was booked on a charge of third-degree criminal trespass, the same charge leveled at Walker and Rambaran. If convicted, all three face up to 30 days in jail
Walker and Rambaran are due in court on Sept. 15. Tainatongo’s next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 20.
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