This is an interesting debate, because of course we have shuttered outlets here in the U.K.
Our current 13A standard receptacles were designed with shutters right from their inception in the late 1940s, and the older round-pin sockets were also re-designed to incorporate shutters in some versions.
Many (most?) people in this country tout shutters as being an important or even essential safety feature, but personally I've always wondered just how effective they really are.
For the first 30+ years the shutters were always opened by an operating pin located in the ground slot. Everybody over here who works with electrical fittings masters the knack of opening the shutters with a meter probe in the earth.
Then in the 1980s some manufacturers started using a rotating shutter mechanism which needs equal pressure on hot and neutral to open. Now we have MK and one or two others using complex shutter arrangements which supposedly need equal pressure on all three prongs to open. The ones I've seen seem more prone to jamming than the older earth-operated types.
I'm still not convinced that all these shutters are anything like as essential as some people seem to believe, even though we are talking about outlets delivering 240V to ground.
It seems particularly strange that shuttered outlets are considered so essential when one looks at all the other connectors in use which are not similarly protected -- The in-line IEC sockets on the end of power cords don't have shutters, a kid who removes a bulb from a bedside lamp could easily put his fingers into the open light socket etc.
