Not "The Onion": The UK and Knife Control

[Snazzy]

4. and no, last time I watched the news people are not "circling the drain" and politicians are not trying to patch up anything. Not sure what this has to do with social welfare but the inevitable consequence is that people with knives will be more eaisly found and prosecuted when they break the law and personally I think this is a great law and I wish the Brits all the success they deserve with this law.

The law is all very well and good. The MAJOR problem is with the punishment for breaking the law.

The sentences handed out appear to be meaningless to these youngsters, and certainly not a deterrent for a would-be knife wielding idiot.

 

[Peter King]

The law is all very well and good. The MAJOR problem is with the punishment for breaking the law.

The sentences handed out appear to be meaningless to these youngsters, and certainly not a deterrent for a would-be knife wielding idiot.

I would agree, it should be more shameful and not a badge of honor.

 

[Aristaeus]

Thank you, Mr. King, for your very informative comments.

1. I feel soooooooooo sorry for the good people in the United Kingdom. What has happened to their country is monstrous.

2. I hope that the British people will vote for politicians who will take vigorous action against those very, very, very bad violent individuals.


3. Is the horrific violence that is gulfing London and other cities at least one of the reasons why a plurality voted for Brexit? Hopefully, the Honorable Theresa May will retire so that a more forceful pol can lead the suffering British people.



Best wishes

Why do you find 280 knife homicides in the UK monstrous but 13,000 gun homicides in the US no big deal?

 

[Aristaeus]

There are people in the UK that have been arrested for making jokes that others might have found insulting. An individual (one that is BTW married to a Muslim and who has his Muslim mother in law living with him under his roof) was arrested and jailed when, after a terrorist attack in the UK made the public comment that people that came to England should put England first over their old traditions and ways.

And if you dont know that, you should educate yourself before you comment on things.

So dont pretend there isnt plenty said on this site tht others might not find 'offensive'.

I'll ask you for links as I suspect you're outright lying or twisting reality out of all recognition.

 

[HonestJoe]

I do expect it to change in the foreseeable future--specifically, in the next five years, across the UK.

That's a more generic statement than the one you initially made. You specifically spoke about "knife-bans" in London spreading to the rest of the UK. I've repeatedly explained that there are no London-specific "knife-bans" and all relevant laws already apply across the country. If you misunderstand (having been misled) the actual reality on the ground in the UK, how can you possible discuss the consequences or predict future developments? I'm not expressing any opinion on policy here, I'm only establishing the fundamental facts in relation to the claims and implications of the article you quoted.

You don't like spin? Lead by example. Don't hide behind euphemisms and attack straw men.

I didn't. I made clear statements and you understood exactly what I meant by them. Your rewording of my statement doesn't alter the underlying meaning, it only adds additional implications and assertions I didn't want to make in that context (even if I agree with them). The core point is that the specific activities of the London police under discussion wasn't to further ban knives but to specifically target suspected gang members suspected of carrying knives - they were implementing existing, UK-wide, laws in particular ways. That isn't a statement about the policy being right or wrong, only an attempt to focus on practical reality rather than the ignorant rhetoric.

"There is a world of difference between banning certain knives (putatively to curb violence among youth gangs) and banning all knives, which is what is implied by the article title, albeit never expressly stated." There. No spin.

Ironically, deliberately implying something without expressly stating it is literally spin.

 

[TheParser]

Why do you find 280 knife homicides in the UK monstrous but 13,000 gun homicides in the US no big deal?

Who said that I find 13,000 gun homicides no "big deal"? You have begged the question. The most famous example of begging the question: "When was the last time that you beat your wife?"

 

[VanceMack]

I'll ask you for links as I suspect you're outright lying or twisting reality out of all recognition.

I'll offer you the same deal I made the last guy that accused me of lying. I'll provide the links...as long as you have the sack to commit to leaving the site permanently when I do.

Maybe you will have the guts to take me up on it.

 

[Manc Skipper]

I have no position on gun control in the UK.

Knife control is absurd, even in the midst of an epidemic of stabbings.


The "single private individual" is the chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Reuters (ibid.) also tells us: "Britain’s interior ministry said it was consulting on new laws to further restrict dangerous weapons, including banning online stores from delivering knives to residential addresses and making it an offence to possess certain weapons in public."

Doesn't sound like "not even one politicians [sic] in Britain said they want to ban knifes [sic] nationwide" to me.

The headline is admittedly overkill. But the article content rings true, unless you're challenging the veracity of the Telegraph article (re: knife delivery), the Express article (re: knife bans, stop & frisk in London), the Evening Standard article (re: British Foreign Secretary on stop & frisk in London) and the Sun article (re: bans on selling knives to minors; stores de-stocking knives). The article is more than a headline.

I'll tell you what: You go on record right here, right now, claiming that the knife bans currently affecting London won't be in effect UK-wide within 5 years; I'll go on record predicting they will. If we're both here five years from now, we'll see who eats crow? Fair enough?

Knife control works. You really shouldn't double down on ignorance. Only Trump gets away with that, and only with his fans. Are you a fan?

How Scotland reduced knife deaths among young people | Membership | The Guardian

 

[COTO]

1. last time I checked I was a man so not OK with being called nana, don't act like a jerk, it will not be very popular or on to a forum based on respectful (to some degree) discussions.

I felt it was the appropriate reaction to being told what knives I can and can't purchase/use because they'll "do very much for most things in life".

I meant to convey my contempt for being patronized.

2. you don't get to decide that banning knifes is not going to fix it, I think it will help fix it. Is it a miracle cure that is going to solve this problem at once. But not doing anything would even be a worse thing to do while children are dying.

Taking the weapons (or at least attempting to) out of the hands of a legion of would-be homicidal citizens--persons with no respect for law, property, or life--doesn't negate or mitigate the existence of the homicidal citizens. At best it's a short-term alleviation of symptoms while an underlying disease runs rampant. It inevitably fails when the will to defy the ban grows beyond the state's limited ability to enforce it and to hand down meaningful punishments, which may well be a threshold London has already crossed.

Meanwhile, the responsible and law-abiding are denied access to tools used for millennia, and treated like criminals to boot.

3. and no, people are moron and are unable to handle the responsibility, that is proven on a daily/hourly/minute by minute basis. A lot of people are irresponsible idiots, that is how it is.

A lot of people are irresponsible idiots because we, as a society, have never vested them with any responsibility. We demand nothing from people, we expect nothing of them, we go to increasingly absurd lengths to shield them from the consequences of their actions from cradle to grave, and lo and behold, we wind up with a generation of irresponsible idiots.

No mas.

and no, last time I watched the news people are not "circling the drain" and politicians are not trying to patch up anything.

Agree to vehemently disagree.

 

[COTO]

I asked a simple question and I didn't get an answer. We can't go further in this unless you respond honestly. I asked "And have you read the knife ban? Tell me exactly what you think has happened or is happening with a ban - don't give me links, just tell me exactly what the ban is and how it works as you understand it."

What do you want that isn't in links or in the four specific items in #36? A hypothetical example case?

I inspected a cooking class 5 weeks ago, all the 15-16 yr old kids turned up to class with their chef's knives without anyone telling them "knives are banned and you can't walk down the street with that..."

That's either because no LE officer observed them carrying the knives, or, more likely, they were (appropriately but unlawfully) profiled by any officers who did observe them, who reasonably thought, "Hey, these kids definitely don't look like ghetto trash. We'll let them defy the ban and walk home in peace."

The problem being that if a government swears on a stack their police officers don't engage in profiling (as is the case in the UK and elsewhere), you can only get away with blatant profiling for so long before the groups meeting the profile are at your throat--which is precisely the state of affairs in London. Then your officers have no choice but to either harass the 15-16 -year olds returning from cooking class or else ignore the 15-16 -year olds who are clearly up to no good.

The law is all very well and good. The MAJOR problem is with the punishment for breaking the law.

The sentences handed out appear to be meaningless to these youngsters, and certainly not a deterrent for a would-be knife wielding idiot.

The law is well-meaning. It isn't "all very well and good".

That's a more generic statement than the one you initially made. You specifically spoke about "knife-bans" in London spreading to the rest of the UK. I've repeatedly explained that there are no London-specific "knife-bans" and all relevant laws already apply across the country.

London is the UK city at the intersection of (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) in post #36.

It's the city mentioned in all of the articles that speak about aggressive, vigorous enforcement of the bans. According to the articles, there is no place in the UK where the police are given more authority or put under greater pressure to arrest more people, frisk more people, interrogate more storeowners, jail more scofflaws, and vigorously enforce the ban. There is no place in the UK where the growing assortment of bans, exclusions, restrictions, etc. is more concentrated than in London. London is the seat of British governmental power. Ergo, regarding London to be a hub node from which vigorous knife control spreads to the rest of the nation is appropriate.

Your rewording of my statement doesn't alter the underlying meaning, it only adds additional implications and assertions I didn't want to make in that context (even if I agree with them).

...and my sarcastic quip was my ribbing you for the "additional implications and assertions [you] didn't want to make in that context".

We both knew exactly why you didn't want to make those implications and assertions.

 

[COTO]

Knife control works. You really shouldn't double down on ignorance. Only Trump gets away with that, and only with his fans. Are you a fan?

How Scotland reduced knife deaths among young people | Membership | The Guardian

If you consider only the short term and the direct consequences, banning anything reduces deaths.

We could save hundreds of lives every year by banning "selfies", or peanut butter, or ballpoint pens.

Patch, patch, patch... as the underlying rot spreads, people find new and exciting ways to kill each other, state treasuries are exhausted, police forces are stretched thin, and freedoms are revoked one by one.

Incidentally, your article has more to do with the "carrot" than the "stick" end of knife control. The Scots basically threw money at the problem of gangs. ...which works wonders until you run out of money.

 

[HonestJoe]

London is the UK city at the intersection of (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) in post #36.

I've no idea what you mean by that statement. Only your item (i) would be directly addressed by the police, item (iii) is nationwide by definition and your item (iv) doesn't exist at all. All this does evade you simple acknowledging that there are no London-specific laws and so your challenge was fundamentally flawed.

According to the articles...

I think that is part of the problem. Those articles are from the British tabloid press and therefore can't be trusted much further than your primary source. Just because they have a London-centric view doesn't mean things don't happen in the rest of the country. Manchester is good example of a city facing a similar knife-crime issue with a similar debate over how the authorities address it. It's just that tends not to get reported in the national media.

We both knew exactly why you didn't want to make those implications and assertions.

Because there is no point discussing the issue until we've established and basic facts. As long as you remain unwilling or unable to accept those basic facts, there doesn't seem any point in discussing it here at all.

 

[SheWolf]

Excerpted from With Gun Ban Not Working, Politicians In Britain Now Want To Ban Knives Nationwide | Zero Hedge:

If ever we needed proof of the expression that "guns don’t kill people, people kill people" look no further than Britain, where families may have to start practicing cutting their steak and bread at dinner with a spoon. This is, of course, because Britain's politicians have now made the absurdly ridiculous move to call for the banning of what Reason magazine called "the most useful tool ever invented" - the knife.

...

Shortly after London Mayor Sadiq Kahn's city-wide ban on knives, The Express had reported that one of Scotland’s leading doctors has called for a ban on "killer" kitchen knives.

Dr John Crichton, the new chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, wants the sale of pointed kitchen knives to be banned to help reduce the number of fatal stabbings.

Dr Crichton, who took on the role of chairman in June this year, is championing a switch to so-called “R”-bladed knives, which have rounded points and are far less effective as weapons.​

I just... I got nothin'. View attachment 67255957

A knife is not an instrument of mass murder

 

[COTO]

I think that is part of the problem. Those articles are from the British tabloid press and therefore can't be trusted much further than your primary source. Just because they have a London-centric view doesn't mean things don't happen in the rest of the country. Manchester is good example of a city facing a similar knife-crime issue with a similar debate over how the authorities address it. It's just that tends not to get reported in the national media.

Observation noted. Knife control may already be more widespread in the UK than implied by "the British tabloid press".

Given my position on knife control, I fail to see why this should ease my concern. If you're arguing that knife control in its present form has been around forever in the UK, and enforced beyond London's borders, then in addition to nanny statism and erosion of fundamental liberties, you now have the problem that knife crime is surging in spite of longstanding nationwide bans.

A knife is not an instrument of mass murder

O-kay...?

 

[Peter King]

I felt it was the appropriate reaction to being told what knives I can and can't purchase/use because they'll "do very much for most things in life".

I meant to convey my contempt for being patronized.

You must have misread/misunderstood my intentions because I was not trying to patronize anybody, I all I was trying to do was explain what the UK knife law was all about.

Taking the weapons (or at least attempting to) out of the hands of a legion of would-be homicidal citizens--persons with no respect for law, property, or life--doesn't negate or mitigate the existence of the homicidal citizens. At best it's a short-term alleviation of symptoms while an underlying disease runs rampant. It inevitably fails when the will to defy the ban grows beyond the state's limited ability to enforce it and to hand down meaningful punishments, which may well be a threshold London has already crossed.

Meanwhile, the responsible and law-abiding are denied access to tools used for millennia, and treated like criminals to boot.

And that is all fine and dandy, but doing nothing is even more insane IMO.

A lot of people are irresponsible idiots because we, as a society, have never vested them with any responsibility. We demand nothing from people, we expect nothing of them, we go to increasingly absurd lengths to shield them from the consequences of their actions from cradle to grave, and lo and behold, we wind up with a generation of irresponsible idiots.

No mas.


Agree to vehemently disagree.

We demand of people that they comply with the law, that is all you can demand of citizens. And we make laws to protect people, mostly other people from the idiotic acts from others. I could care less if you put your hand in a deep fat fryer, but I do care about someone getting in a car drunk or taking idiotic risks with their cars. And we end up hopefully with a generation of law abiding citizens

 

[Infinite Chaos]

I'll let you struggle along with your own reading comprehension failures. And at the same time recognize your failure regarding both the historical precedence argument and the willing collapse of rights of free speech by a collection of kneeling poodles.

3rd time of asking - I asked "And have you read the knife ban? Tell me exactly what you think has happened or is happening with a ban - don't give me links, just tell me exactly what the ban is and how it works as you understand it."

What is so hard to understand?

What do you want that isn't in links or in the four specific items in #36? A hypothetical example case?

You mean this bit? "Any region, be it a city, province, or nation, that i) bans public carrying of knives with 3"+ blades, ii) bans sales of knives to minors, iii) bans online delivery of knives to homes, or iv) bans pointed kitchen knives or any kind of bladed kitchen tool is in the thrall of intolerable nanny-statism and should be soundly condemned. Its legislators have either lost all perspective, forsaken due respect for its citizens' liberties, or most likely both."

Well, it won't happen and nobody sensible is proposing that. If you have good reason to be carrying a knife whether you are 2 yrs old or above then you have nothing to be worried about. Your scenario of at the kid unable to carry a chef knife for grandma is fake.

~ That's either because no LE officer observed them carrying the knives, or, more likely, they were (appropriately but unlawfully) profiled by any officers who did observe them, who reasonably thought, "Hey, these kids definitely don't look like ghetto trash. We'll let them defy the ban and walk home in peace."

The problem being that if a government swears on a stack their police officers don't engage in profiling (as is the case in the UK and elsewhere), you can only get away with blatant profiling for so long before the groups meeting the profile are at your throat--which is precisely the state of affairs in London. Then your officers have no choice but to either harass the 15-16 -year olds returning from cooking class or else ignore the 15-16 -year olds who are clearly up to no good ~

The scenario is too moronic to bother replying to.

 

[Chagos]

~....................................The scenario is too moronic to bother replying to.

good thread description altogether, certainly when looking at the "contributions" of some.

 

[COTO]

You mean this bit? "Any region, be it a city, province, or nation, that i) bans public carrying of knives with 3"+ blades, ii) bans sales of knives to minors, iii) bans online delivery of knives to homes, or iv) bans pointed kitchen knives or any kind of bladed kitchen tool is in the thrall of intolerable nanny-statism and should be soundly condemned. Its legislators have either lost all perspective, forsaken due respect for its citizens' liberties, or most likely both."

Well, it won't happen [1] and nobody sensible is proposing that. If you have good reason to be carrying a knife [2] whether you are 2 yrs old or above then you have nothing to be worried about.

[1] (i), (ii) and (iii) have already happened, and we'll see about (iv). You have more faith in UK legislators than I do.

[2] I don't give a snow leopard's fuzzy white arse whether the UK government thinks I have a "good reason" to be carrying a chef's knife, a hunting knife, a large Swiss army knife, or a giant bloody Claymore for a GoT cosplay. Enough, you insane, micromanaging social engineers.

Your scenario of at the kid unable to carry a chef knife for grandma is fake.

I don't want to be unreasonable.

The situation is "A teenager buying a chef's knife for his grandmother's birthday can't be trusted to pick it up at the supply store."

According to gov.uk, which I previously cited:

It’s illegal to:
- sell a knife to anyone under 18, unless it has a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less
- carry a knife in public without good reason, unless it has a folding blade with a cutting edge 3 inches long or less​

You say the scenario is fake. Why?

A chef's knife clearly doesn't have "a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less". Why is the storeowner not prosecuted for selling a knife to the teenager?

Assume the knife isn't heavily packaged (many large knives aren't, especially if they're professional grade). Why is the teenager walking home with the knife not at risk, at the very least, of being hauled in front of a judge for no good reason?

Is the UK government lying? Do they not really enforce the laws?

The scenario is too moronic to bother replying to.

Appeal to absurdity. A lot of words for "I have no defense."

 

[Infinite Chaos]

~ According to gov.uk, which I previously cited:

It’s illegal to:
- sell a knife to anyone under 18, unless it has a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less
- carry a knife in public without good reason, unless it has a folding blade with a cutting edge 3 inches long or less​

​

That is not under dispute. It's your rubbish straw man that's at question.

~ Why is the storeowner not prosecuted for selling a knife to the teenager?

The law is clear there and teenage chefs are handed out knives by courses across the country. I'm talking kids right at the bottom of education learning what a carrot is and how to boil it to the higher levels where they are cooking in restaurants. The use and possession is justified.

~ at the very least, of being hauled in front of a judge

If you and VanceMack had bothered to read your own links you would have seen that "discretion" is given by the police to make their own decisions and where they are still unsure, police will take the case to court where people can put their case.

~Is the UK government lying? Do they not really enforce the laws?

See above. Please do some basic research next time you start a thread like this. The words "without good reason" give the police complete discretion on who gets prosecuted and who doesn't. It's no good moronically insisting that the law is black and white and applied monolithically.

~Appeal to absurdity. A lot of words for "I have no defense."

No, it was a true reflection of how foolish it is for Americans and Canadians to read a bit of internet news from a troll site and think they know UK laws and workings of the law.

 

[Snazzy]

The law is well-meaning. It isn't "all very well and good".

Talk about picking peanuts out of poo.

How do you pronounce Tomatoes?

I say to Tomatoes, you probably say Tomatoes?

 

[COTO]

If you and VanceMack had bothered to read your own links you would have seen that "discretion" is given by the police to make their own decisions and where they are still unsure, police will take the case to court where people can put their case.

Even better. Why consistently enforce a ban when we can all walk around endlessly justifying ourselves to police?

You and I are walking side-by-side down the street, 4" Swiss army knives in our pockets. I'm white and you're black.

Oop, here comes the gestapo, out to make sure we're not threats to public security. They inspect our knives.

"All is well here," they say, giving me a wink, handing me my knife back. Off I go, glad I'm not facing a citation.

"Going to use this to stab a homie, are we?" They say to you, confiscating your knife. "We'll see what a judge thinks. Don't miss your court date."

Just beautiful.

Please do some basic research next time you start a thread like this.

Your "basic research" link is a near-verbatim copy of my gov.uk link. I'm aware of the facts therein, sir.

What I am learning from you, though, is that "It’s illegal to sell a knife to anyone under 18, unless it has a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less" in actuality means "We don't give a toss if you sell a knife to a minor, as long as the officer who catches you isn't having a bad day." Apparently.

 

[Crovax]

No, what you implied was very racist.

No what you inferred was racist. I didn’t imply anything.

 

[Snazzy]

What I am learning from you, though, is that "It’s illegal to sell a knife to anyone under 18, unless it has a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less" in actuality means "We don't give a toss if you sell a knife to a minor, as long as the officer who catches you isn't having a bad day." Apparently.

Discretion given by the police to make their own decisions, isn't necessarily the same as the officer who catches you making a decision based on the kind of day he or she is having.

 

[Felis Leo]

Even better. Why consistently enforce a ban when we can all walk around endlessly justifying ourselves to police?

You and I are walking side-by-side down the street, 4" Swiss army knives in our pockets. I'm white and you're black.

Oop, here comes the gestapo, out to make sure we're not threats to public security. They inspect our knives.

"All is well here," they say, giving me a wink, handing me my knife back. Off I go, glad I'm not facing a citation.

"Going to use this to stab a homie, are we?" They say to you, confiscating your knife. "We'll see what a judge thinks. Don't miss your court date."

Just beautiful.

A racist police officer who selectively enforces the law against minorities? I don't know, COTO. I can only suspend my disbelief so far.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

No what you inferred was racist. I didn’t imply anything.

That is a very old weasel attempt/troll tactic. Regardless the implication and why you said it was racist. Or do you have another magical excuse for saying it in the first place?