An article about the rise in knife crime in Scotland and reactions from several worthies...
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=660102005
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=660102005
Article in todays Scotsman newspaper
- Thread starter sandbender
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I would see ANYONE go up against a grizzly with a 7 inch knife =) It only works in comicbooks
It's sad though that the argument that availibility of knives would affect crimes still gets brought up every time. The difference between availibility of knives and guns is that if you have a lot of guns, people gets accidentally shot. People rarely get accidentally stabbed 32 times if you know what i mean. A knife is a tool, a piece of art or a weapon based on what the person holding it does, not it's nature. You can kill someone with a butter-knife aswell, it just takes longer
My personal opinion in this subject is that they should probably start using metal-detectors on clubs. This of course wont remove knives more than it removes them in a prison, but they will have to smuggle them inside first. This will be a selling point for clubowners aswell who might not feel that having a knifefight inside is a good way to get customers
Another thing is ofcourse to increase penalty for possesion. With this i mean carrying a concealed knife in a public place where ITS EASY TO USE. Big point there. If you have it packed down in a backpack and moves through 100m worth of urban territory before you hit the forest, it's not exactly like you are going to go cutt'ing up someone in a club. However, if you show up in the supermarket with a 7 inch knife hidden under your jacket, you might not be there for carving a flute
To ban certain types of knives is like only banning certain types of guns. The bottom line is, it's not the weapon that kills, it's the person using it. This is even more valid with knives than with guns.
But hey, why not do the manchurian way and ban all knives, swords, forks, spoons and cheesegraters. Thats when we will start discussing the rise in people killed by chopstick stabbings
Interesting reading.
From a recent editorial in the BMJ 28 May 2005 called 'Reducing knife crime' (the respected British Medical Journal):
This confirms that basically if you do ban a certain knife type or size then those carrying such weapons will simply turn to another 'too hand' alternative. What needs to be dealt with are the root causes of this type of street culture/ crime.
Couple of things that seem common throughout most of the stats I have read:
1. Drink Related
2. Young Males (also not insignificant use by young women too)
Seems to me we need to apply existing legislation more strictly (i.e. carry of illegal size knives, sales of knives to under 16 year olds). Consider extending that to under 18's if a provable link can be found to the 16-18 age group.
Come to terms at a national level with the real problems and causes of drink related incidents and antisocial behaviour. And to this add Drug Related crime and illegal drug use as well which is an equally, and often associated, issue.
As my grandfather used to say 'prevention rather than cure'.
From a recent editorial in the BMJ 28 May 2005 called 'Reducing knife crime' (the respected British Medical Journal):
source: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com
This confirms that basically if you do ban a certain knife type or size then those carrying such weapons will simply turn to another 'too hand' alternative. What needs to be dealt with are the root causes of this type of street culture/ crime.
Couple of things that seem common throughout most of the stats I have read:
1. Drink Related
2. Young Males (also not insignificant use by young women too)
Seems to me we need to apply existing legislation more strictly (i.e. carry of illegal size knives, sales of knives to under 16 year olds). Consider extending that to under 18's if a provable link can be found to the 16-18 age group.
Come to terms at a national level with the real problems and causes of drink related incidents and antisocial behaviour. And to this add Drug Related crime and illegal drug use as well which is an equally, and often associated, issue.
As my grandfather used to say 'prevention rather than cure'.
While I agree with most of what you've said, here I disagree - I see no difference in validity. By all means have stricter storage rules for guns to prevent the accidental death / imjury and guard against theft, but at the end of the day laws against killing/intimidating etc have been on the statute books for a long time. Banning tools / hobbies is no way to create a society where people are responsible for their actions. By removing these items from law abiding people, it makes matters worse - it increases fear because "normal" people don't encounter them in a positive way, it increases street cred for having illegal weapons making their use for bad(tm) purposes more likely, and worst of all it removes the example of responsible use, so the young only get the hollyweird image of these things. What's next - crossbows, other archery, catapults, slings? This "ban-it" mentality is a real danger for bushcrafters. Erm... I'll bung me soapbox back in the shed now.HuBBa said:
You forgot to ban the ash trays and belts mentioned in the article.HuBBa said:But hey, why not do the manchurian way and ban all knives, swords, forks, spoons and cheesegraters. Thats when we will start discussing the rise in people killed by chopstick stabbings
I do like the figures from the BMJ editorial quoting 'UK government statistics'.
So 19%, one in five of ALL sixteen year old boys report attacking someone with a knife. Really? Stop and think about that for a moment. If one in five of all sixteen year old boys was attacking someone with a knife no-one could move for stabbings. The streets would be piled high with bodies and nobody other than knife carrying sixteen year olds would dare leave the house!
It is clearly a preposterous manipulation of figures, if not simply made up, to provide statistical backing for a law introduced by a government wanting to be seen to be 'tough on crime' without taking real steps like paying police officers a decent wage, employing enough of them and letting them do the job we all want them to do.
Bah, humbug!
Danzo
So 19%, one in five of ALL sixteen year old boys report attacking someone with a knife. Really? Stop and think about that for a moment. If one in five of all sixteen year old boys was attacking someone with a knife no-one could move for stabbings. The streets would be piled high with bodies and nobody other than knife carrying sixteen year olds would dare leave the house!
It is clearly a preposterous manipulation of figures, if not simply made up, to provide statistical backing for a law introduced by a government wanting to be seen to be 'tough on crime' without taking real steps like paying police officers a decent wage, employing enough of them and letting them do the job we all want them to do.
Bah, humbug!
Danzo
Danzo said:I do like the figures from the BMJ editorial quoting 'UK government statistics'.
So 19%, one in five of ALL sixteen year old boys report attacking someone with a knife. Really? Stop and think about that for a moment. If one in five of all sixteen year old boys was attacking someone with a knife no-one could move for stabbings. The streets would be piled high with bodies and nobody other than knife carrying sixteen year olds would dare leave the house!
It is clearly a preposterous manipulation of figures, if not simply made up, to provide statistical backing for a law introduced by a government wanting to be seen to be 'tough on crime' without taking real steps like paying police officers a decent wage, employing enough of them and letting them do the job we all want them to do.
Bah, humbug!
Danzo
Maybe they mean 19% of the 24%? Mind you that's still about 1 in 20 16-year old boys
I notice they also say "19% admit attacking someone with the intent of harm." Of course they don't say whether that's with a knife or teenagers simply punching their mates because they're 16 and high on hormones.
its actually some clever wording in order to make it appear that 19% admit to attacking somone with a knife.
what it actually says is that 19% of 16 year old boys admit to attacking somone with intent to harm (fights in playground etc, no mention of a knife) but by placing it directly after the line stating that 24% of 16 year old boys admit to carrying a knife (and adding the words "or other weapons" to infure that the knife they were carrying was a weapon) they have managed to imply that 24% of 16 year old boys carry weapons and 19% have attacked somone with them, with out ever having any satistics which show this.
I reckon all of us that use this site will be in complete agreement over this issue, save for some of the finer points or argument. The general perception of a knife as purely a weapon makes me fume. I was brought up to see it as a tool, with even the simplest design being a work of art. I feel I was brought up correctly and healthily in this respect.
I was doing some carving in the garden the other day when my neighbour saw me and then my knife and promptly said, "that looks nasty, what do you use that for; stabbing people?". I showed him the spoon I had almost finished and he looked at me as if I had two heads. How anyone can regard a woodlore knife as "looking nasty" is beyond me.
One perspecetive I use, if you forgive me starting to rant and ramble, is the stupidity of people that are allowed to drive cars. Yes, they have passed a basic test, for which there is no equivalent with a knife, but you only have to look at regular misuse of motor vehicles, the idiocy or incomptence of your average driver and the complete disregard for other human beings by some drivers, and equate that to deaths and injuries on the road to be able to come up with a far more compelling statistical case for banning cars. Is that likely to happen?
I could go into full rant about the dangers of taking one scientific publication/statistical analysis and making this the "bible" to which all subsequent media references are made (They did it with the MMR and screwed up badly: another issue close to my heart), but I won't.
I'll stop before I go on all day!
I was doing some carving in the garden the other day when my neighbour saw me and then my knife and promptly said, "that looks nasty, what do you use that for; stabbing people?". I showed him the spoon I had almost finished and he looked at me as if I had two heads. How anyone can regard a woodlore knife as "looking nasty" is beyond me.
One perspecetive I use, if you forgive me starting to rant and ramble, is the stupidity of people that are allowed to drive cars. Yes, they have passed a basic test, for which there is no equivalent with a knife, but you only have to look at regular misuse of motor vehicles, the idiocy or incomptence of your average driver and the complete disregard for other human beings by some drivers, and equate that to deaths and injuries on the road to be able to come up with a far more compelling statistical case for banning cars. Is that likely to happen?
I could go into full rant about the dangers of taking one scientific publication/statistical analysis and making this the "bible" to which all subsequent media references are made (They did it with the MMR and screwed up badly: another issue close to my heart), but I won't.
I'll stop before I go on all day!
I think it is perhaps not going too far to say that 'knives' have become the new 'drugs', a vague indeterminate concept that is used to manipulate fear, just as in older times people were afraid of the bogeyman, goblins and God.
Now that we have a generation of politicians and a voting public who have a broad knowledge of a the whole range of illegal substances and their effects, they cannot be demonised as they once were for all societies ills. We don't tend to see all illegal substances referred to by the blanket term 'drugs' anywhere near as much as we used to, whereas the media and politicians have very much jumped on the bandwagon of 'knives'.
This does seem to be having some success as well. I think that many people, when chopping an onion with a knife are not making the mental connection between what is in their hand and the terrible 'knives' that are responsible for most of the evils of the modern world.
Danzo
Now that we have a generation of politicians and a voting public who have a broad knowledge of a the whole range of illegal substances and their effects, they cannot be demonised as they once were for all societies ills. We don't tend to see all illegal substances referred to by the blanket term 'drugs' anywhere near as much as we used to, whereas the media and politicians have very much jumped on the bandwagon of 'knives'.
This does seem to be having some success as well. I think that many people, when chopping an onion with a knife are not making the mental connection between what is in their hand and the terrible 'knives' that are responsible for most of the evils of the modern world.
Danzo
9,374 people found in possession of a weapon....out of a population of just under 5,000,000, in a country policed by about 10,000 policemen and women......so that means that 4,980,000 other people have to have their behaviour reviewed and modified and their choices restricted so that the 10,000 can deal with the *delinquent* 9,374......tell me I'm missing something here
Toddy
Toddy
Povarian said:
Sorry i should have been a bit more clearer. What i meant by that was simply that it takes a bit more determination to kill someone with a knife than with a gun. But i think we're pretty much arguing the same thing, banning one of the most common worktool on this planet is just plain stupid
Again, as i said in a previous thread re. this.. I say we just ban people. It saves time in the endPovarian said:You forgot to ban the ash trays and belts mentioned in the article.
One thought springs to mind when I hear the 'Ban the Evil Knife' Brigade.
That is that it is the thing that seperated us from the other beasts. Think of it this way- our earliest ancestors used tools when no other creature did. Ok, so it was a stone used as a hammer to crush things. A few other primates, and now other mammals use a stone in a similar manner. But we learnt to shape the original stone to give it a sharp edge to cut stuff, thus altering a tool to make it more efficient. In time, this stone cutter became a stone knife with ever more sophistication, until metal replaced the stone that it was made from. Now as far as i know, no other creature makes knives, and I'd think it is the first tool that man made, which in turn makes us unique, as we took a raw material and changed it to fit our needs-every other tool using animal merely uses what is to hand as it is-they don't modify it. So by my thinking the knife was our first tool, and is what makes us human. So therefore these people who want to ban knives are taking away our basic human rights-which is our Right to be Human.
Just a thought...
That is that it is the thing that seperated us from the other beasts. Think of it this way- our earliest ancestors used tools when no other creature did. Ok, so it was a stone used as a hammer to crush things. A few other primates, and now other mammals use a stone in a similar manner. But we learnt to shape the original stone to give it a sharp edge to cut stuff, thus altering a tool to make it more efficient. In time, this stone cutter became a stone knife with ever more sophistication, until metal replaced the stone that it was made from. Now as far as i know, no other creature makes knives, and I'd think it is the first tool that man made, which in turn makes us unique, as we took a raw material and changed it to fit our needs-every other tool using animal merely uses what is to hand as it is-they don't modify it. So by my thinking the knife was our first tool, and is what makes us human. So therefore these people who want to ban knives are taking away our basic human rights-which is our Right to be Human.
Just a thought...
I absolutely agree with the above. I was going to mention this in my original rant, but you'd all have gone to the pub if I'd have carried on much longer.
Yup, I guess we're all singing from the same hymn sheet on this one.HuBBa said:Sorry i should have been a bit more clearer. What i meant by that was simply that it takes a bit more determination to kill someone with a knife than with a gun. But i think we're pretty much arguing the same thing, banning one of the most common worktool on this planet is just plain stupid
Didn't the Indians (sub-continent ones) try this a while back by leaping out of bushes and giving people suprise vasectomies. Or is that just another senior moment?HuBBa said:Again, as i said in a previous thread re. this.. I say we just ban people. It saves time in the end
So why don't the 10000 police officers just follow the 9374 potential bad guys to make sure they don't do anything bad with the weapons.Toddy said:
Or erm... call them terrorists so they can lock them up without trial. Or... put more cameras up, or... Aargh. [Silky voice] Welcome to Airstrip One.Governments like the idea of banning things because it costs them very little to do so, is relatively straightforward and they can be seen to be proactive on crime which makes them popular with (potential) voters. It's also harder for opposition parties to argue against you without seeming soft on crime, and so they have to trail in your wake or up the stakes.
Actually dealing with the social/cultural conditions and changes which 'cause' a rise in certain types of crime isn't such an easy option. It would involve serious amounts of money and time being spent (none of which the electorate are keen to give you, and they generally only want to hear their prejudices confirmed so why spend a lot of money doing so) on research into why what you don't want to happen is happening.
Of course it's even better if relatively few people are going to be directly affected (must please more potential voters than you're going to upset) and of course it's best not to upset any major business concerns (don't want them giving money to the opposition party or taking their factories off to somewhere where you can't tax them).
Even worse you might get answers you don't want to hear. Perhaps the rise in knife crime, drug use or whatever the latest moral panic is can only be stopped by throwing people into prison for a long time (costs lots of money) or perhaps you're going to have to make society more open and fairer (also costs lots of money). (I'm not saying those are the answers - they're just two ends of the spectrum of possible answers).
Much easier to just ban things.
Rant over.
Actually dealing with the social/cultural conditions and changes which 'cause' a rise in certain types of crime isn't such an easy option. It would involve serious amounts of money and time being spent (none of which the electorate are keen to give you, and they generally only want to hear their prejudices confirmed so why spend a lot of money doing so) on research into why what you don't want to happen is happening.
Of course it's even better if relatively few people are going to be directly affected (must please more potential voters than you're going to upset) and of course it's best not to upset any major business concerns (don't want them giving money to the opposition party or taking their factories off to somewhere where you can't tax them).
Even worse you might get answers you don't want to hear. Perhaps the rise in knife crime, drug use or whatever the latest moral panic is can only be stopped by throwing people into prison for a long time (costs lots of money) or perhaps you're going to have to make society more open and fairer (also costs lots of money). (I'm not saying those are the answers - they're just two ends of the spectrum of possible answers).
Much easier to just ban things.
Rant over.
