UK gun control failed, wants a knife ban

We knew it would happen despite the denials of the gun banners. The UK has had draconian gun laws for decades, but banning firearms did not result in utopia. There are still crimes in the UK, and in their never ending search to end violence, the banners have set their sights on knives.

So far they just want to ban long pointy knives. Its a bit out of charachter that the banners didn't first target "assault knives" or black knives or scary knives.

There is even some "research":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm
A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon. The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all. They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen. None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.
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Lancashire has had a pointy knife amnesty with the catchy name "save a life, surrender your knife" in which people can turn in their knives without question - even though right now knives are still legal. According to the report:

The Lancashire department explains that their “officers have now given their backing to a national initiative designed to raise awareness of knife crime and encourage the surrender of dangerous weapons.” ​

The key is "dangerous weapons". Banners think that all they have to do is take away all the dangerous weapons and people will suddenly love each other. I can see it now, take away all the dangerous weapons from the Jews and Palestinians and they will run towards each other to embrace in friendship, at least until some one sees that rock lying on the ground........

Just more evidence that banners can never be trusted. They start with "common sense" gun laws and end up wanting to ban knives.

 

Any bets on what the next weapon of choice will be once knives are removed? Hammers, tire irons, baseball bats...? The problem is people wanting to kill other people, yet they continue to go after the weapon. Until everyone is in their own rubber room without a chance to escape, people will use what they have to harm others, whether it's a rock or a piece of wood. We can't ban everything but I'm sure, like you mentioned, they'll try.

 

Firearms aren't banned; they're just very difficult to obtain.

That's true but of the roughly 5-600 murders per annum we have only around 50 which are committed using firearms.

Which hasn't happened although there are some types of knives which are illegal.

Nobody is banning a "long pointy knife" which is basically a kitchen knife.

Oh god this again. It was done in 2005 and hasn't been looked at since.

No. But it will reduce the number of homicides.

You can't equate war to criminal behaviour.

In the pro-gun camp of the US gun debate the UK is the worst example to use.​

 

Really, using a cricket bat, a knife or other similar weapon to cause great bodily harm is not considered too much of a worry in the UK.

Looking at the ridiculous sentancing guidelines from the UK we can see that if a Muslim man with no prior convictions were to stab a Christian almost to death with a knife he carried with him, the Islamo-Terrorist would only have to serve 2 to 4 years: Crme and Disorder Act 1998 section 29.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....er_offences_against_the_person_accessible.pdf

The UK is about the worst example to use for anything related to criminal justice.

 

You should know that our knife laws go beyond 'long and pointy'. It is an offence to carry a knife with a blade more than 3" in length or which is capable of being locked. If you are under 18 restrictions also apply.

As for gun laws, remind me when was the last time we had a mass killing. And then tell us when your next one will be...

 

No that's not true.

Now you're mixing up two different offences and don't understand the difference between GBH and assault.
1. Terrorism
2. Assault falling short of GBH

If you read it properly it says that that sentencing guideline applies if the injuries are short of GBH.

Hardly.

 

Why are the religions of the people involved in your hypothetical relevant?

 

2012 UK/US gun homicides comparisons

UK 0.04 per 100,000

US 4.7 per 100,000

US gun nut conclusion ? The UK gun laws have failed.

Go figure ?

 

A criminal defense lawyer in the UK could get most liberal dupes in the UK to believe a Islamic terroritst to be a freedom-fighter.

But what details a "terrorist" is in the eye of the beholder. Still the guidelines say "great bodily injury" or disfigurement with a weapon such as a knife be worth no more than a few years in a comfortable prison.

Yes the criminals are shaking in their boots from your laws.

 

The UK does not want to ban knives. A small group of researchers at a university wants to ban knives. The police have already issued a statement about the study, saying very clearly that such a law would be unenforceable and undesirable.

 

The current move by the banners is to ban long pointy knives, specifically kitchen knives.

The UK had a mass killing in 2010, Derrick Bird, killed 12 injured 11. But with a population 20% that of the US, and fewer large cities, its expected that the UK have fewer mass killings. Despite the hype, mass killings in the US are not common averaging about 3 a year.

And while the UK can claim fewer firearm related crimes than the US, it certainly has its hands full with other crimes such as the widespread pedophile rings.

 

Because the UK Law says they are. These aren't my laws. Look them up for yourself:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....er_offences_against_the_person_accessible.pdf

If I was the King of England with same powers they had in the past, I would kick out all Islamics straight away. Then all gangsters and hardcore felons not currently in prison, I'd have deported to the Carribean. From then on, all repeat violent convicted felons would get the rope. After that, all free citizens could carry a knife, sword or handgun on their person at their pleasure.

 

That's doubtful. And public opinion doesn't come into the law.

No. There is a legal definition as proscribed in the Terrorism act (2000)

No that's not what it said.
The term is 'grievous bodily harm' which can go up to life imprisonment courtesy of the 'Offences against the Person Act 1861'

And you know this, how exactly?

 

The people who desire, who demand to ban dangerous objects, in order to stop the violence and the killing are not actually coherent thinking brains. It is an emotional response, and we know full well how powerful emotions are in dictating beliefs, which are devoid of logical, clear, rational thinking.

Of course the problem, the root problem lies in the selfishness, the violent aspect of human nature itself. We cannot change human nature, and so some go after the guns, and now the knives. If we removed every thing that can be used to kill someone, there would be little left to make our lives comfortable. If we looked at cars in the same way we looked at guns, we would ban cars. If we looked at all drugs the way we do guns, you wouldn't be able to get cured from an infection, for some people die from antibiotics and other useful drugs.

The fact of the matter is this. Being free, having liberty, as much as possible, comes with great costs. We never used to go after the costs, as we do today. We want to have our cake and to eat it too. We want all of the good things freedom yields, without the costs, the bad things it can yield. We basically want pleasure, without pain. And this is simply impossible. If you want pleasure, you must also accept the pain. But we don't want to do that. It is infantile, it is utterly illogical and incoherent, but we have far too many delusional people that will demand the impossible.

I will always opt for as much freedom and liberty as possible. I will then have to trust in the good people to use exercise those freedoms with personal responsibility, while knowing some people will abuse them. I have to accept that some people will abuse a freedom, for the freedom is greater than the abuse of a few. And you cannot change a violent human nature, by taking away the object he will use. He will use something else. To try to do away with killing and maiming, which humans, some humans have always done, and will always do, by taking away a freedom from responsible people is insanity. And its stupidity. It's utter ignorance, and boy do we have a lot of these insane, stupid, ignorant people. Most are called liberals. Now, I am an old time, common sense liberal, which has as much in common with modern liberalism as a cat does to a dog.

 

The criminals must have little to fear from your poorly done criminal laws because violent crime has been statisticallyhigher than most of Western Europe over the decades. Even though the UK is more ethnically diverse, that shouldn't be used as an excuse because tougher punishments are an effective way keep the usual suspects from doing the crimes in the first place.

Of course having an armed public, at the very least armed with pepper spray, fighting knives, stun guns, throwing stars, numchucks, chains, or swordcanes will cause criminals to reason to pause before their assault.

Home invasion style robberies are almost unheard of in my rural and suburban county in the States. I would conservatively place the number of homes armed with at least one gun to be around 80% in my subdivison alone. Those foolish enough try a home invasion, and lucky enough to live through the crime would certainly face life in prison or an automatic death penalty if they were too brutal to their victims.

 

You really have no clue what you are talking about because UK crime rates across the board are actually the lowest seen since the comprehensive annual recording of offences began in 1981

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/apr/25/uk-crime-falls-official-figures

I guess our far stricter laws on guns introduced over that period must have worked a treat in lowering crime then eh ?

 

So you're intimately familiar with the British legal system are you?

Ok then show me your data

You're going to have to explain the correlation between ethnicity and crime

No that wouldn't work and they do carry spray and some have stun guns. Also we do have constables to deal with armed offenders.

Not really it just means that they'll kill the person they're robbing.
And you're assuming that people like that are smart enough to actually think about what they're doing.

The US is a big place with many counties.

That wouldn't really work here.
Although I quite like the idea of penal colonies as you suggested on another post.

 

Trying to do a nation to nation comparison on violent crime is very difficult in devoloped nations---and virtually impossible in backward nations.

I very good way to look at overall crime is by homicides, and at least these lists show the UK from years past is not consistantly above most of Western Europe in lower murder rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade

However, the UK could improve their gun laws further by adapting the even more restrictive anti-gun laws of Mexico. Britons could also adopt Mexico's policy of having only one gun store in the entire country that is ran by the Mexican State Police. Then there would be no way criminals would have access to guns.



But, I'd rather not live anywhere where my civil rights would be restrained so badly. I'm so grateful that my ancestors had all fled England, Scotland and Ireland by 1850.

 

Correct

Mexicos problems stem from having a nation of gun crazy obsessives on its borders sadly

Its disturbing that anyone believes a civil right should be the ability to instantly kill someone

And it sounds like we should be grateful they did too

 

Mexico's problems are with silly and unworkable laws---just as with the UK. And aside from the BATF's own guns sent to Mexico, most of the nation's guns come from the South, just like the tons of narcotics.

I'd like having the right to instantly defend myself, and not having to run away. Perhaps the UK has deloveloped a Transporter like on Star Trek where English Bobbies can instantly materialize next to any crime scene---then, citizens really wouldn't need weapons to defend themselves.

Based on the majority of Britons I've seen posting here in this forum--- The UK gene pool has suffered irreparable damage from the loss of intellectual assets migrating out.

 

No it's not. It comes from the demands for narcotics from principally, the US with Mexico being a producer of.
The only way that argument would work is if both the US and Mexico legalised drugs.

We have 50 murders committed with firearms out of 5-600 murders per year.
The differences compared to the US are astronomical.

I find that somewhat amusing based upon what you've written.

 

As was illustrated by the math in post #8 our gun controls work extremely well and have doubtless saved thousands of lives over the years. What evidence do you have that they are silly and unworkable ?

The only defense you want to indulge is instant lethal response and are doubtless aching for the day some punk will step up and 'make your day'

You seem to have a weird perception of how our society actually is, and as has been illustrated already crime has substantially fallen over recent decades despite us not having those guns you deem so necessary.

A gun nut is lecturing me on intellect ?

 

I do not care what happens with in the borders of the UK, its none of my business what laws they have and dont have. I have followed violent crime a little, only because I was curious which weapon, murders would move to if guns were not available.

To my point, I was reading in some city's, aggressive dogs are becoming a problem, as a dog man this interests me, have any of you in UK seen this first hand? Or is just like the US, kids with big dogs trying to look tough?

 

I've not seen dangerous dogs first hand but it does appear to be an emerging problem rather than a widespread problem.

I think that is the case.

 

Well I hope you guys approach it better then we have.