'Knife culture' the next big thing

Tamara, try this one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3244709.stm

Be sure to have your barf bucket handy when you scroll to the bottom and read the story comments from the likes of "Phil K.".

The gist is the Subjects of England, Wales and Scotland are continuing to accelerate down the slippery slope of total disarmament as their masters continue to deny them their God given right to self protection. It's sad and a good example of where we are headed in our own country if we let it happen.

By 2010, I predict the subjects of the UK will have to line up to have their incisors, fingernails, and canines removed too. Yep, you read it here first on TFL !
 
It's a shopping list likely to send a chill down the spine: kitchen knives, axes, razor sharp "cat skinners" and Ninja-style throwing knives.
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Oh... my... gawd! How can somebody be so jello-kneed and still muster the courage to scuttle out of bed in the mornings without a team of psychiatrists on speed-dial?

"Ninja-style throwing knives"? From what I saw in the pictures, the UK is having the same cheap Pakistani and Chinese crap you find late at night on the Home Shopping Network foisted off on their gullible Visa-wielders as we are. This is a matter for Consumer Awareness groups, not lily-livered legislation. :rolleyes:
 
Yes indeed. Ninja Blades of Death. rotfl. I can only imagine what they'd think of my acquaintance Steve Tarani...

Y'know, I have had the privelege of representing the Stars and Stripes in competition in England a few times, and know quite a few people there, and it just occured to me that with the obvious lack of fluoridation in British water, they've already taken care of the problem involving sharp teeth... :D
 
I just can't understand a human who's afraid of kitchen knives. The goofiest, nambiest, pambiest VEGAN on the face of the Earth still chops up his celery and tofu with a knife.

Dear God.
 
We still circle the problem - the penalties for carrying a knife should be severe as the only reason for doing so, whether or not in self-defence, is the intention of causing harm.
Phil K, UK
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Oh, you. . . . little. . . . girly. . . . . gggfftrtthhhttt.

Words fail me.

I am a man of peace, but you, sir, should be struck in the face with a hammer until I cry "uncle!"
:barf:
 
Don,

With all due respect, it's wrong of you to insult women by calling that creature girly. I know lots of girls who could whip that... unperson.
 
Of those that do brandish a blade, many justify it as in the interests of "self defence", says Unun Seshmi, who runs a charity called Boyhood to Manhood which is dedicated to steering young black people away from crime.
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It's really sad. The concept of self defence is so foreign to them that they use scare quotes around the term.
 
I just can't understand a human who's afraid of kitchen knives. The goofiest, nambiest, pambiest VEGAN on the face of the Earth still chops up his celery and tofu with a knife.
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You have obviously not seen a plastic cabbage knife.

I would like to see somebody demonstrate how to use that "Cyclone Knife". Sure it looks good for scaring those that are already scared, but let's see that sucker in action.
 
I think the most commonly used weapon in the UK is probably still the beer glass (or bottle). But with street crime rising rapidly over there, the appearence in ERs of more knife wounds shouldn't surprize anyone. In the early 70s at least I think one of the more common bladed street items was ... the Stanley knife - the boxcutter.

Don Gwinn,

I think the intended direction is fully prepared food - whether raw or cooked. So that you will not find whole onions, lettuce etc in the supermarkets. Think everything in plastic bags, packets, buckets etc. Fresh, frozen, dried, don't matter; already sliced, chopped, quartered, ground.. everything.

Then "no one will have a need for a knife". Unless you are a "farmer", "food processor"...
 
Select parts of article:

Government figures show that offences involving possession of weapons have risen by 36% since 1999, while murders with sharp instruments have gone up by a similar proportion since 1997.

The knife problem has become so serious that senior police officers and MPs are calling for a tightening of the law to bring penalties for knife crime more into line with those for gun offences.

Michael Todd, chief constable of Greater Manchester, said knives were the biggest threat his officers faced. His force has become the first to compel its officers to wear stab-proof jackets over their uniforms.

“If someone is carrying a knife they will be prepared to use it,” he said. “We need to change that culture. Only by tightening the law will we get them off the streets.”

Todd wants longer jail terms for knife crime, which the government has no plans to introduce. He is also calling for the minimum age at which it is possible to buy knives to be raised from 16 to 18, a measure the Home Office is considering.

The ease with which young people can buy knives is being partly blamed for the “blade culture”, along with the growing popularity of the weapons among criminals worried at the harsh sentences imposed for carrying firearms.

The figures show that offences of possession of weapons other than guns have gone up from 23,365 in 1998-99 to 32,104 in 2002-03. Knives are by far the most common weapon in this category. Separate Home Office figures show murders with sharp instruments rose from 200 in 1997 to 272 last year.

There is also concern that crimes involving knives are no longer confined to rough inner-city areas but have spilt into more middle-class districts.

Scotland is one of the areas worst affected by knife crime, with more than half of the murders in the country — 68 out of 127 — being carried out using sharp instruments in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available. By contrast, some 27% of killings in England are committed in this way.

“People are having to become streetwise in areas where that was never a consideration,” said Derek Conway, the Conservative MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, where a 13-year-old boy was stabbed in a motiveless Saturday afternoon attack two years ago.

“It is that knife culture coming to these areas which is terrifying.”

Particular alarm has been caused by the growth in knife crime by schoolchildren. Last month Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan police commissioner, expressed concern at the growing number of attacks and said some schools would be offered the use of metal detectors at their entrances, a practice already widespread in America.

In a Mori poll of 5,000 children earlier this year for the Youth Justice Board, 42% of young boys said they had carried knives at some stage in the previous year.

Professor Tim Newburn, a criminologist at the London School of Economics, said knives were becoming fashionable among children. “For some people this is to do with image. Knives have become part of the accoutrement of cool youth,” he said.

Knives have helped fuel violence in schools, which has reached record levels. More than 10 children are expelled every day for assaulting a teacher or classmate.

Jayne Walmsley, whose 14-year-old son Luke was stabbed to death last year at Birkbeck school in North Somercotes, Lincolnshire, said only tougher sentencing would reduce knife-carrying by children.

“They are as dangerous as guns but until they face a more severe sentence children of 13 and 14 will still be carrying knives around in the local park,” said Walmsley.

Knife crime is already worrying David Blunkett, the home secretary. In July, he announced he was examining whether carrying a knife should carry equivalent penalties to firearms offences. At present carrying a knife with a blade longer than 3in without good reason can lead to a maximum four-year prison term or a fine.

If the blade is shorter, the punishment could be as little as a £50 fine or a caution. Illegal possession of firearms carries a jail term of five to 10 years.

When he made his announcement, Blunkett said: “We have got to examine for the legislation we are planning to put forward whether . . . we should have equivalent penalties.”

The home secretary also highlighted the phenomenon of criminals turning to knives to avoid lengthy jail sentences with guns. “What has been said to me is that we need to ensure that you are not more likely to get away with it if you are carrying a knife.”

Despite Blunkett’s worries, the Home Office said this weekend that there were no plans to introduce harsher sentences for possession of knives. “The home secretary has indicated he wants to look at tightening up the legislation,” said a spokeswoman. “It is in this context that we are discussing with the Association of Chief Police Officers and trading standards whether to extend the ban on the sale of knives from the under-16s to the under-18s.”
 
So, anyone carry a knife does so with evil intent?

Will the UK now arrest all males as they walk about with the intent to commit rape? :confused:
 
The horror; the horror

So Tam you think that the people who charge $150 from the shopping channels for a taiwanese-made pocket knife are the same ones who spend $600 for a synthetic stone called tanzanite that is purported to double its value in a year just as sure as the sun will rise? Damn I love America (seein' as how I'm a bankruptcy lawyer).

One expert with street-level experience is convinced more young people are arming themselves with knives these days
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Must be the same one from whom the author learned the phrase 'street cred', and now tosses the phrase around with reckless abandon.

OMG - I love this one too:

Of those that do brandish a blade, many justify it as in the interests of "self defence",
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So now we put self-defense in quotes? Presumably because it's describing some mythical, make-believe concept?
 
We still circle the problem - the penalties for carrying a knife should be severe as the only reason for doing so, whether or not in self-defence, is the intention of causing harm.
Click to expand...

I know it may be hard to wrap your head around this concept, Mr. Coeur d'Poulet, but I carry a knife in case I need to *gasp* cut something. That is, after all, why my distant paleolithic ancestors invented the damn things in the first place, you know. :rolleyes:
 
"Well, that's the point, Tamara dear. We are more civilized now. We've evolved beyond the need for such things.", quoth the MP-disgrace-to-eunuchs.

:barf:


Long ago I read a sci-fi story about a do gooder who developed a very sophisticated humanoid robot, and programmed it to keep people safe. So it did. It replicated itself, took over the known universe (by stealth, at first), and did away with everything that MIGHT be unsafe for humans.

The last straw for the last holdout was woodworking tools. They even took those away, and finally captured that last holdout human. For his own good, of course. Deprived of any possible means of harming himself, he couldn't even commit suicide.

The last line of the story was, "And so he sat, with folded hands."


A tragic, but fitting, epitaph for what once was a great nation.



And our future, if we don't defeat the Naderites and other do-gooders.
 
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