Mandatory knife jail terms backed

reply to post by mirageofdeceit


If you have a valid reason, it won't even go to court. If it does and you still think you have a valid reason (not "protection", that doesn't wash here) then you will have a good chance of being acquitted.

But there are rules on the size of blade you can carry legally. If you have a 12" blade and your lurking on street corners late at night, what possible reason could you have for carrying it.

I'll say it again, this is what people are talking about, not if you're fishing or whatever.

EDIT: Yes, they are cowards. But cowards with knives who seem to have no problem using them. Not like the good old days where turning up for a fight with a weapon was seen as "unsportmanslike".

Not these days.... These kids seem to have no care's about killing people, they think it's a game.

[edit on 11/1/09 by stumason]

reply to post by stumason


Thanks for the comments - it does help me understand.

From my side, I grew up here in the US in a kind of rual section of the country. There every man and boy I knew carried a pocket-knife basically everywhere. I can remember as teen in high-school myself and every other boy I knew carried a pocket-kinfe. (A folding knife with a blade usually between 2" to 4").

To us they were just tools. Now boys will be boys and there were fights sure. But they were always just fist fights and there was never a knife incident that I can remember despite most every male having one.

So coming from that background when I read the article I was kind of taken aback.

But, from your links I see you guys do have serious problem and do need to do something. Times it appear have changed.

I'm guessing this will get some of them off the street. I'm guessing that getting these thugs off the street is basically the goal of the whole thing isn't it?

Well, it is their country, and they have the right to decide for themselves how they want to handle it.

Most of us from the states don't like it when foreigners criticize our "love" of weapons, so I don't really see where I would have room to criticize their right to ban weapons, even knives.

Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

This is just stupid there are billions of things that can be used for harming someone besides knives

Screwdrivers (stabbing object)
Swiss Army Knife (stabbing object)
Scissors (stabbing object)
Glass Bottles (hitting, throwing object)
Broken Light bulb (hitting, throwing object)
any heavy metal object
umbrella (hitting, throwing object)
fountain pens (stabbing object)
metal belts (hitting object)
notebook computer (throwing object)
Books (hitting, throwing object)

and many more they can all be used as objects to inflict bodily harm

reply to post by watch_the_rocks


Laws like this do NOTHING! Criminals DO NOT abide by laws. I don't get why politicians do not get that? If I want to stab someone or kill someone, I can do it just as well with a Number 2 Pencil, as any knife can do. Hell, give me a box of cereal, and I bet I can find a way to kill with it. No, I do not condone killing or violence in any way. All I'm saying is that these laws just hurt the law abiding, and empower the criminal element. If someone has your number, and they want you dead, they're going to find a way to kill you, knife, gun, no knife, no gun, it doesn't matter. You can kill with a kick, a fist. They going to ban those next? Do we all get mandatory 4 year prison terms for having fists and feet? Maybe they could jail us for having teeth? I know some people who can bite pretty damned hard. Pretty easy to bite into someone's neck and rip their jugular out. Hey, I've got it. Let's just ban life. You're born, you go to prison automatically because you have the potential to kill. How about that. That would solve everything.
When will the insanity stop? Seriously...

How do they feel about a cinder block?

A mister with Prussic Acid?

A CO2 bangstick?

In Dearborn, Michigan US you can not carry any kind of knife.
I like my razor sharp hachet I carry in carpenter rig.
If carry baseball bat in back seat of car make sure to include mit and ball, makes more believeable.

Stumason

If I'm not mistaken, the UK has laws on the books for harassment, assault, armed robbery, attempted murder, and so on.

Why go after the knives and not the crimes?

I understand that going after the knives is just a way of going after the scumbag chavs, but why do you need an excuse? If someone is going around fighting and assaulting people, committing robberies, and generally causing a disruption in the lives of law-abiding citizens - why do you need another excuse, a mandatory term that hinges on the weapon? Why not just pick their asses up and lock them away for being a menace to civilized society?

If you want these children off the streets, then impose 100-year penalties for all the crimes associated with them, and watch them grow old behind bars. Better yet, send them to America, to some of the places I've lived that make London look dowright quaint.

Introduce these skinny, white, filet-knife wieldin' morons to the Mexi-Mafia and their machine guns, they're just across the street in the parking structure adjacent to my old building in Chicago, or the west side Disciples who used my porch lights to sight in their pistols. Hell, take 'em up to Brooklyn and introduce them to some machete-wielding Jamaicans, real scaries - "That's not a knife, this is a knife."

Really though, if you really want to stop the violence, attack the cause (uneducated, unemployed, disadvantaged young males), don't chase the symptoms around in circles. Don't get me wrong, I understand that your country has a crime rate rising faster than anywhere else (except maybe South Africa), and you feel you have to do something about it. I get that.

It's insane to make self-defense illegal, and that's what you do when you make carrying weapons illegal in and of itself. Without established intent to commit a crime, there's no way you can justify disarming innocent people and leaving them at the mercy of these scumbags.

That's my opinion anyway...

The murder rate in my country is four times that of the UK and we don't feel it's necessary to criminalize cooking implements. Why is that?

reply to post by WyrdeOne


Here is an Picture that speak very much to this current situation - vis-a-vis the blatantly redundant laws:



(Image Courtesy of Glossover.co.uk)

reply to post by WyrdeOne


Right on the money! Self Defense is a civil right!

How any society can deny the right of the people for self-protection is beyond my comprehension and I feel the need to respond to posts like this due to the minority anti-gun crowd always using Europe / UK as models of a Utopia no-gun civilized safe society.

A GUN crime is carried out in Britain every 52 minutes, new figures showed yesterday. Cops dealt with 9,967 last year (that's some pretty good gun crime number in a country with no guns)... LOL
www.thesun.co.uk...


Knife crime claims 60 victims a day
More than 20,000 serious knife crimes were committed last year, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Living in Britain is now more dangerous than the Balkans, report reveals
www.dailymail.co.uk...

And best yet, the UK prosecutes those who defend their freeking homes from burglars and suggests that if you see a crime in progress that you don't get involved??? What bizarre behavior... I just do not understand it, you pretty much tell the criminals that they WILL get away with the crime and the victim is not allowed to resist the crime or help someone else getting assaulted for fear of prosecution if you do!

Farmer who killed burglar jailed for life -
www.telegraph.co.uk.../archive/2000/04/20/nmar20.html

"The clear view of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Home Office is that it is better to let a thief get away and to call the police than to risk injury or death in a confrontation. In its advice to the public on "staying safe when you're out and about", the Home Office states: "If someone grabs your bag, let it go. If you hang on, you could get hurt. Remember your safety is more important than your property."

(How about take out the little bastard and all of his little coward bastard friends will get the idea)

www.telegraph.co.uk...

My god.. demand the right to defend yourselves (at least in your own homes) without fear of prosecution!

Shoot the thugs! Blast a few of these pieces of # and most or your problems will go away quickly... thieves don't like deadly force used against THEM you know.. right now they have an open season pass on the public and you prosecute those who defend themselves... unbelievable. I cannot understand it at all.

Sorry for the rant but it amazes me.... and it amazes me more that people actually think that THIS is a good idea for the US.... our thugs are 10 times more numerous and dangerous... I cannot imagine what life would be like if you were prosecuted for defending your home. Wait, I can and it is not pretty.

[edit on 12-1-2009 by infolurker]

I suppose the hooligans will resort to carrying cricket bats, threaded rod, Maglites filled with lead and simple sticks. Now, they will just beat the unarmed and defenseless to death.

Hooligans and thugs will always be hooligans and thugs. They will always find a way to prey on the defenseless.

Another law to bolster the Ganstas stronghold on law abiding citizens. Good job!!

reply to post by watch_the_rocks


I am from the UK London and I can correct you by telling you there is not a 'massive' knife crime problem. This is yet again the media assisting the Government with their fear agenda. If the BBC were to have asked the same number of 'informed' people the same question I don't think you would have got a figure in the double figures?

I recent government minister used a much quoted stat to try and push through some sex law. They stat more or less said that we had such a problem that there were thousands of sex slaves in the UK each being forced to have sex with 30men every day but using their own stat figures meant that over 700,000 men in the UK were involved with these 'sex slaves' everyday. The program then poised the question to the squirming minister that how come they the well funded police force only can find a few dozen 'potential' sex slaves yearly with 700,000 men participating in the practices 'they' say are happening? I think we should be wary of statistics and then attribute national feelings to this figure?

reply to post by jatsc


I have the unfortunate pleasure of living next door the only drunken, white-trash couple in the neighborhood who partake in weekly domestic disputes fueled equally by their alcoholism, their 4th grade education limit and their overall lack of sense of shame and or decency.

Anyway, yesterday the police were there. No doubt to diffuse a pointless hick situation. After being surprised the cops didnt shoot their dog (the US police seem to be on a pet murder kick of late) I heard them explaining they were going to have to remove all "deadly weapons" from the home. I never heard an explanation as to why. As far as I know the police just decided on the spot the trashy couple shouldnt be allowed to have their own property. I have my own issues with this but thats another topic.

So I witnessed the cops remove a baseball bat, a couple of knives and some cheap sword and mace replicas you would find at a county fair for sale by some obese leather clad meth addict.

I wondered, if they're taking the mans baseball bat why arent they snapping the legs off of all the furniture and taking that too? If their taking a couple of utility knives why arent they taking the kitchen knives?

Then I wondered if the white-trash neighbor were to hurt or kill someone with a "weapon" in the house that was not taken by the police would the police be held liable in some civil suit? Who decides what a weapon is? The individual wielding it I would think since a weapon can be anything at anytime. If this neighbor were to beat somebody to death with a lawn gnome can he be charged with "assault with a deadly weapon" if the police didnt remove the lawn gnome from the property? If he can be charged with the gnome as a deadly weapon can the police sued for allowing a "deadly weapon" to remain on the premises after they (presumably under order) had to remove all deadly weapons?

Originally posted by jatsc
This is just stupid there are billions of things that can be used for harming someone besides knives


any heavy metal object


and many more they can all be used as objects to inflict bodily harm

So Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath an be used as a deadly weapon. They are already in the UK, so access to them should be better.

Originally posted by Frogs
From my side, I grew up here in the US in a kind of rual section of the country. There every man and boy I knew carried a pocket-knife basically everywhere. I can remember as teen in high-school myself and every other boy I knew carried a pocket-kinfe. (A folding knife with a blade usually between 2" to 4").

I carry a knife...a stripped down Swiss Army, cuz I don't figure I'll need to attack anybody with a fork...
But seriously, I figure a man carries a knife, I tell my son the same thing, but he can't because there is a zero-tolerance in his high school, and no sense setting him up for an accidental mix-up with the authorities. But he knows as soon as he's out, he'll be carrying his Grandpa's knife.

Laws here apply to what you do with it, except for switchblades, flick knives, butterflies, etc. But basically banning knives is just going to create harassment for law abiding folks. I mean, you can't open an envelope with a pistol, or clean your fingernails, or tighten a screw, so that argument doesn't follow. However, it could be the UK needs all those cameras to keep track of dumb laws like this.

Knives are a large problem over here, yes it is easy to get a gn, but you need to buy ammunition for it and take at least some care of it.

They are also harder to hide, and you have no chance of explaining it away if it's found on your person or in your house.

A knife can be hidden easier, can be explained away better...and perhaps more importantly, it doesn't make a sound when used. A gang member can kill someone else and get away before anyone finds the body, if a gunshot goes off people from all around start coming.

If you have a decent reason for carrying such a weapon then you wont be bothered, or will be freed from any charges... if your just one of those who stand around on the streets, you'll get pulled it. It may sound steretypical of gang members, but thats the way it works here... they dress and act purposely to stand out from anyone else.

We are not undefended at all...a pen knife, my own body or my keys are all fine. Theres plenty of glass on the floor, loose bricks, your not usually far from somewhere with road traffic all throughout the day.

I use to carry a little steel rod four inche by 5/8 inch.
A friend of mine said his girl friend had some guy she was fooling around with and was some kind of martial arts guy. He ask me what he should do I said well if you get the first punch in and gave him one of those rods.
Anyhow the guy never knew what hit him, knocked him cold, he was afraid of my friend after that, and never ever knew about the rod.

The British government doesn't understand that you can't legislate morality and these proposed knife laws are just another symptom.

During my last visit over there I saw images that have become routine for me now when I'm in the UK on business.

Firstly, the people are packed in like sardines, roads are incredibly congested and there is often no option to on-street parking which just makes matters worse. The houses are tiny and practically stacked on top of each other, and town centers on the weekend are like the mob scene from Soylent Green with everyone trying to "get the bread before the shops run out" (can't they bake more ??). Town centers are also complete with gangs of 10 years olds in hoods smoking cigarettes and swearing at passers-by for no apparent reason. What happened to their kids? they are like small animals - when I returned home to the US and a kid referred to me as "sir" when he apologized for bumping into to me, I had to remind myself that I was back home.

All this proximity and congestion makes life over there look pretty miserable, and the people just don't seem happy with life - who can blame them. The country is chronically overcrowded but strangely has large open areas of countryside available for development - regulation restrictions maybe, I'm not sure.

Violence on a Friday and Saturday night seemed almost routine with gangs of drunken youths roaming the streets, I can see where the knives come into it. I no longer venture out after dark when I'm over there, I have the same feeling I have when I'm in Detroit, it feels THAT dangerous (if you know Detroit). They also seem to have growing problems with their immigrant Muslim population which is now significant, and very vocal. Integration seems to be the last of their concerns.

It's sad to see all this happen to a once great nation that gave us the likes of Newton, Dickens, and Churchill.

Many of the people I was working with expressed a desire to emigrate, Australia and Canada seemed to be the 2 most popular destinations.

Ultimately they just don't get it, they are addicted to the PC culture and also strangely to reality TV shows (to an even greater extent than we are), and that's saying something.

I apologize for the sad social commentary, but other than London (which was a lot of fun), the UK is not somewhere you would choose to live.

I remember a C4 programme some time ago which dealt with the hooliganism problem in the UK.

It was quite enlightening to hear the overdubbed news stories and social commentary from 400 years ago being applied to this "modern" problem.

I'd also recommend this guardian article for a little more of an insightfull look at this.

The fact is, that the UK has, and always has had, a violent culture based on drinking and territorialism - read some of the historical accounts from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow and just about every major city.

The only difference is that it is much more widely reported today, and that goes hand in hand with government attempts to take our minds off other issues.

There are issues in the inner cities that need to be addressed, but a knee jerk reaction is not the solution - that's the trouble with "New Labour": long on soundbites and cosmetic solutions, but short on actually doing anything tangible.

Originally posted by stumason
I must say, the responses in this thread have mostly been rather knee-jerk.

Over here, we have common sense policing and common sense courts.

If you have a valid reason for carrying a legal knife, then the police will let you be on your way. Say you've gone fishing, or are out camping for example they are unlikely to bother you.

If, however, your a 17 year old oik, hood over your head and are acting like a toss-pot in an urban area, there is no reason for you to be carrying a knife and you will be brought before the courts.

This is what the article is alluding too, not just anyone that is carrying, but those who are with no obvious legal reason.

[edit on 11/1/09 by stumason]

So appearance and dress should determine who can carry? Thats pathetic. I wear hoodies all the time. I also work with children all day. ANd I carry my pocket knife, every single day. I use it at least 5 times per week. Nobody is taking that right away from me, period.