Rise in UK knife attacks leads to a crackdown and stokes public anxiety
Rise in UK knife attacks leads to a crackdown and stokes public anxiety
Rise in UK knife attacks leads to a crackdown and stokes public anxiety
A familiar horror reached Pooja Kanda first on social media: There had been a sword attack in London. And then Kanda, who was home alone at the time, saw a detail she dreaded and knew all too well.
A man with a sword had killed a 14-year-old boy who was walking to school. Two years ago, her 16-year-old son, Ronan, was killed by two sword-wielding schoolmates while walking to a neighbor’s to borrow a PlayStation controller.
“It took me back,” Kanda, who lives near Birmingham, said about Daniel Anjorin’s April 30 killing in an attack in London’s Hainault district that also wounded four people. “It’s painful to see that this has happened all over again.”
In parts of the world that ban or strictly regulate gun ownership, including Britain and much of the rest of Europe, knives and other types of blades are often the weapons of choice used in crimes. Many end up in the hands of children, as they can be cheap and easy to get.
Before people come in and use this as an argument against gun control, these attacks kill far fewer people per attack.
The homicide rate in the US is about 6-7 times that in the UK per 100,000 population. I'd take our situation any day of the week.
Last time I looked into this properly, knife crime in the US was actually roughly the same frequency as that in the UK. The difference is that knife-based murders stand out in the UK, whereas in the US nobody pays attention because the problem is dwarfed by the much greater problem of rampant gun crime.
But if the rate of knife attacks are currently the same, then logically it would make sense that knife attack rate would be much greater in the US than UK if guns were to be banned because some percentage of the current gun crime rate would convert to knife crimes. I guess the US is just a more violent place in general.
The mass stabbing in Australia the other week had a victim count that wouldn’t even make national news in America, but in Australia it was so bad that the pope commented
When you are done tripping over yourself to silence those you disagree with consider this, both are treating the SYMPTOM not the disease
The fun thing about the US is that the people opposed to dealing with the symptom are also usually opposed to dealing with the disease.
Last I checked, physicians must treat both symptoms and diseases simultaneously. E.g., the Shock. The bleeding. The excess fever.
Similarly there's no reason both cannot be tackled simultaneously here as well; for the root cause is often far more difficult to address than treating symptoms.
So yes, address the root causes such as:
... But also address the symptoms, which means that when someone does inevitably fall through the cracks, they're not given free and easy access to gun that is lethally more effective than a knife.
You might not have noticed, but I am a moderator. If I wanted to silence you, I certainly could. I do not use that power to do so just because I disagree with someone. You are free to disagree with me and anyone else in this community as long as you follow the community rules.