Brits push knife control
Posted by Richard on July 3, 2008
I followed Instapundit's link (aptly introduced as "CULTURAL SUICIDE") to this Daily Mirror story about London's new mayor urging residents to become more cowardly and helpless:
Boris Johnson urged people to walk away if they see a crime committed rather than risk their own lives.
The London mayor admitted he would tell his own children to "look after themselves" rather than play Good Samaritan to a victim.
…
"Everybody is shocked by the level of violence we are seeing, particularly towards young people, and we must all work as hard as we can to reverse this dreadful trend."
An intriguing link below that sad story led me to another story that I at first thought was biting satire:
We are not calling for radical new laws – but simple, measures that will see the police, parents, teachers, doctors and nurses combining to form a common front against the knife menace.
The entire nation has been shocked by the rising tide of kniferelated deaths. Now we must act. All of us.
1 Give our police tools to catch knife thugs
First, we must give police the tools they need to effectively stop and search youngsters without losing their goodwill.
The only guaranteed method of detecting a hidden knife is with a magnetic scanner. And being scanned is less offensive than being searched. Every bobby in a knife hotspot must be given a hand-held scanner.
2 Launch amnesty to bring in the blades
We must show our determination to disarm Britain with a new knife amnesty.
…
There are more such brilliant ideas. Scrappleface couldn't have done a better job, but these people appear to be dead serious.
Below the story, under the heading "THE LIVES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED," they list eleven young people (14-22) who were recently murdered. Most were victims of stabbings, but I noticed that one teen "died after being hit on the head with a bowl at a bakery," so I wonder if bowl control will be next on the agenda.
Can golf club control and cricket bat control be far behind?
Sic transit gloria Britannia.
DM Morgan said
So as the Brits push “knife control”, lets look at the recent Supreme Court decision regarding our Nation’s Capital:
A few questions regarding this gun business in D.C. . . .
How many law abiding citizens used a gun to commit a crime in D.C.?
How many criminals used a registered gun to commit a crime in D.C.?
How many criminals registered the gun they used to commit a crime in D.C.?
If you answered none or not many to any one of the questions about gun use in D.C. perhaps all of this political jockeying is just that, politics as usual.
Criminals will be the only people to use a gun illegally in D.C. or the entire Country for that matter. Dis-arming the law abiding citizen or making it difficult for the law abiding citizen to own a gun in D.C. or any state will only insure that the CRIMINAL element has the guns used to commit the gun related crimes in D.C. and our Country.
Well to the Brits, apply the same logic to “knives” . . .
rgcombs said
DM, you’re right, of course. It’s criminals, not honest, peaceful people, who commit crimes with guns. And with knives. And with bowls, golf clubs, or whatever…
But the people who favor gun (or knife) control aren’t swayed by such facts. I think they believe one (or both) of two patently false things:
(1) A law against handguns will somehow stop someone who cheerfully ignores laws against rape, murder, or robbery.
This is just stupid wishful thinking.
(2) Just like we’re all supposedly “a paycheck away from being homeless,” we’re also all just a moment of anger away from committing mayhem.
This belief is contradicted by over a hundred years of criminological studies of murderers and violent criminals, which clearly demonstrate that the perpetrators of such violence are very different from the average person, and that “normal” people almost never “just snap” and become violent.
Thanks for stopping by!