NIGHTLORD40K
Member
Oh no, that will be outlawed as well, dangerous knowledge the proletariat is better off without.
- Status
Speedo66
Member
"When you carry a knife, you are risking everything. Prison, being a victim of crime and even ending up in hospital are all real risks."
Let's break it down. Carry one = crime = prison.
OK, next victim of a crime. I guess when you get arrested, you become the victim of your own crime.
Ending up in a hospital. I suppose if the police smack you upside the head when they arrest you, you could end up in a hospital.
It all makes sense to me now. It's the state you have to worry about, not the hoodlums.
Let's break it down. Carry one = crime = prison.
OK, next victim of a crime. I guess when you get arrested, you become the victim of your own crime.
Ending up in a hospital. I suppose if the police smack you upside the head when they arrest you, you could end up in a hospital.
It all makes sense to me now. It's the state you have to worry about, not the hoodlums.
JeffG
Member
Let's break the logic down:
Society equals a giant playground. The government removes all the sharp edges, and the evil tools (disarm including eating utensils) that might injure you or someone else. The criminals and mentally ill are free to roam unfettered in the mix of law abiding people. The unaware feel safer, and wander around thinking all is well. The aware shake their heads at the stupidity, and size up every day items as makeshift weapons, for when a criminal starts doing criminal stuff.
One fine day, criminal grabs an unsecured fire extinguisher, or scalding pot of coffee, badly injures the gas station clerk and helps himself to the till. The aware citizen grabs a stool by the feet and pummels the robber, and holds him for the police. The police take the robber and the aware citizen to jail. The robber gets rehab, a fine to pay and probation. Back on the street. The aware citizen is charged with assault, 30 days in jail and is sued by the robber's family.
The government engages a study committee to find ways to avert all violence, effectively warning citizens not to take action.
Sound like it's coming??
Britain is already there.
Society equals a giant playground. The government removes all the sharp edges, and the evil tools (disarm including eating utensils) that might injure you or someone else. The criminals and mentally ill are free to roam unfettered in the mix of law abiding people. The unaware feel safer, and wander around thinking all is well. The aware shake their heads at the stupidity, and size up every day items as makeshift weapons, for when a criminal starts doing criminal stuff.
One fine day, criminal grabs an unsecured fire extinguisher, or scalding pot of coffee, badly injures the gas station clerk and helps himself to the till. The aware citizen grabs a stool by the feet and pummels the robber, and holds him for the police. The police take the robber and the aware citizen to jail. The robber gets rehab, a fine to pay and probation. Back on the street. The aware citizen is charged with assault, 30 days in jail and is sued by the robber's family.
The government engages a study committee to find ways to avert all violence, effectively warning citizens not to take action.
Sound like it's coming??
Britain is already there.
Well, I've been carrying a knife (usually more than one) for a few decades now and also hanging out with other folks who carry knives. We must all be doing it wrong. None of us have ever been stabbed or stabbed anyone else. I also carry a gun any time it is legal and sometimes hang out with other people who carry guns. That has been similarly uneventful.
Maybe there's a tiny flaw in your reasoning?
JeffG
Member
Possession of weapons is not the window dressing of violent intent.
I have been carrying a small knife in my pocket since around age eight to ten. Five plus decades. Never have been stabbed,or stabbed anyone, although I did slip and get a minor cut a time or two using it to cut something open. Oh the horror.
Well, I've been carrying a knife (usually more than one) for a few decades now and also hanging out with other folks who carry knives. We must all be doing it wrong. None of us have ever been stabbed or stabbed anyone else. I also carry a gun any time it is legal and sometimes hang out with other people who carry guns. That has been similarly uneventful.
Maybe there's a tiny flaw in your reasoning?
I think what he was getting at, is that it depends on context.
I carry a SAK all the time and I'm not going to get into any difficulties if I get stopped by the police and that SAK is discovered. I'm not in the demographic (when it comes to who the likely perpetrators are of these stabbings). my activities and habits are not aligned with that demographic either, so I am not on anyone's radar.
However a bunch of hood rats hanging around an alley in the small hours will definitely get questions if they are found with the same knife.
Circumstances matter.
theotherwaldo
Member
JeffG
Member
Totality of circumstances, the rest of the story.
They do, but he is talking in generalities when he paints the picture of carrying a knife will make you somehow someday want to cut someone with it. Like the old, if you hand around a barbershop long enough you'll get a haircut, but the comparisons are false.
How does that fit with the actual quote:
I don't read that as the act of carrying the knife, rather the act of being a goblin and hanging out with same.
We all know the knife itself isn't the issue. It's the person carrying the knife.
John carries a knife and I carry a knife. But we aren't out at 2am looking for people to mug. We don't hang around with criminals and we don't have a history of doing so.
The police here in the UK know exactly which communities are "hot spots" for stabbings, muggings and all sorts of other violent crime. That's why their focus is on these areas and the people who live there.
I agree it is misguided to believe that a knife amnesty will solve this problem, because the people doing the stabbings aren't the ones handing the knives in. And those people doing the stabbings are doing so for various reasons related more to cultural and socio-economical variables. They have no motivation to hand the knives in at all.
"Bin a knife and save a life" isn't aimed at people like me. It is aimed at yutes who may be tempted to join a gang and do various stupid things to get respect in their community. It is a failed endeavour but does not in any way invalidate the sentence I quoted:
Not really a surprise that this is true, given the who, where and why of these incidents.
John carries a knife and I carry a knife. But we aren't out at 2am looking for people to mug. We don't hang around with criminals and we don't have a history of doing so.
The police here in the UK know exactly which communities are "hot spots" for stabbings, muggings and all sorts of other violent crime. That's why their focus is on these areas and the people who live there.
I agree it is misguided to believe that a knife amnesty will solve this problem, because the people doing the stabbings aren't the ones handing the knives in. And those people doing the stabbings are doing so for various reasons related more to cultural and socio-economical variables. They have no motivation to hand the knives in at all.
"Bin a knife and save a life" isn't aimed at people like me. It is aimed at yutes who may be tempted to join a gang and do various stupid things to get respect in their community. It is a failed endeavour but does not in any way invalidate the sentence I quoted:
Not really a surprise that this is true, given the who, where and why of these incidents.
Granted.
I read it as carrying one will get you in trouble period, just like the anti gunners say about guns. May be I simply read that into it, but I still think that is the message.
Well of course, hang around thugs and sooner or later bad things will happen.
Sure about that? It's never been about disarming thugs, but you and I, law abiding citizens. At least that has always been the anti gunners agenda here, and perhaps I assume to much about the anti knife agenda there.
I agree there are people who do attach that sentiment to inanimate objects. It is a foolish, lazy way to skirt the root cause of the problem.
In my opinion the problem is a decline in individual responsibility, coupled with poor upbringing of today's youth in some communities. Trying to fix those problems is much harder than blaming a piece of metal!
Absolutely!
But too many have been taught, or just truly believe, it's the gun or the knife that is the problem. It isn't. Can they be a piece of the puzzle? Sure they can, but as with all things, people are ultimately to blame for their actions. A simply and true concept that too many do not understand or accept these days.
I think there are differences between how knives and guns are perceived in the UK.
Knives are in general use in the population. The kitchen knife is common at home and is also a very common choice of knife for those who will commit crimes. The same was true in South Africa.
Stabs out numbered gunshots at our trauma unit in Johannesburg even though guns were available for self defense.
I don't think authorities regard knives as a threat to the status quo, as much as guns. It's not like we can set up a kitchen knife militia and have the authorities quaking in their booties.
The push to do something about "knife crime" comes from public outcry every time another teenager is stabbed. The media inflames these cases.
Ironically the very same communities demanding that the authorities do something about this are the same ones not helping the police with witness statements and not ensuring that their own children are not getting up to no good by hanging around with goblins after school.
The situation with guns is different because for decades now the UK populace has had a declining appetite for anything gun-related.
It's quite bizarre, not even the shooting sports can gather enough support to undo a ban even on rimfire pistols for target shooting.
The UK population is conditioned against guns, to the point where some of my colleagues will not even touch a gun. I liken it to the sort of repulsion you might witness when offering someone a tarantula to hold.
That's a very good point.
That is sad.
That is true, but if someone is going to respond to a question about how the act of carrying a knife makes a person the victim of crime with a diatribe about gangs and thugs and knife-carrying outlaws and kids carrying stolen guns and needing a "good reason" to carry a knife, I figure it's fair to make the point that it's possible to carry a knife without raising one's chance of being involved in or the victim of crime.
About as well as the response about gangs and criminals, etc. fits the actual question of : "I am at a loss. How does carrying a knife make you become the victim of a crime?"
Carrying a knife doesn't make someone more likely to be the victim of a crime. Being a criminal and/or hanging out with criminals does definitely make a person more likely to be the victim of a crime. But that wasn't the question asked.
Correct. That and what the person carrying the knife does.
On the one hand we have the initial statement that claims carrying a knife can get one in to dangerous situations and that not carrying one is safer. That pretends that the knife is the culprit.
On the other hand we have the comment from b0ned0me that implies people who carry knives are criminals and/or hanging out with criminals and that's why it's accurate to say that not carrying a knife makes one safer.
In fact neither is true. Carrying a knife doesn't make a person more likely to be the victim of crime. Nor is it true (except perhaps in very heavily regulated areas) that carrying a knife implies criminality.
Sure, some criminals carry knives. Sure, some people who carry knives are the victims of crime. But the connection between crime and carrying knives is pretty tenuous, except perhaps in areas where carrying knives is virtually impossible to do legally.
We've handled the knife as an inanimate object already and we are in agreement with that. An inanimate piece of metal, whether a gun or a knife cannot induce you to commit violence on its own. You have to have that propensity first.
Where did he imply that people who carry knives are criminals? Read it again, he is talking about the target communities specifically, where we are currently experiencing a large number of stabbings.
You took issue with the part highlighted in red, and quoted same in post #54.
This is where context comes into it. The subset of the populace which b0ned0me is referring to (and which the British authorities are focusing on) is not the law-abiding chap such as myself who could carry a whole chef's roll of carving knives from one end of London to the other without causing any harm to anyone. The problem is with a specific demographic within a specific community in London.
It is politically incorrect for these authorities to identify the actual cause of the problem, which is what I stated in my reply to Walkalong in post #65. It is too hard for them to tackle it.
So instead they have a campaign which is aimed at convincing these yutes that it will be safer for them to not carry a knife (but without upsetting a specific community by saying they have a problem in their house, because that would be "politically insensitive").
I don't see anyone in this thread saying the endeavour will work. It will not work, for the reasons I stated in post #62. I think we are in agreement broadly, but it is important to realize what the circumstances are, behind these misguided schemes.
The idea that a knife is ONLY a weapon and has no other purpose is the problem. Next it will be every workman walking around with a tool belt full of screwdrivers. Ultimately they will put an end to anyone walking around with hands or feet. Everyone will be handcuffed - for their own safety.
jar
Contributing Member
And the message, at least in many areas, is pervasive. Currently I am getting lectured on how my carrying a handgun puts myself and those around me in greater danger. Yet the real reaction in almost all cases has been total indifference from those who even notice that I am armed. While the online voices are loud and strident, the people I contact in reality are far more concerned with their immediate preoccupations, more aware of their newest cell phone or what they are working on at the moment than with my latest holster. When there has been a comment it has usually been a query about "whatcha toting".
Maybe I should be concerned that I have reached that age when even armed I am simply not considered a threat except to those who are nowhere that I could threaten them?
We've had a bunch of ridiculous things happen here in the UK, that's for sure. Google triangular flapjack ban for instance.
- Status
Similar threads
