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posted by martyb on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the looking-for-something-basic dept.

Acid attacks in the UK are becoming increasingly common. The reason is simple but the timing isn't. In the UK, guns are generally illegal and gun ownership is more of a touchy subject than in the US. I understand that criminals with guns receive a mandatory five year prison sentence. Strict gun control has pushed most criminals to knives. However, after mandatory sentences for knife ownership, criminals are now choosing to injure victims with acid.

Although gun and knife injuries may require extensive rehabilitation, partial recovery from acid attack may be more costly. One victim required 40 operations and continues to receive frequent, lifelong surgery to alleviate complications such as scar tissue on windpipe.

Attackers and victims have a wide variety of backgrounds. In a very English manner, two attackers who were obviously paid, said sorry before attacking one victim. One attacker was a very minor celebrity before and after attacking people in a nightclub and there have been numerous attacks in Scotland. Some incidents are "honor" attacks among immigrants who, for whatever reason, fail to assimilate. However, there has been an increase in acid attacks among ethnic minorities in East London.

The BBC reports that:

The Met Police is "seeing some links" between criminal gangs and the recent spike in acid attacks in London, a senior officer has said.

Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey said the force was "seeing a move across" to gang members using acid and corrosive fluids in attacks.

But he cautioned evidence was limited as "it's a small data set".

On Monday, MPs debated measures, including tougher sentences, for attacks involving corrosive substances.

The government has also proposed classifying such substances as dangerous weapons.

The deputy commissioner supported efforts to tackle the issue, saying some of the substances are "not even defined by law".

"The impact this sort of attack has on people is extraordinary," he said.

"Many of us have been unfortunate to see quite a bit in our services but acid attacks are really extraordinary and strike at something quite horrific in people's psyche."

Although many incidences are inter-gang attacks (or a brief campaign against food delivery), there are also incidences where acid attack occurs in conjunction with robbery. One pernicious trend is around moped and scooters which are relatively cheap, relatively fast and cut through traffic. They are relatively easy to steal and it is almost impossible to halt a theft in progress. Well, moped crime now occurs in conjunction with acid attack. Variants include using acid to steal a moped from a rider and using a moped to exit the scene of an acid attack.

London police now have 1000 anti-acid kits and every police car will carry 5 liters of water. Although this is useful for acid attacks against police, it does nothing to halt worsening injuries prior to emergency response. This is of particular concern when acceptable response time for emergency services is re-defined in response to failing targets. The most recent incident, which occurred within 100 metres of the local fire department, incurred a 20 minute response from police.

Although there is a strong political reaction that something must be done, these incidences overshadow a police pursuit death in the vicinity which has similarities to a death in 2011 which sparked rioting in multiple English cities.


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:54AM (6 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:54AM (#545113)

    Trump supporters

    Straw dog. Intentional confusion of legacy "Israel first" neocons of the 90s to 10s compared to the more alt-right Trump takeover of the R party people. Maybe thats a semi-accurate portrayal of the old guy yelling at Fox News on the TV in 1999, but that has little relationship to modern Republicans.

    The other part is false dichotomy of anything other than worship of obamacare (which sux and is like putting a band aid on a heart attack) means wanting people to die in the street. Obamacare needs to be flushed.

    Its interesting that for entrenched industry reasons only a outsider like Trump can ever substantially change the system. If you're attacking him because thats what your side always does when out of power reflexively, thats a different topic.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:13PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:13PM (#545207)

    This is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Trump's worldview is consistently inconsistent with reality.
    INb4 "GOOD RETORT".. your post has little substance so this is not the argument we're having.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:24PM (#545213)

      How do you know which is his reality? through media? ;)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @04:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @04:46PM (#545260)

      So why isn't he 50 points behind?
      He is not the only politician divorced from reality.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Fluffeh on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:20PM (2 children)

    by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:20PM (#545514) Journal

    As some one who is living in Australia, which has an excellent health system, I just cannot fathom the hatred that so many Americans have with the concept of public medical healthcare. As a country, you seem to be perfectly happy to have taxes and universal access to police, fire trucks and so much more - why not health care?

    Here, in Aus, you don't have to have private healthcare - the public system applies to everyone, but if you earn over a certain amount and don't purchase your private insurance, you get an extra tax bill. It makes getting your own insurance a no brainer on a certain income. That frees up the public funds for those who can't afford it. It also means that public system is very good, in fact, quite often those on private health insurance will still have procedures at a public hospital with the same doctors etc.

    • (Score: 1) by Demena on Friday July 28 2017, @03:54AM

      by Demena (5637) on Friday July 28 2017, @03:54AM (#545592)

      Not it doesn't. It means public patients dieing on a waiting lists for surgical theatres that are full of private patients because the hospitals get more money from them. It has split into a two level health care state. The promises have proven false because we allowed the health-care insurance industry to remain. It needs to be put to death. It takes money as "profit" out of the system that provides medical care. The only fair provider is a single payer system that permits no other input. No special privileges for MPs, military or anyone else.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Friday July 28 2017, @01:41PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 28 2017, @01:41PM (#545754)

      Its multiculturalism and race. There's also a side dish of progressive religious belief where the dominant brainwashing forbids discussion of human biological differences in performance. There's an issue of intentional demographic change, where USA of 1960 was very much demographically like Aus of 2017 but intentional government work to turn the USA into something like Zimbabwe or best case maybe Brazil, which inevitably result in lower levels of economic performance and so on that we can't talk about.

      Basically in the USA our euro ancestry people get euro like universal like health care by being the overtaxed workers supporting the rest of the population who get vastly inferior care yet none the less far better than they got a decade ago in some central american village or would get today in Zimbabwe if their ancestors hadn't been dragged over here. Not being a completely centrally controlled economy some/many whites slip thru the cracks or something, but as a general rule it has to do with the demographics of who's a net producer and who's a net consumer.

      You can't tax Switzerland enough to provide Swiss level health care to all of Zimbabwe, for example, but the swiss can afford swiss level health care for themselves. We implement the same in the USA but don't have the geographic distance and for political-religious reasons can't discuss the demographic issues.