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London Mayor Sadiq Khan is cracking down on the carrying of knives in response to a spate of stabbings that pushed the city's murder rate past New York's for the "first time in modern history."
Khan deployed an additional 300 Metropolitan Police officers over the weekend to work exclusively against knife crime, urging them to be more "confident" in their authority to stop anyone suspected of carrying a weapon.
"What you will see over the course of the next few weeks and months — is what we have seen over the last few weeks and months — which is stop-and-search based on suspicion of carrying an offensive weapon going up, more arrests as a consequence of this intelligence-led stop-and-search going up and hopefully our city becoming safer," the mayor said Saturday, according to The Telegraph.
Khan also issued a warning to would-be knife carriers, saying they should think twice before bringing one out in public — whatever the reason.
"No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife," Khan said on Twitter. "Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law."
Source: http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/08/london-murder-rate-knives/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday April 09 2018, @08:47AM (11 children)
Yes, because it is totally impossible for police to distinguish between a thug with a blade tucked into the waistband of their jeans and a cook on the bus to work with their knives wrapped up in their chef's whites all safely zipped up in a rucksack. Cops love paperwork so much that they'll gladly do reams of it for the sheer joy of tormenting cooks. Meanwhile, of course cooks have to carry knives everywhere they go - just in case someone asks them to whip up an emergency steak tartare and it would be totally unreasonable to expect cooks/chefs to take reasonable precautions about carrying knives around in areas where there's a knife crime problem.
The UK has had laws about "going equipped for a burglary" since forever, yet somehow all the locksmiths have stayed in business.
Perhaps we should take a lesson from the USA, though - and grant everybody the constitutional right to carry a knife, but counter it by permanently arming all our police with Samurai swords and giving them carte blanche to behead anybody that looks as if they might be about to pull a knife?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @08:53AM (4 children)
I wasn't mocking the policemen, but rather the honorable mayor of London.
(I actually hate when people rely on absolutes like ""No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife").
I hope what I meant is clearer now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 09 2018, @02:01PM (1 child)
> I actually hate when people rely on absolutes
People should not rely on absolutes! (this BTW is an absolute).
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @02:24PM
People can rely on whatever they what, the fact that I hate it or not impose no obligations on them.
But then again, I'm not the mayor of London (and this is another absolute)
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday April 09 2018, @02:24PM (1 child)
To be fair, he is a politician and was talking to a media who can't cope with anything longer than a 12-word soundbite. A long recital of the precise rules on how to legally convey sharp instruments from A to B would not have been appropriate for the context - and certainly would only have made it into the report if the media could misquote it in a sensational way. There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue between the media and politicians when it comes to conveying complexity: we tend to get the politicians our media deserve.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @02:37PM
Look, in Australia, this thing is as old as 1998 [sportingshooter.com.au] and it can be expressed, without prepositions or other connectives, in about 30 or so words:
Hardy something a news-critter can interpret or twist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @01:00PM (1 child)
Remember when Rudy Giuliani started his stop and frisk program in New York. Remember how the left howled it was sooo unfair to the poor black men who were disproportionately carrying weapons and using them for robbery and murder? Now we have Saladin ordering essentially the same thing in London and the loony left is lapping it up, because, "It won't affect me, and besides those damn knives are dangerous."
You guys are a riot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @01:42PM
Political Right and Left are flipped in Britain and Europe in general, and beyond that require far more discussion of specific issues to categorize them in what qualifies as right or left leaning issues there.
As far as knives go, I imagine any non-urbanite yuppie pretty much anywhere will think that many of these knife laws are dumb. The real solutions in both cases are open carry of anything longer than a 3" pocket knife. If you can see the weapon you can know whether to take a wide berth of the person carrying it, which can help civilians identify people to avoid, and law enforcement to better target people intentionally threatening the public.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 09 2018, @01:39PM (3 children)
It's called stand your ground and had been demonstratively proved in a court of law that you can shoot a man dead, claim self defence, and walk free. Plus this is America. We use guns thank you very much.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 09 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
Same in UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43676359 [bbc.co.uk]
Although nothing as uncivilised as a blaster.
A man arrested on suspicion of murdering a suspected burglar has been released without charge.
Richard Osborn-Brooks discovered two intruders at his home in South Park Crescent Hither Green, south-east London, on Wednesday.
The 78-year-old was arrested after Henry Vincent, 37, from Kent, was fatally stabbed during a struggle in the kitchen.
(I prefer the caption on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43639183 [bbc.co.uk] though -- http://imgur.com/qTTpPq8l.png [imgur.com] -- that's what a UK forensic tent looks like. Other call it "The Pub".
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 09 2018, @10:14PM (1 child)
I know a guy who did 4 years for manslaughter after he stabbed his mothers boyfriend to death in a struggle when he was 17. Really shameful part was he was defending his mother from the boyfriend who had stabbed her in a fight. Apparently his mother is also a piece of shit and was more upset the boyfriend died than the state threatening her child with 2nd degree murder. From what he says, he wrestled the knife away and then plunged the knife into the dude. He didn't want to kill him. He just wanted this man to stop stabbing his mother and himself so that was his reaction, tit-for-tat. Prosecution saw it as murder and fucking grand jury was like yea off to jail. Didnt help that he's Hispanic. Apparently his mother didn't help him at all as the lowlife she was, thought it was better to cry over the dead boyfriend who, by the way did I already mention that he fucking stabbed her? So yea. He almost took a plea bargain for 7 years for man 1 or 2 but his lawyer worked out a deal for 5 years with possible early parole. He did something like 2 in Rikers, four months in minimum until they realized he was in for man and then upstate somewhere for 4 years total.
He copes by telling funny jail stories and using his brain to get a degree and now does game journalism. He travels the country and in some rare cases, the world, playing video games, conducting interviews and writing articles. He did good for a guy who was fucked over by not only the justice system but his own mother. And he's only 28 or 29.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday April 12 2018, @11:47AM
So self defence isn't always a defence in the US.