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posted by martyb on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the pointed-comments dept.

Sheffield-based company Viners has produced the "Assure" range, square-ended knives which are "shaped to reduce and prevent injuries, accidents and fatalities." With knife crimes in England and Wales at their highest in a decade, a 3% increase on last year and the highest level since 2009, this new knife is intended to not be used in crimes and only in the kitchen. While anti-stabbing messages have been left on fastfood containers and a crackdown on knife crime has been tried, for which included limiting the sale of knives, so far nothing has blunted the knife based problem.

When have social problems been solved by technical solutions?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:41PM (11 children)

    by SpockLogic (2762) on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:41PM (#945478)

    No, the UK should legalize the ownership of AR-15's. Much more efficient as they could kill lots more in far less time and at far greater distances. That way knives would be seen as a non problem again. Works here in the good 'ole USA, doesn't it.

    --
    Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:54PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:54PM (#945488)

    Someone could just as easily hole themselves up in a Las Vegas hotel and throw knives at 500 concert goers. Could easily happen. There's fundamentally no difference between guns and knives. That's why the military only uses knives. Cheaper and just as effective as guns.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by zion-fueled on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)

      by zion-fueled (8646) on Sunday January 19 2020, @10:01PM (#945495)

      Someone can easily make a bomb or just drive through the crowd. And they have... none of that matters when there is agenda to push.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:47PM (#945882)

        So why don't we see school bombings or school drive-thrus on the news every day? They should be happening just as often as shootings according to your logic.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:08PM (#945974)

      let's not drag the FBI's Fake Terrorist Factory into discussions about crimes the public/invaders commit.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @05:13AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @05:13AM (#945671)

    Here [fbi.gov] are the stats on homicides in the US, broken down by weapon. You might be surprised to notice something. About 500% more people are killed by knives than by rifles. In fact about 200% more people are killed the old fashioned way - beating them to death with your fists and feet - than are by rifles.

    Most people don't realize that rifle crime in the US is relatively negligible. This is because our entire media have become hardcore agenda pushers. And this is also true for 'mass shootings.' Here [fbi.gov] is the table on victim count. It doesn't specify weapon but it's not necessary because there were more than 300% multiple victim scenarios than the entire total of the number of people killed by rifles. Quite clearly, rifles are not playing a major role there.

    The most popular weapon there is for killing people is cheap little pistols.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @08:37AM (5 children)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Monday January 20 2020, @08:37AM (#945722) Journal

      Are rifles not guns?

      Or they don't count because someone is somehow less dead, being shot with a rifle rather than a pistol or a shotgun?

      Those stats show over 71% of homicides were committed by some sort of firearm.

      The price of that "freedom" seems quite high.

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:25AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:25AM (#945743)

        The point is to emphasize how little people understand about crime. The person I was responding to said, "No, the UK should legalize the ownership of AR-15's. Much more efficient as they could kill lots more in far less time and at far greater distances. That way knives would be seen as a non problem again. Works here in the good 'ole USA, doesn't it."

        He probably believed that rifle homicides in the US were greater than knife crime. And he can be forgiven for making such a mistake. Anytime there is any rifle crime, the news media runs it nonstop 24/7 because the goal is to intentionally misinform people and to make them assume that rifle crime is at all a relevant chunk of homicides. In reality you could ban every single rifle and you literally would not notice a difference as the total of all rifle homicides is less than the statistical noise in other gun crime.

        ---

        The current absurd situation in the UK should emphasize that the problem we have in the US is not a gun problem, but a people problem. Here [fbi.gov] are the gun statistics on race. When you look only at non-hispanic whites (you need to subtract hispanic ethnicity from white race to get this figure - the FBI classifies hispanics as whites for race), you see a homicide rate of about 1.6 per 100k. That's higher than most of Europe, but not by much. It's below some countries such as Belgium and Canada.

        By contrast the homicide rate among black Americans is 15.6* per 100k. That is, bizarrely enough, directly comparable to the homicide rate [wikipedia.org] in a wide number of African nations. You can see this problem by observing the joke that the UK is becoming. They have extremely stringent gun laws, so people are simply turning to new ways to murder each other. So now they are working to ban knives. Yet that will hardly change anything since just about anything can be used to kill with, including of course your fists. The same thing would happen in the US. Ban guns and now you'll just see people killing each other with knives, or guns anyhow. Because the sort of people that engage in murder are the same sorts that can dig up weapons in the black market. Same thing the UK is also now seeing in spite of the fact that they are literally an island.

        You're not supposed to talk about this because it's supposed to be racist. It is not. Political correctness is cancer. If you want to solve the US homicide rate you need to start by figuring out why young black men are killing each other at such absurd rates. The social science response of things like systemic racism makes 0 sense since you also see similar things in places such as Africa where the people, the police, and their politicians are all very ethnically close. You also do not see things from other groups that are or were indeed discriminated against such as Jews, Irish, Catholics, etc.

        This is also why "racist" actions such as "stop and frisk" do work. It's completely fair to say that the police engage in racial profiling, but it works - because you're looking at vast crime rates between different groups. Ultimately this is a problem you're never going to solve until you throw political correctness (and tabula rasa) out the window.

        ---

        * = The black homicide rate is actually much higher than that. The reason is that "unknown" column. That is driven by homicides that were left unsolved (thus the race of the offender is not known). And these are disproportionately in the ultra-high homicide rate areas in the US: Detroit, Baltimore, etc. And in these cities nearly all offenders (and victims) are black. So it is fair to assume the the vast majority of "unknowns" are also black.

        • (Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Monday January 20 2020, @11:00PM

          by SpockLogic (2762) on Monday January 20 2020, @11:00PM (#946050)

          He probably believed that rifle homicides in the US were greater than knife crime.

          Wrong, I'm well aware of the gun violence problem we have in this country.

          FYI Your sarcasm detector must be broken, please fix it.

          Thank You

          --
          Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:33AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:33AM (#946216)

          Lolwut? Only dark skinned people have ever been violent and genocidal to their kin?? Ever read the bible??

          Lololol, racist shitpost parsding as sinole facts "they" don't want you to know! "Come join our secret club, you'll have brothers, belonging, solidarity!! Except women, they aren't allowed in our secret club, not because there is anything wrong with us."/s

          Someone needs to go back to school, learn some world history. Your ignorance is painfully awkward to read.

          You ignore facts and logic because they go against your BELIEF and the simple logic you think everyone is ignoring out of PC concern. You are an ignorant turd pretending you're being oppressed somehow because few people agree with you.

          Ah well, can't reason someone out of a position they didn't logically get into.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:13PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:13PM (#945976)

        10k murders by firearm per year in a country of 330 million people? big fucking deal!

        • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday January 20 2020, @10:20PM

          by MostCynical (2589) on Monday January 20 2020, @10:20PM (#946028) Journal

          In other parts of the world, this would not be considered to be an acceptable price, which is why different countires have different levels of restriction on certain activities.

          Parallels the issues with deaths caused by motor vehicles, in that countries* effectively "allow" a certain number of deaths each year as a byproduct of certain activities.

          *permission is granted by the citizens, whether they vote or not..

          --
          "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex