Times Online just posted a slideshow about "knife culture" in Britain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/audio_video/photo_galleries/article4028671.ece

Quote :

"Scotland Yard displays a collection of weapons captured during a two-week blitz on knife crime"

Man its a good thing they got those knive off the street. There's no way any hooligans are ever going to be able to find replacements

Quote :

"The Scotland Yard event coincided with the start of a grisly new advertising campaign against knife crime"

correlation<->causation much?

Quote :

"Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said that 200 knives had been seized and 200 people arrested during Operation Blunt 2"

Wow, that almost makes it sound like they're doing something other than giving each other reacharounds down at the station house. They managed to find 200 knives in a city of 10 million plus? These guys deserve a medal. Extra points for coming up with a cool. military-style operation name for this "blitz" on "knife crime".

Quote :

"Another high-profile victim was Jimmy Mizzen, a 16-year-old schoolboy killed in a bakers in South-East London. His mother Margaret made headlines by refusing to condemn his killer, saying "it was anger that killed my son""

And here we finally reach what is probably the crux of the problem, refusing to hold people responsible for their actions, passing off blame instead on formless abstraction like "anger" or onto the tools that they use in the commission of their acts of criminal aggression.

So, how's gun control working out for you brits? You mean people are still figuring out ways to kill each other? Who would ever have guessed? Maybe if we can ban every possible way to kill someone we'll finally solve the problem. While we're at it, why don't we pass a law making it illegal to break the law. That way, we can really throw the book at all these tool-wielding assholes before their hammers, screwdrivers and other instruments of death inevitably corrupt them into crazed killers.

[Edited on May 30, 2008 at 12:54 PM. Reason : image]

5/30/2008 12:52:24 PM

So lets give everyone a gun and see if crime goes down! Extremes are really great!

5/30/2008 12:53:39 PM

At least with knives you don't have to worry about innocent bystanders getting shot.

5/30/2008 12:55:29 PM

Innocent victim, innocent bystander, what difference does it make whether your killer specifically intended to kill you or not? You're dead either way. The point is that innocent people are being killed and government-type people are focusing on irrelevancies instead of the real issues.

If you look at the incentives it does make a perverse sort of sense. If police do a good job of preventing, deterring and punishing crime they put themselves out of a job. Their incentive is to focus on ineffectual bullshit that justifies large budgets and large staffs but still leaves private criminals free to terrorize the populace, so that they'll clamor for even more ineffectual and overbearing police measures.

[Edited on May 30, 2008 at 1:04 PM. Reason : ']

5/30/2008 1:01:50 PM

^ how do you intend then to get people to stop wanting to kill each other?

You seem to be vaguely drawing a parallel to anti-gun nuts here, but this shows pretty clearly that its better for people to be killing each other with knives than guns.

The knives in this case (like drugs here) are a pretext to try and bust people who may be in to more than illegal knives. The public showing of the knives caught is to show their tax payers their funding is justified.

It's like people who are against drunk driving, but don't want to really do whats necessary to convince people to stop driving drunk.

5/30/2008 1:44:30 PM

Wait, most of those look like kitchen knives. Are even kitchen knives illegal in the UK now? After reading the link, I guess so. How can you crack down kitchen knives? They're in every home.

5/30/2008 2:26:42 PM

They're probably illegal to carry around on the street unless you're a chef.

5/30/2008 2:41:08 PM

^ Does that exception actually exist? I hope not. I can't stand such elitism. Oh, you can have a sword, but only if you're a rich collector. Poor folks can't be trusted.

5/30/2008 4:48:41 PM

Probably more so in lines of "It's illegal to commit a crime with a fucking knife."

5/30/2008 5:31:29 PM

Quote :

"Maybe if we can ban every possible way to kill someone we'll finally solve the problem."

Oh I'm sure they will. Just wait.

5/30/2008 5:34:54 PM

Quote :

"this shows pretty clearly that its better for people to be killing each other with knives than guns."

I don't really follow you. Getting killed is not high on my to-do list. Exact details and circumstances are largely inconsequential to my basic evaluation of the desirability of being murdered.

Quote :

"how do you intend then to get people to stop wanting to kill each other?"

The problem of private crime is very closely tied to the problem of public crime, aka government. The two go hand in hand. When people are willing to pretend that one group of people may justifiably trample the rights of others with impunity because they have fancy hats or shiny badges or some other nonsensical, superstitious rationalization, then it becomes harder to hold the remainder of the population to civilized standards of conduct.

Then there are specific government policies. For example, if you look at the people who are out there engaging in property and violent private crime, they tend to be short-sighted, present oriented, instant gratification seekers. Responsible, future-oriented, productive people aren't mugging people in allies, breaking into homes, happy slapping strangers, engaging in random brawls or otherwise menacing the persons and property of other. Anybody with a modicum of sense and the willingness to think a few years into the future is going to reject crime and violence in favor of peaceful production and exchange because of the greater long term rewards and much lower costs. It's people out to make a quick buck or get some cheap thrills that are a threat to the rest of us.

Yet when you look at government policies, especially in a social democracy like the UK, what do you see? Responsibility, productivity, farsightedness, thrift, industry, self reliance and the other virtues that people need to thrive are progressively punished through oppressive graduated taxation according to the extent they are demonstrated by individuals. Meanwhile, sloth, indolence, shortsightedness, irresponsibility self-indulgence, recklessness and a sense of entitlement are systematically subsidized, rewarded and encouraged by a vast system of cradle-to-grave welfare handouts and "social insurance" schemes. It doesn't take a genius to see the direction this has to push things.

In economic terms, criminals tend to have a very high rate of time preference, while peaceful, productive people have much lower rates of time preference. Government policies systematically punish low time preference and systematically reward high time preference. The inevitable result, is to encourage higher rates of time preference and stronger present-orientation in each succeeding generation, leading to a process of decivilization and a descent towards barbarism.

Furthermore, by passing laws to disarm its citizenry, the UK only widens the gap between law abiding citizens, who will comply and go about defenseless. and criminals, who wont. As previously stated, criminals tend to have very high rates of time preference, they are very present-oriented. The prospect of facing an armed victim, being an immediate threat, is a potent deterrent to crime. In comparison, the remote statistical chance of being arrested at some indeterminate point in the future and the even less likely chance of being convicted and sent to prison even farther in the future, is going to have a vanishingly small deterrent value on the target population. Thus, disarming citizens and ramping up police efforts against crime is only going to accelerate the downward spiral.

5/30/2008 11:15:10 PM

Quote :

"Furthermore, by passing laws to disarm its citizenry, the UK only widens the gap between law abiding citizens, who will comply and go about defenseless. and criminals, who wont. As previously stated, criminals tend to have very high rates of time preference, they are very present-oriented. The prospect of facing an armed victim, being an immediate threat, is a potent deterrent to crime. In comparison, the remote statistical chance of being arrested at some indeterminate point in the future and the even less likely chance of being convicted and sent to prison even farther in the future, is going to have a vanishingly small deterrent value on the target population. Thus, disarming citizens and ramping up police efforts against crime is only going to accelerate the downward spiral."

This should be engraved on the walls of every law making body in the world. Punishment is most effective when issued immediately when the bad behavior is committed. This behavior training applies to animals and small children, there is no reason to think it should be any different for adults.

6/1/2008 10:47:29 AM

Why is this on the BBC instead of the Onion?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/7432908.stm

more detail:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/03/crime?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Quote :

"Bellas was arrested in her car near her home on January 31 after officers spotted her with a kitchen knife. Bellas protested her innocence, telling police officers she needed the knife for her job on a fast food stall in Penrith's market square. But the local council was unable to confirm that she had a licence, and she was charged with having a knife in a public place without good reason. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)ploughed on with the prosecution, appointing solicitors and gathering evidence from the police."

6/4/2008 12:15:20 PM

^ Oh dear. I'm glad we only have foolish like that in some states here.

6/4/2008 2:45:04 PM

I love how the British phrase things. Even in the laws, it's not "aggravated concealment and carry of an edged, knifish implement" like it would be here, it's just "carrying a knife without a good reason."

That said, yeah, you can totally disarm everyone of anything dangerous and prevent crime.

6/4/2008 3:05:39 PM