New laws coming?

[A.J.P.]

It has been announced that the Offensive Weapons Bill will be presented to parliament this week:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... kdown.html

[TomH]

It has been announced that the Offensive Weapons Bill will be presented to parliament this week:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... kdown.html

Idiotic liberal thinking strikes again. The knives used in the london Bridge Attack were kitchen knives bought from Aldi by over 18's. Under 18's will still have access to knives by getting an adult to buy them for them. Tackling the real problem which is the perpertrator and not the implement used does not seem to compute in their minds.

[ordnance]

All nonsense that will make absolutely no difference to crime, a government trying to look like they are doing something and achieving nothing.

[shugie]

More police officers would help, but we seem unable to afford them.

[bradaz11]

More police officers would help, but we seem unable to afford them.

yet there always seems to be money in the pot for MP's, aides, assistants, secretaries, mistresses, dinners, travel, housing etc

[TomH]

More police officers would help, but we seem unable to afford them.

But isn't it better that we spend £14 Billion on foreign aid rather than sleep safely in our beds? I for one; as a PC liberal, would be happy to be murdered/robbed/raped as long as we are helping our third world friends.

[The Event]

And the Mail illustrates the story with a knife it claims will be banned but actually won't.
Nice to see that everyone involved knows just what they are or aren't banning.

[shugie]

More police officers would help, but we seem unable to afford them.

But isn't it better that we spend £14 Billion on foreign aid rather than sleep safely in our beds? I for one; as a PC liberal, would be happy to be murdered/robbed/raped as long as we are helping our third world friends.

Some, who knows how much, of that money is actually used to buy stuff from British companies, so we don't actually give cash, we give stuff. But in the new little England, we should not be giving cash to anyone whose grandparents were not all born in our green and pleasant land.

If we could divert half the foreign aid budget to the police, we could have 50% more officers and support staff. Only in England and Wales, the Scots do their own thing.

[Sim G]

Violent crime will not be stopped by ill thought out legislation. It’s utterly pointless. Machine guns being a point in case. Outlawed in this country for other than Crown Servants in pursuance of their duty, back in 1936. Eighty odd years ago. Machine guns are still being used in crime, in the UK. Yes, rarely, but it still happens. Likewise, people will still be getting stabbed and acid will still be grown in peoples faces and nothing will change ultimately.

Being able to get back to some proper proactive policing would certainly curtail the criminal element, to a certain extent, but it’s not the panacea. There are questions that society needs to ask, but won’t. Simply put, society hasn’t got the will to turn thus around...

[Dark Skies]

I've never really had a regular use for anything beyond a penknife yet there must be at least ten biggish knives and bayonets tucked away in drawers and as wall-hangers in my house. I'm sure the bulk of families around the UK could say the same. That's not even taking into consideration ordinary kitchen knives. Sourcing the most basic hand tool known to man (second only to a rock) is not going to be an issue.
Not that it's beyond the wit of your average thug to get someone to buy a knife from a shop face to face if they fancy a stylish item with which to enforce due respec'.

These politicians have led such sheltered lives (probably with little knowledge of simple workshop skills) and they're in charge of legislating for the sort of people that can't be trusted with so much as a toothbrush.
Assuming you could do away with all the commercially made knives by pushing a magic button ... how hard is it to make a rudimentary stabbing instrument? A nine inch nail with a drilled bit of broom handle glued on for a handle would take all of three minutes to whip up.

And as for 'zombie knives' I suspect they figure very little in knife related crime stats. You only have to look at the size of the things to see they'd be too awkward to carry let alone discretely.
The thinking seems to be: 'They look good in photo ops and are terrifying to look at so let's just pretend they're a problem, introduce some tough sounding measures, and when people continue not to be stabbed by them claim it as a victory. Hurrah for us!'

Maybe I'm just an old fashioned kind of guy but why not build more prisons to house the animals? More prisons would mean the ability to make the buggers serve stiff sentences instead of the revolving door system of serving half a sentence in chokey and half on licence because it's expedient because our prisons are too crowded.

Why are they too crowded? Because criminals know the police are stretched as it is so the actual risk of getting caught is low. And even if caught they correctly read the likely sentence as being half what it says on the packet. So for a young thug or a wannabe the risk of a few years in prison with bonus points for street cred isn't much of a deterrent. Under those circumstances they thrive like a bad case of athletes foot.

And to free up some police resources maybe its time to have a rethink of our recreational drug laws. If they were legalized, regulated, and available at reasonable prices from registered outlets we could do away with a huge section of organized crime and their minions.
It used to be a stumbling block to this suggestion that a roadside check for driving under the influence (or using heavy machinery) was unavailable to the police or employers. Accurate checks relied on samples being taken and tested. That is no longer the case.

I don't believe a change in this direction would result in an explosion of drug users (people that want them get them anyway).
I do believe it would significantly relieve the prison system, freeing up a lot of space.
I do believe it'd be an end to silly kids dropping god knows what down their throats and hoping for the best that it wasn't going to kill them because it was too pure or cut with toxic crap.
I do believe it would allow the police to divert resources to more pressing needs.