© By Othmar Vohringer
Yesterday’s news showed a segment on violent crime in London, England. According to the newscaster knives are the number one choice for violent criminals in England to intimidate, hurt and kill their victims. Remember England is a country that like Australia totally outlawed the private ownership of firearms. There as here the anti gun lobby promised that the banning of firearms will make for a safer society.
Surprise, Surprise – not really - turns out criminal elements can’t be stopped by a mere ban and instead just chose a different type of weapon. The report said that alone in the last month there were four fatal stabbings in London alone in one week. People are scared more than ever before.
One ought to think that the authorities learned that banning weapons of any sort does not make for a safer society. As expected politicians, police and so called experts look for solutions to tackle the problem. There is, of course, talk of banning knives, but also of a zero tolerance policy – like criminals care about such things.
Operation “blunt” was introduced and sounds very expensive for the taxpayers. Operation “blunt” puts more police officers on the road, predominantly on bus stations and underground stations. The introduction of a special law made it possible that police officers now can physically search people without due cause, just on a hunch, for “offensive weapons”. Whatever an offensive weapon might be is not revealed, for all I know it could be handbag, a knife or a long key chain. One thing I do know, laws like this bring us dangerously close to a police state and the loss of freedom for law abiding people without any effect whatsoever on the criminal behavior of a few.
Interestingly enough in all this hoopla about knives as the number one choice of lowlifes absolutely nobody mentions tougher sentences for the criminals committing violent crimes. The closest I could find on information about the criminals is that the police want a law that makes it mandatory for a violent criminal to talk to a stabbing victim. What nonsense is that? Do they really think that this would make any difference?
It seems that instead of learning from past mistakes by taking the guns away from law abiding people, the same mistake is made all over again by banning knives and harassing the people on the street. I bet any amount of money, if knives are outlawed crooks will turn to something else to intimidate, hurt and kill their victims. When will authorities learn, I wonder, that until they address the problem by punishing criminals nothing will change. If it where not that serious I could laugh out loud about that much government stupidity. First they take away the guns from the hunters now they are after the hunting knives too.
Tags: Knife Violence, Knife Ban, London, News
6 comments:
Glad to see you back OV.
It is amazing how people always try to prevent law-abiding individuals from having legal items, because criminals break the law and use them illegally.
How long will it take for all of these people to realize that no matter what, criminals are always going to find a way to commit the acts they have their minds set on, regardless of law.
Maybe, like you said, if we actually put these guys in jail for longer sentences we wouldn't have such problems.
Good to see you back on board Othmar! A good post...
Glad to see you back Othmar.
The problem with creating a low banning something is that criminals 1) Are by definition people who break the law and 2) will just find another weapon to use. Heck, if you hit someone with enough force, a rock can be a deadly weapon. Are we going to ban those too?
Welcome back, Othmar! Hope you're settling nicely into your new home.
I think it's absolutely vital not only to have stiff sentences for violent criminals, but to make sure we actually prosecute for every aspect of a violent crime. The other day, I interviewed a guy who pointed out that in America, the gun violation is often the first thing plea-bargained away in a violent crime prosecution. What's that about?
Glad to see you've made it back to the blogging world!
This is ridiculous - you can ban all the "weapons" you want and people will still find a way to inflict wounds on their fellow man. That's just the way it is - pretty much anything a person and pick up can be used as a weapon somehow.
Thank you all for your warm “welcome back” wishes. It nice to know that one is missed by friends.
I agree with you Holly. I too believe in much stiffer sentences and that there should be no deals made whatsoever. If a criminal violates several laws he should be punished for every single one. I also believe that every repeating offender should serve double time and third time offenders triple time and so on. Just as importantly, prison sentences should be meaningful. As it is handled now prisoners live a life of plenty and at no cost whatsoever to them. Prisoners receive free medical care, including dentist and psychiatry, free entertainment and recreation (including Internet access and unlimited phone calls), free meals and lodging. On top of all this free of charge privileges prisoners get pocket money and can run their legal and shady businesses from the prison.
Thanks to bleeding heart liberals all this luxuries are a prisoners rights that cannot be denied. In order to make a prison sentence work prisoners should be forced to work and with the earned money pay for everything just like in real life. Prisoners also should be made to pay for their own and their victim’s legal costs plus all other cost caused to victims such as heath care and funeral costs. In addition prisoners should be forced to take part in special training that aims at making them productive hardworking members of society.
Prison sentences should not be a laughing matter for criminals but an experience that makes them regret the day they are born. And finally I firmly believe that crime victims should have considerable input in the sentencing of their tormentors. In the same effort Hollywood and the media should be forbidden to turn criminals into screen and book heroes.
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