Re: Knife Crime - Petition to Parliament
Our long standing constitution states that we have:
"the right to bear arms"
How is a person to defend themselves if all the crooks are carrying weapons but the oridnary folk are not permitted?
The police clearly can't protect civilians. The problem is too big.
People will always have weapons because by our very nature we are tuned to survive and defend ourselves. Even if you remove all knives, there still exist people with dedicated fighting techniques and abilities, martial artists, street fighting experts. Do we not class that also as "carrying a weapon"?
Should we throw all martial arts people in jail simply because they have the ability to harm others?
This whole thing is somewhat ridiculous.
If I carry a weapon of any kind, it doesn't mean I will use it. Most would carry something to be able to defend themselves from thugs and crooks and villains.
The punishment should be dished out to those who carry out attacks without provocation, not to those simply carrying some kind of weapon for defensive purposes.
If they do succeed in preventing people carrying knives then the thugs will instead carry something else. Maybe a piece of rope or wire to strangle with. Maybe some improvised weapon concealed as something else.
What this all really boils down to is the inability or outright refusal of the state to deal properly with criminals and gangs perpetrating crimes. The issue has nothing to do with knives other than that's the flavour of the month issue the news wants to focus on.
Let's make absolutely no mistake here. If the government wanted to rid East London of gangs it could do so in the space of a couple of weeks. They could send in expert military squads who would kill and remove the thugs extremely quickly. They will already be well aware who they all are. However such actions would be seens as totalitarian police state traits and many would then be up in arms about how the government is acting.
Removing knives solves little. It doesn't deal with the root problem of why these people are violent in the first place, why they want to harm others, how they are learning and falling into that life.
Knives will just be replaced with something else.