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View Full Version : Jail for those who carry knives, mandatory???



mccaugm
07-Jul-08, 17:05
David Cameron has suggested that due to the increase in deaths from knife attacks (especially in the young) that those who are found carrying such weapons will be prosecuted and jailed.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080707/tuk-uk-britain-idowu-fa6b408.html

What are your thoughts on this subject????

STUDMUFFIN
07-Jul-08, 17:14
how do you differentiate between fishermen, tradesmen etc? i agree wholeheartedly but there must be guidelines put in place

teenybash
07-Jul-08, 17:16
Today we live in a society where there are little or no consequences for bad behaviour and wrong doing. This has played a role in breaking down the structures and obscured the guidelines that communities, society and nations need to keep them healthy and functioning.
It is time we got back to the basics of creating and living in a safe and rewarding environment...................Question is, where does one start in putting things to right....time will tell if David Cameron is on the right road... and not blowing hot air like the rest of the politicians. :roll:

lassieinfife
07-Jul-08, 17:33
Unless someone needs a knife in order to carry out their daily jobs I see no reason why anyone else should need to carry a weapon,make no mistake,that is exactly what knives etc are........ time the knife wielding community were brought to book

unicorn
07-Jul-08, 17:41
I absolutely think there should be a mandatory prison term, but if they want a weapon they will use a screwdriver, baseball bat, lump of wood, glass bottle anything they can. Are there even enough police to carry out the checks to make a difference?

percy toboggan
07-Jul-08, 17:46
You need to be careful, because those who legitimately carry a knife can be caught up in this.
Let's face it, this is a London problem. And over proportionately it's a problem of one particular 'communit-eee' .
Go in hard. Re-introduce stop and search. Jail those who are in posession whatever their background.

Wannabee gangstas and the real thing -whatever their ethnicity are becoming a menace in the capital (London) so the only cure is to sweep the streets and remove them from society.
I'd introduce manadatory third world service for a period of two years, preferably in some AIDS ridden African hell hole then some of these creeps could realise how lucky they really are.... and they'd have to pass a medical, and an intelligence test before re-admittance.

Contribute constructively...or ship out.

percy toboggan
07-Jul-08, 17:48
Meant also to say the poll questions are poor, simplistic, and ill thought out. Sorry.

MadPict
07-Jul-08, 18:22
Have to say that someone carrying a multitool (Leatherman, Gerber, Victorinox) would fall into this catch-all offence even if they were on the way to do some fishing or other task where they would have a use for such a tool.

So, would a adult walking down the street being stopped and found with a multitool on them, be treated differently to some teenager with a hoody and gang paraphernalia skulking around street corners? Not under this proposal apparently.

I would say that the punishment for youths carrying weapons needs to be reinforced - warnings or community service are not deterrent enough.

Angela
07-Jul-08, 18:31
I would dearly love to see any legislation in place that would reduce the waste of (usually young) lives from knife crime. It's been a problem in parts of Scotland for long enough, usually fuelled by excessive alcohol consumption. A fist fight might end in a bloody -and maybe broken -nose, but when someone's carrying a knife the results all too often prove fatal.

About ten years ago, a young man, a student, was knifed during the night and left to bleed to death outside our house in a quiet part of town. I'll never forget that.

It doesn't need to be a knife of course -a glass bottle, a screwdriver, a hammer...where do you stop? Many tradesmen do quite legitimately carry tools which can, in certain circumstances, become a lethal weapon. A friend of ours got into trouble when he was routinely searched going into a football match - he's a middle aged joiner and had forgotten he had a chisel in his inside pocket...a more peaceful individual you couldn't imagine.

It's all well and good to say we need a law to combat a specific type of crime, but it needs to be a good law, a fair law, and one that the judiciary can implement.

As to jail -well, our prisons are already stuffed full. I'm not sure that the thought of a prison sentence, or indeed a spell in prison, would necessarily be much of a deterrent.

Sorry - I can't choose an answer to the poll as the questions stand.

Kevin Milkins
07-Jul-08, 18:32
You cant just keep locking people up in our already over crowded under funded prison system.
Society as a whole has got a problem ,so lets sort out why people would want to kill each other and deal with that.

percy toboggan
07-Jul-08, 18:38
I would dearly love to see any legislation in place that would reduce the waste of (usually young) lives from knife crime. It's been a problem in parts of Scotland for long enough, usually fuelled by excessive alcohol consumption. A fist fight might end in a bloody -and maybe broken -nose, but when someone's carrying a knife the results all too often prove fatal.

About ten years ago, a young man, a student, was knifed during the night and left to bleed to death outside our house in a quiet part of town. I'll never forget that.

It doesn't need to be a knife of course -a glass bottle, a screwdriver, a hammer...where do you stop? Many tradesmen do quite legitimately carry tools which can, in certain circumstances, become a lethal weapon. A friend of ours got into trouble when he was routinely searched going into a football match - he's a middle aged joiner and had forgotten he had a chisel in his inside pocket...a more peaceful individual you couldn't imagine.

It's all well and good to say we need a law to combat a specific type of crime, but it needs to be a good law, a fair law, and one that the judiciary can implement.

As to jail -well, our prisons are already stuffed full. I'm not sure that the thought of a prison sentence, or indeed a spell in prison, would necessarily be much of a deterrent.

Sorry - I can't choose an answer to the poll as the questions stand.

If the problem in Scotland which you refer to was anywhere near as serious as what is going in the ghettos of London today then it would have been sorted out long ago. Many knife wielders in Glasgae like to slash and wound...it's been going on for decades. This recent phenomenon is different. Misguided values steering misfits down the wrong path.

Angela
07-Jul-08, 18:56
If the problem in Scotland which you refer to was anywhere near as serious as what is going in the ghettos of London today then it would have been sorted out long ago. Many knife wielders in Glasgae like to slash and wound...it's been going on for decades. This recent phenomenon is different. Misguided values steering misfits down the wrong path.

I don't believe it is anywhere as serious, no. It is a problem nonetheless, it has been for decades, and not only in Glasgow. Any murder, especially of an innocent person, is one too many.

The problem hasn't been 'sorted out' largely because of the trouble we Scots seem to have with alcohol in our society -how often do we read here of a defendant claiming to have been so drunk he didn't know what he was doing and he didn't mean to injure, let alone kill? You then have people carrying knives -or so they claim -in self defence.

I'm not the only Edinburgh mother to have worried about her son (certainly not carrying a knife) getting caught up in trouble going out in the evening, and it was always the thought of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being attacked by someone carrying a knife that worried me most.

Any law that ends up on the Statute book relating to the carrying of knives will be applicable throughout the UK, not only to people living in certain parts of the country where there is a more violent gang culture, and where knife and gun crime is more prevalent.

I would love to see a law that would be fairly applied to everyone, that would be workable and that would save lives.

mccaugm
07-Jul-08, 19:26
Meant also to say the poll questions are poor, simplistic, and ill thought out. Sorry.

Thanks for that. The questions were based around the news item. I am aware that there are jobs where knives are needed and in this case exceptions must be made. The questions are just to get some debate going which is exactly what has happened.

badger
07-Jul-08, 19:27
I can't vote on the poll as is. Apparently when these teenagers who are convicted of murder find themselves in prison they turn into sobbing children, so obviously make no real connection between the crime and the punishment. Most of those in London are caught so it's not that they believe they will get away with it.

In London I don't think it's even about drink, it seems more to be gang culture and just being like everyone else. Carrying a knife seems somehow to have become the thing to do. The other thing the boys at least seem to have in common is that they have no male role model to look up to and frequently have dropped out of school. They have no education, no ambition, no occupation. They know nothing except their own little world of violence. Their music is violent, video/computer games are violent, tv they watch when young is violent. The 9.0 watershed means nothing now. Sex, violence and general lack of respect for others is commonplace.

Prison doesn't seem to be the answer - they go out worse than when they went in. With so much overcrowding it achieves less than nothing.

No easy answers.

percy toboggan
07-Jul-08, 19:29
.

Prison doesn't seem to be the answer - they go out worse than when they went in. With so much overcrowding it achieves less than nothing.

No easy answers.

Don't let 'em out?

Valerie Campbell
07-Jul-08, 19:50
If knives are purely carried for attacking, I think something has to be done but not prison. Community service, and time where the attacker has to sit and listen to people's experience of being knifed. A woman was stabbed round the corner from my house when I lived in Clackmannanshire so I've seen first hand what it can do to a person. Heather was frightened to go out alone for years, not just a few weeks or months. Her face was slashed and she has the scars which must be a constant reminder to her when she looks in the mirror. Show those who commit knife crime someone like her.

percy toboggan
07-Jul-08, 20:03
Thanks for that. The questions were based around the news item. I am aware that there are jobs where knives are needed and in this case exceptions must be made. The questions are just to get some debate going which is exactly what has happened.

Wasn't trying to be clever mac...
you posed the initial question and then didn't include the option in the poll.
The second option doesn't make much sense...and the third option...well, would they bother voting anyway?

I admitted the other day that I'd chosen the wrong terminology for a poll I posted. It happens.

Solus
07-Jul-08, 20:09
I think, but not sure, that you can carry a knife. Providing it is not over 3 inches, not of the locking type or flick / switch blade. The likes of the swiss army knives etc, small fishing types are all acceptable.

I grew up with a pocket knife, never crossed my mind to use it for anything other than it was intended for, fishing, cutting string ,all boys stuff.

NickInTheNorth
07-Jul-08, 20:43
I would support a mandatory jail term for anyone caught carrying a knife without lawful excuse, and in circumstances which lead the courts to believe that the person in possession was carrying it for "anti-social" purposes.

I would however also want mandatory prosecution of anyone found in possession of a knife without lawful excuse. The current law has no teeth, it is an offence to carry a knife without a valid reason (lawful excuse) but the police far too often take the easy route and give cautions, (not even really aslap on the wrist!)

weeboyagee
07-Jul-08, 21:47
Where does the Sgian Dubh fit in to this then? Part of the Highland Dress. There's no legitimate reason for wearing it other than as part of the traditional Highland Dress - am I likely to get banged up? What would be my "legitimate" reason for wearing it (or is there a difference between "carrying" and "wearing"?)

WBG :cool:

Moira
07-Jul-08, 22:08
Meant also to say the poll questions are poor, simplistic, and ill thought out. Sorry.


Have to say that someone carrying a multitool (Leatherman, Gerber, Victorinox) would fall into this catch-all offence even if they were on the way to do some fishing or other task where they would have a use for such a tool.

So, would a adult walking down the street being stopped and found with a multitool on them, be treated differently to some teenager with a hoody and gang paraphernalia skulking around street corners? Not under this proposal apparently.

I would say that the punishment for youths carrying weapons needs to be reinforced - warnings or community service are not deterrent enough.


Thanks for that. The questions were based around the news item. I am aware that there are jobs where knives are needed and in this case exceptions must be made. The questions are just to get some debate going which is exactly what has happened.

I've not voted on this poll. I, too, think that the poll questions are over simplisitic given the potential of this debate. I do appreciate mccaugm's point however.

mccaugm
07-Jul-08, 22:46
Where does the Sgian Dubh fit in to this then? Part of the Highland Dress. There's no legitimate reason for wearing it other than as part of the traditional Highland Dress - am I likely to get banged up? What would be my "legitimate" reason for wearing it (or is there a difference between "carrying" and "wearing"?)

WBG :cool:

This can be got round by wearing a plastic/fake knife which is what my son did when he went to his school leavers ball. Very realistic and much safer than the real thing.

Lord Flasheart
07-Jul-08, 23:21
Im quite concerned actually that 8 people voted for being able to carry anything you want without fear of prosecution.

ANYONE carrying ANYTHING ?? .. :eek:

Oddquine
08-Jul-08, 22:34
I can't see any reason to be carrying a knife of any kind in the street in your pocket.

I assume if it is part of a tool kit or for fishing, it would be in an appropriate and obvious tool bag.....or in a bag of fishing gear.

And the likes of butchers etc don't tend to carry their knives in their pockets going to work.............they usually leave them there.

Maybe I'm simplistic....but if there is a law that anyone carrying a knife of any kind is to be sentenced to a prison sentence.....I'd guess we'd see a large reduction in knife carrying.

Btw my male offspring has a Sgian Dubh.....but it isn't sharp at all.......so there is no need at all to have sharp ones for show.

Kathy@watten
08-Jul-08, 23:09
Even a fisherman/carpet fitter/or whatever trade uses a knife, doesn't need to trot about the streets with a knife to hand, there are good things called tool boxes for such items and they should be used as tools for the purpose of work and nothing else so anyone caught trotting about carrying a knife would have to at the very least explain their reason for having said item and if they had no legitimate reason be charged same as you would for carrying a gun or drink driving as the consequences are similar causing the deaths of too many of this countries young folk needlessly. It would be a crime not to stamp out this knife carrying culture.

horse
09-Jul-08, 02:36
i have carried a swiss army knife for nearly 20 years and it has come in very handy at times and let me out of many a tight spot when in remote areas. i once freed a ewe (sheep) that was quite wooly and had wandered into some bramble bushes and had been stuck there for days,if i didn't have my knife that day it would have probably died. when the new laws about carring knifes came out a couple of years ago i went into the police station in wick as i was working in the area and asked at the reception if i was legaly alowed to carry the knife,the woman on the desk went and got a sargent who said that it would be all right and they were more woried about knifes that when opened can be locked in place. so i still carry it in ma pocket. surly there has to be some comon sence.

rob murray
09-Jul-08, 14:32
Stop and search people, carrying a knife = immediate detention = the slammer. Empty the jails of petty offenders ( non payment of debts for starters ) create space for the knife carriers. A non negotiable crime : knife = slammer...end of !