It’s absolutely egregious that there isn’t already a law in place for this. 5 years sounds about right.
I’m not necessarily against it in principle, but I don’t think it would work. We tried this with drugs, it doesn’t work. It’s been tried in other countries for murder with the death penalty, it doesn’t work.
It’s too optimistic. Prisons are full now, nevermind adding the numbers of idiots that casually go about with knives.
Exactly what to do about the problem, I don’t know.
The man who killed her daughter was mentally ill. No threat of any amount of years in prison is going to suddenly “fix” someone who is mentally ill.
Prisons are overcrowded already, so this won’t happen.
There also needs to be a distinction between those carrying it because they want to cause harm/look cool, and those that enjoy the outdoors and recognise that knives are tools, not weapons.
As much as I feel for her pain, this is not something that would work or is even remotely feasible.
Every knife? So like even me who has a folding pocket knife for work [I work on a farm sometimes]? Or does she just want silly bastards with cleavers locked up
Mandatory minimums are always a recipe for disaster. Crank up the sentencing guidelines, sure, but you always need to make room for exceptional cases where culpability is low.
Woman being stalked by an ex-partner for example, who keeps a knife on her just in case.
5 years for a Swis Army Knife your mad!
Crush violent criminals not harmless citizens who have a penknife.
You should not take way rights from the law abiding take away the criminals.
This is the dumb shit other countries make fun of us for
I think hefty fines into the thousands of pounds is better than sending folks to jail at the cost of tax payer’s.
There’s no way of enforcing a mandatory sentence for knife carry, asides from the cost of putting all those people away and then building newer, bigger prisons for the rest these the other side of it to consider.
I kayak and would consider it irresponsible not to have a knife strapped to my pfd in case of entrapment hazards.
I’m also a camping nerd and have a little victorinox waiter on my keychain, this is a legal carry as it’s a slip joint knife under the regulation length.
There’s also tradesmen and factory workers who often carry Stanley knife’s or box cutters.
The problem isn’t knives, it’s poverty and the culture that comes with it, give people better prospects so that they don’t look at crime as their only route in life.
I’m tired of not being able to carry a full size leatherman because some dipshit bellends like shanking each other on TikTok.
Can we not have some sort of sensible law for people that have proven to be law abiding over a sustained period of time?
It’s not like I’ll want to carry a hunting knife or zombie killer to peel an apple, but I’m not buying a high end multi tool which would be useful to me, then snapping the blade off it just because some pissant plastic gangster wants to pretend he owns the street outside his door.
FYI mandatory jail term makes no one safer. It will dissuade very few people from carrying them, and it won’t lead to many, if any, additional arrests. I think what it does in reality is creates further sentencing for people that were already being convicted of other crimes. I think it will be a very very rare scenario that someone gets locked up just for carrying a knife, because, if they haven’t done anything wrong, they wouldn’t be getting searched to begin with. The only circumstances I see these arrests happening is if a cop searches someone on suspicion alone, and this allows for a lot of prejudice to be exercised. I think we should be pushing for things that take away the ability for prejudice from cops, not giving them more.
its not the weapons that are the problem its his ‘mental health’ and peoples killer desires
Understandable, but the number of problems that can actually be improved by adding or increasing prison sentences is within a rounding error of zero.
It’s a good idea in principle but I’m usually against named laws as they can be led by knee-jerk emotions and not facts, such as Martyn’s Law where Little Dumpling Primary School now has to have an anti-terrorism plan in place for its end of year nativity play.
The problem isn’t knives, the problem is people with ill intent. Many tradesmen and labourers routinely use tools that can very easily cause horrific and fatal damage to a human, every day millions of people get in one ton vehicles capable of accelerating to 120mph+, you cannot understate the harm such a vehicle can cause.
The UK is a very peaceful country full of things that have the potential to kill dozens of people in minutes. Violence is rare because the cost benefit ratio is firmly stacked against being violent.
What to do with people who have mental illnesses that incline them to violence? I have absolutely no idea, medication is the best and often only tool we have so supervised use of it would seem to be one avenue but unfortunately that would be completely impractical, if not impossible (for various reasons).
Unless you’re into eugenics or mandatory imprisonment there isn’t a golden bullet to this.
As someone who’s mother is the victim of knife crime I think we should have much harsher sentences for this. Knives ruin lives, not just the victims but this has a widespread ripple effect to communities and families alike. Many of you who defend carrying them likely haven’t been affected by this. My opinion is of course biased due to personal experiences but hey ho
Doesn’t work, a mentally ill person isn’t going to care about the time they spend in prison. The US has some of harshest punishments and they have a huge prison population.
Do you realize the amount of people even just under 18 that carry knives compared to space in UK prisons ? It would literally be 500’000 easily you would have to put away.
They’re all inspired by drill and gangster shit.
I’m ok with tougher punishment but you simply would not get that with the conservatives or labour.
I’m in two minds about this one. While in a perfect world, nobody would feel the need to walk around with a weapon, this isn’t a prefect world. I feel like knives are not ideal at all for self defence, and are more likely to be used as an offensive weapon, but then if you can’t carry a knife (I don’t and have no plans to) for emergency self defence, what else is there? The barely funded police?
Sure, make it illegal to carry a knife and put a hefty jail term on it, but then there also needs to be some legal form of non-lethal self defence in an emergency. Pepper spray maybe? It would at least fend off an attacker without causing more potential damage.
All knives? What if it was a butter knife? Or a kitchen knife that you’d just brought was still in the packet – would you get a life sentence if you walked home with it?
I don’t like knives, but I also stand against any “Mother of victim demands x law” stories on principle.
Maybe the UK should ask itself why Australia, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand don’t have the need to ban knives. Maybe there is something wrong with society and not the knives.
I carry knife, or a leatherman daily, I use it several times a day, I also have a bayonet which I take camping and use as a camp knife. Unfortunately knives are a tool, they have been around since humans were able to make tools. Banning them isn’t the answer.
The answer is in education and training. But it’s cheaper and quicker just to ban stuff
Perhaps the family of victims are not the most objective people when it comes to this sort of thing.
27 comments
It’s absolutely egregious that there isn’t already a law in place for this. 5 years sounds about right.
I’m not necessarily against it in principle, but I don’t think it would work. We tried this with drugs, it doesn’t work. It’s been tried in other countries for murder with the death penalty, it doesn’t work.
It’s too optimistic. Prisons are full now, nevermind adding the numbers of idiots that casually go about with knives.
Exactly what to do about the problem, I don’t know.
The man who killed her daughter was mentally ill. No threat of any amount of years in prison is going to suddenly “fix” someone who is mentally ill.
Prisons are overcrowded already, so this won’t happen.
There also needs to be a distinction between those carrying it because they want to cause harm/look cool, and those that enjoy the outdoors and recognise that knives are tools, not weapons.
As much as I feel for her pain, this is not something that would work or is even remotely feasible.
Every knife? So like even me who has a folding pocket knife for work [I work on a farm sometimes]? Or does she just want silly bastards with cleavers locked up
Mandatory minimums are always a recipe for disaster. Crank up the sentencing guidelines, sure, but you always need to make room for exceptional cases where culpability is low.
Woman being stalked by an ex-partner for example, who keeps a knife on her just in case.
5 years for a Swis Army Knife your mad!
Crush violent criminals not harmless citizens who have a penknife.
You should not take way rights from the law abiding take away the criminals.
This is the dumb shit other countries make fun of us for
I think hefty fines into the thousands of pounds is better than sending folks to jail at the cost of tax payer’s.
There’s no way of enforcing a mandatory sentence for knife carry, asides from the cost of putting all those people away and then building newer, bigger prisons for the rest these the other side of it to consider.
I kayak and would consider it irresponsible not to have a knife strapped to my pfd in case of entrapment hazards.
I’m also a camping nerd and have a little victorinox waiter on my keychain, this is a legal carry as it’s a slip joint knife under the regulation length.
There’s also tradesmen and factory workers who often carry Stanley knife’s or box cutters.
The problem isn’t knives, it’s poverty and the culture that comes with it, give people better prospects so that they don’t look at crime as their only route in life.
I’m tired of not being able to carry a full size leatherman because some dipshit bellends like shanking each other on TikTok.
Can we not have some sort of sensible law for people that have proven to be law abiding over a sustained period of time?
It’s not like I’ll want to carry a hunting knife or zombie killer to peel an apple, but I’m not buying a high end multi tool which would be useful to me, then snapping the blade off it just because some pissant plastic gangster wants to pretend he owns the street outside his door.
FYI mandatory jail term makes no one safer. It will dissuade very few people from carrying them, and it won’t lead to many, if any, additional arrests. I think what it does in reality is creates further sentencing for people that were already being convicted of other crimes. I think it will be a very very rare scenario that someone gets locked up just for carrying a knife, because, if they haven’t done anything wrong, they wouldn’t be getting searched to begin with. The only circumstances I see these arrests happening is if a cop searches someone on suspicion alone, and this allows for a lot of prejudice to be exercised. I think we should be pushing for things that take away the ability for prejudice from cops, not giving them more.
its not the weapons that are the problem its his ‘mental health’ and peoples killer desires
Understandable, but the number of problems that can actually be improved by adding or increasing prison sentences is within a rounding error of zero.
It’s a good idea in principle but I’m usually against named laws as they can be led by knee-jerk emotions and not facts, such as Martyn’s Law where Little Dumpling Primary School now has to have an anti-terrorism plan in place for its end of year nativity play.
The problem isn’t knives, the problem is people with ill intent. Many tradesmen and labourers routinely use tools that can very easily cause horrific and fatal damage to a human, every day millions of people get in one ton vehicles capable of accelerating to 120mph+, you cannot understate the harm such a vehicle can cause.
The UK is a very peaceful country full of things that have the potential to kill dozens of people in minutes. Violence is rare because the cost benefit ratio is firmly stacked against being violent.
What to do with people who have mental illnesses that incline them to violence? I have absolutely no idea, medication is the best and often only tool we have so supervised use of it would seem to be one avenue but unfortunately that would be completely impractical, if not impossible (for various reasons).
Unless you’re into eugenics or mandatory imprisonment there isn’t a golden bullet to this.
As someone who’s mother is the victim of knife crime I think we should have much harsher sentences for this. Knives ruin lives, not just the victims but this has a widespread ripple effect to communities and families alike. Many of you who defend carrying them likely haven’t been affected by this. My opinion is of course biased due to personal experiences but hey ho
Doesn’t work, a mentally ill person isn’t going to care about the time they spend in prison. The US has some of harshest punishments and they have a huge prison population.
Do you realize the amount of people even just under 18 that carry knives compared to space in UK prisons ? It would literally be 500’000 easily you would have to put away.
They’re all inspired by drill and gangster shit.
I’m ok with tougher punishment but you simply would not get that with the conservatives or labour.
I’m in two minds about this one. While in a perfect world, nobody would feel the need to walk around with a weapon, this isn’t a prefect world. I feel like knives are not ideal at all for self defence, and are more likely to be used as an offensive weapon, but then if you can’t carry a knife (I don’t and have no plans to) for emergency self defence, what else is there? The barely funded police?
Sure, make it illegal to carry a knife and put a hefty jail term on it, but then there also needs to be some legal form of non-lethal self defence in an emergency. Pepper spray maybe? It would at least fend off an attacker without causing more potential damage.
All knives? What if it was a butter knife? Or a kitchen knife that you’d just brought was still in the packet – would you get a life sentence if you walked home with it?
I don’t like knives, but I also stand against any “Mother of victim demands x law” stories on principle.
Maybe the UK should ask itself why Australia, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand don’t have the need to ban knives. Maybe there is something wrong with society and not the knives.
I carry knife, or a leatherman daily, I use it several times a day, I also have a bayonet which I take camping and use as a camp knife. Unfortunately knives are a tool, they have been around since humans were able to make tools. Banning them isn’t the answer.
The answer is in education and training. But it’s cheaper and quicker just to ban stuff
Perhaps the family of victims are not the most objective people when it comes to this sort of thing.