Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell went on the offensive against Scotland’s growing knife culture. Here are the highlights: • A licensing scheme for the sale of non-domestic knives and similar objects. This would require all shops selling non-domestic knives to be registered and licensed. Any retailer caught breaking the law would have its licence revoked. • Increasing the minimum purchasing age for knives from 16 to 18. • Banning the sale of swords. While the sale of swords would be outlawed under the proposals, the Executive has no plans to ban swords being kept in private homes. There would, however, be a ban on the possession of a sword in a public place. • Giving the police the ability to arrest anyone found carrying a knife. At the moment police can only arrest people if they prove they are carrying a knife, have grounds for believing a crime is going to be committed and a third reason such as breach of the peace. The Executive intends to sweep away all these conditions, allowing unconditional arrests to be made. • Doubling the sentence for possessing a knife or offensive weapon from two years to four. The BBC quoted Jack McConnell as stating "There can be no reason for people buying swords off the street for use or to have in their homes," The Scotsman quoted him as saying "It is my very strong view, and it is a view shared by the Cabinet, that far too many young men, particularly in Scotland, view the carrying or using of knives or offensive weapons as an acceptable practice. It is not acceptable. Louie
Every time Jack McConnell says "young men", he really means Neds (also known as chavs, scallies ,general scum of the universe) a cheaper and more effective way of dealing with weapon crime is called the atomic bomb Bomb Wishart !!!!
He may just mean public as in: the supermarket, the cinema etc. Maybe you should/could lobby him about excluding MA training halls? Would the ban include buying swords somewhere else and importing them?
As there are no border checks between England and Scotland he is just being a _insert insult of choice here. He has no powers to stop you buying a sword from say Playwell and having it delivered. I do not know how his half witted ban will affect Iado practitioners and others as sports halls are public places, It is allready illegal to carry a sword in public he is just playing to the cheap seats.
This again? I posted similarly recently when I heard a five live interview demonising the knife culture and mentioning various MA weapons in particular. Fair enough, theres a problem, but the majority of MA's arent going to go home get their big shiny sword down from the wall and thump someone with it. I propose that we have ourselves licenced and store our weapons at home in a metal gun locker type cabinet..after all shotgun owners can do this in Scotland...I know a chap who lives in the centre of Glasgow who does this. It won't stop the crime, and it won't stop the violence. Scumbags don't care about being licensed. I saw a guy recently with a Balisong in the street, now I know these are banned, I handed mine in during an amnesty even though I loved training with them. law abiding MA versus Ned dont care shiny knife mentallity. But the fact is if we do this, they cant blame us anymore can they? My fathers a butcher fer crissakes, are you gonna take his knives from him? Fact is if you take all of our weapons away, we'll find a way to turn the papercut into an art form, meanwhile the scumbags are out on the streets with enough knives guns and swords to arm a small African State.
Excellent point made! All this would do is make the scumbags WANT to carry these sorts of weapons cos they know its illegal! Its the buzz they look for! TO BREAK THE LAW!
Ok - here comes Captain Obvious to the rescue... Tan tan taaaaaaaan... More laws is not the answer. Criminals do not obey laws. That's why we call them criminals
but captian obvious... how do we tell our govt that...? according to some law in india.. you can even have blade in ur pocket... forget knives n swords(I know, I know i've been whinning about this law forever) -TkdWarrior-
The amount of knife crime up here is appalling, and anything that helps reduce it has got to be a good thing. Shame this isn't the answer, rather a quick fix to please the tabloids and the sheeple.
It's knives and guns that are the biggest problem. I know you do get the occasional nutter running amuk with a samurai sword. (I can think of two instances that made the headlines - one who attacked a primary school in Wolverhampton, and one who ran into a church somewhere.) These really are rare events though, and even if you ban swords their are still plenty of legal objects which can be pretty deadly. You can do horrible damage with a Stanley knife, but you can hardly ban those. I know that swords are designed to be deadly weapons, but it would be a great shame if any change in the law prevented genuine Martial Arts clubs from teaching sword work though.
I agree with you Yoda. Knives and guns cant kill without somebody to actually use them (unless you mean a Patriot Missile System )
Yoda is right that it is the people that are the problem. However, to change the attitude of people takes time. I think it was the chief constable of Strathclyde police who said it would take 15 years to change the "knife culture" in Glasgow when talking about the proposed laws. Which leaves the problem of what to do in the interim. Any fix that doesn't address the underlying problems to change this culture/ social attitude will only be partially effective. IMO the laws proposed fall into the partially effective catergory.
As a proud Scotsman who has recently moved to the US, I cannot believe the amount to rights Jack McConnel is wanting to take away. Banning knives, how dumb. The person who is likely to be carrying a knife in the streets for suspect use wouldnt edit: care it was banned or not. What sort of knives constitute an offensive weapons most neds prefer the stanely knife which is a tool not combat or martial art knive. So are Homebase and B & Q gonna stop selling stanley knives. Also who uses swords to attack people these days. OK a few isolated incidents of the odd nutter. If you look at the stats most violent crimes are carried out by males aged between 15-25 therefore surely it would make sense to lock up all males in this age group. I am only joking - but this is the type of logic Jack I using. Start the revolution today Brothers!
Couldn't you solve this by giving all the knife/sword-obsessed people a cooler, more complicated weapon to lust after? How about a sword on a stick, or on a rope. Hell, they'd lop their own arms off before they managed to hurt anyone else! Ooh! I've got it! Only allow swords and non-utility knives to be sold made out of wushu-type spring steel or 440 stainless!
Yes, that's true. But we are talking in terms of banning weapons. If there weren't problem-people then we wouldn't be having this debate about weapons in the first place!
Kewl, we could use that Simpsons episode as a paradigm 'That aint a knife, this is a knife' 'Thats a spoon!' 'Ah, I see you've played knifey spooney before' As I have also posted elsewhere. there was a craze near us for neds ( chavs ) to carry nunchaku and spin them merrily. This died out slowly, but one in incident I did see was a lad attacking a waste bin, shrieking like a banshee and then screaming like a little bitch when they bounced back into the back of his hand. This of course was followed by me laughing uproariously, and a group of them coming over to 'square up' 'Wit ye laughing at big man' 'Walk away son, before you get hurt again' funnily once you stand up to them they go all meek. They always walk past now and say hi to me....well 'Awright big man' which I think translates to 'Top of the morning to you, large gent who will kick us in the head given the excuse'
