Occasionally, I like to pop over the pond to see what our British cousins are up to regarding crime and punishment. After all, we all know how the left likes to cite Europe as prescient forecasters of social and cultural trends, including crime-fighting. Well, get ready for this bit of genius.
Building off my colleague Brian Brinker’s excellent take on this subject, where he told us about a suggestion a retiring Luton Crown Court judge, Nic Madge, made in a speech. The judge called for restrictions on knife sales—kitchen knives. He also believes the cops should establish kitchen knife point-dulling programs.
Parliament eliminated Her Majesty’s subjects’ right to self-defense by nearly totally outlawing the most efficient means to that defense. So, surprise, surprise, people have figured out ways to kill each other without guns. Now, “knife crime” is all the rage in England. And the Brits are doing some strange things to deal with it. In fact, some ideas are pathetically ineffective, or worse, detrimental to their intent.
Judge Madge is not alone. According to The New York Times, to slash knife crime, the Nottingham City Council proposed to “Replace the sharp knives in victims’ kitchens with blunt-tipped instruments to prevent their partners from stabbing them to death.” Yes, you read that correctly.
It gets better. The Nottinghamshire police are addressing “knife crimes” of which domestic violence comprises 17 percent county-wide. How? Well, they’ve bought 100 knives fashioned without points. A police spokesman said they plan “to replace kitchen knives in the homes of Britons who have been attacked or threatened with a knife.”
The above is not from a Saturday Night Live or the British equivalent comedy skit. This is happening in real life. Who thinks like this? Who writes notes on a pad or computer, discusses these ideas with colleagues, and then implements them, thinking it will make a smidge of difference in knife crime?
Whoever it is, I’m sure glad I don’t have to rely on them to help keep me safe from bad guys. Just don’t give our politicians any ideas.
