I think one of the many reasons why knife attacks are so common is because they are relatively cheap and easily accessible. You can buy them at most sport shops at an early age and there's not much age control.

The other day I watched a program on belgian tv about juvenile gangs in Liverpool and there was a kid boasting about 6 guns he had stashed in the bushes on the street he lived in. Apparently it had something to do with him protecting his territory. That coming from a snot nosed kid, who should be in bed by nine.

It’s surprising when politicians/newspaper columnists, etc, say that the parents (of kids in gangs) need to take responsibility for their offspring’s actions; when those parents (and probably grandparents) are usually as bad or worse. The stabbers are the products of three or four generations of thugs. They don't have morals or a conscience because there is nobody to instil those things in them. I think these things need to be taught in schools subtly, somehow, at a very young age; emotional intelligence at that age is as important as intelligence.

And of course there's the influence of gangster rap; it's hard to argue that it's not an influence when you see those YouTube videos of London or Liverpool gangs posing with guns to a hiphop soundtrack and talking like idiots.

As for the whole 'respect' thing; I think what they mean is they want people to fear them, to acknowledge how hard they are. It's nothing to do with respect (as in the real meaning of the word) just reputation, just more macho bullshit.

i think they should ban knives. because if knives are illegal, no one will ever get stabbed.

they should ban smokin' hot babes, cuz hard-on's are dangerous

No. If no one has knives no one will ever get stabbed.

Legality ain't got much to do with people possessing them.

What am I gonna cut my steak with? A spoon?

Snip it into pieces with scissors.

Well you can stab people with scissors too, so they would probably be banned as well.

Indeed, as did I.

It seems my reputation has graduated from dirty old man to simply grumpy old man.

dirty and grumpy are the way to be

anyone who is not otherwise is fooling themselves.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. The sun will come out tomorrow.

Don't worry--be happy! :) :) :) :)

all good reasons to carry the most concentrated pepper spray you can get your hands on...add to the above accounts of teenage knifeplay the laissez faire attitude several states adopted just today regarding carrying concealed weapons. sure, permits are required (which isn't even really a good screener even with the checks), but it leads to more people carrying weapons that don't have authorization as well.

spray is better than a stun gun...less of a chance of missing...
although, if an assailiant is intoxicated enough, neither pepper spray or a stun gun will have much effect...which is a good reason to learn some martial arts, perhaps Krav Maga, a discipline that emphasizes disarmament of a combatant.

in this city there is also increased crime perpetrated by teens, especially in the summer.

I overheard a small boy and his mother walking and talking today. the kid urgently says, "I want a kill suit," and the mother says, "a kill suit, what's that?"
I don't know wtf he meant either...

Kids and their misadventures with penknives figure into quite a few tales by Dostoyevsky, but the one this thread particularly calls to mind is what's related in a minor subplot of The Brothers Karamazov:

You must realise that he was fearfully worked up by what had happened already. The boys, seeing I’d given him up, set on him and taunted him, shouting, ‘Wisp of tow, wisp of tow!’ And he had soon regular skirmishes with them, which I am very sorry for. They seem to have given him one very bad beating. One day he flew at them all as they were coming out of school. I stood a few yards off, looking on. And, I swear, I don’t remember that I laughed; it was quite the other way, I felt awfully sorry for him; in another minute I would have run up to take his part. But he suddenly met my eyes. I don’t know what he fancied; but he pulled out a penknife, rushed at me, and struck at my thigh, here in my right leg. I didn’t move. I don’t mind owning I am plucky sometimes, Karamazov. I simply looked at him contemptuously, as though to say, ‘This is how you repay all my kindness! Do it again if you like, I’m at your service.’ But he didn’t stab me again; he broke down; he was frightened at what he had done; he threw away the knife, burst out crying, and ran away. I did not sneak on him, of course, and I made them all keep quiet, so it shouldn’t come to the ears of the masters. I didn’t even tell my mother till it had healed up. And the wound was a mere scratch. And then I heard that the same day he’d been throwing stones and had bitten your finger — but you understand now what a state he was in! Well, it can’t be helped: it was stupid of me not to come and forgive him — that is, to make it up with him— when he was taken ill. I am sorry for it now. But I had a special reason. So now I’ve told you all about it... but I’m afraid it was stupid of me.
commentary

well, i shouldn't have been lazy and generalised like that without explaining exactly what i mean, but i'm at work and it could take pages.
But anyway, if there wasn't a something wrong with the education system your school wouldn't have been full of kids getting wasted and stabbed etc.

it would probably be too obvious a solution to making stabbing people illegal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by girlgun i think they should ban knives. because if knives are illegal, no one will ever get stabbed.

*post denotes SARCASM, ladies and gentlemen.

This is a good point.

There are two things that I personally think trigger violent behaviour with kids in general, at least in big urban areas with insormountable problems: one is the family enviroment they are born in, where adults lacking the necessary maturity to raise a child too often also try to cope with surviving themselves, therefore neglection takes place on a regular basis.

When kids start growing up they find themselves stuck into an educational system that generally fails to provide them with what's lacking at home, often because the teachers themselves - and trust me, I know enough people who teach who could confirm this - find it frustrating dealing with them or lack interest in finding out new methods of communicating knowledge in the classroom because of the nightmerish infrastructure that many schools offer to both parties in general.

It's only normal that a young person's frustration and sense of validation needs to find new ways to manifest itself, and at that age violence or aggressive behaviour are part of the hormonal process when everything else fails to make an impact.

I disagree about the rap thing. It's true that there are kids who go for that gangsta attitude, but even if you took the music out I bet the violence would still be there. Also, art can open up opportunities to redeem individuals - think about certain community centres that use it to drag young people off the streets, often with a meagre budget- so what you gain from it is subjective, rather than definite.

In my day, we called it a rumble.

And they were choreographed.

kids don't respect adults anymore.... i don't know why. there are probably a million reasons. but if a young person doesn't respect the authority of their elders then they will run riot. i know i would have done a lot more silly things in my life if i wasn't so frightened of my mum, even though i have no real reason to fear her, she really doesn't pose a physical threat over me.

Go back to your room, lucy!

oh dear, cantankerous, oh dear

I was going to reply something along the line of ''Glice, exceptions are one thing, the norm is another thing altogether'' to his post and then I realised that probably he is thinking that himself anyway.

Kids are born with the potential of being smart and intelligent, if the enviroment they inhabit takes away all their possibilities for development at that young an age, it's not like you can simply put the blame on them. They are kids, not adults.

After all these discussions, there's still no concrete explanation as to why it occurs so frequently on British soil.
Maybe the real reason is because the British media brings it to light more often than the rest of the world does.
Look at how long the list of pedophiles is in Britain. Surely, there are just as many pervs elsewhere?

haha. jesus. i was wondering. i thought i was pretty obvious.

Yes, everyone is born with potential, a threshold.
Their environment includes the culture itself and socioeconomic conditions that influence their-day-to-day lives and behavior. Many pertinent factors have been discussed in this thread. Out of all of them, i believe that !@#$%!'s point resounds the most:

maybe i phrased it badly but my suggestion to outlaw stabbing was a joke too.

i got you.... i think you were the only one who got me (other than cantank... and rob)

i think they should ban oranges with razors stuck inside them. because if oranges with razors stuck inside them are are illegal, no one will ever get an orange with a razor stuck inside it thrown at them.

I agree more with your post than his, in a way, even though you're both very close to what I was trying to say.

You are born into a family nucleus but you belong to society and you do most of your growing up within its enviroment. Unless you end up being locked up into your room all the time, there comes a time when you'll have to deal with all the external factors that you have listed, people in general to start with.

That's another very good point.

Reading books in the company of yourself is one thing. Reading them and making sense of it all because of the fact that what you've just read can be put into practice or is connected somehow to what's around you is another thing that you can be assured most kids (and adults, obviously) find more stimulating than being imposed abstract theories that hang in the air and that's it.

Good, because a prohibition on stabbing would be a preposterous infringement on the rights of otherwise law abiding citizens, and why should we be made to suffer because of the indiscretions of some unruly urchins?

Education does have to play a more socially responsible role, yes, but the main responsibility concerns their parenting.

Again, economics is a huge factor. School systems despite all the funding they do get cannot feasibly maintain proper instructor-to-student ratios due to financial limitations. And, in far too many cases, simple microeconomics is rather obviously why both parents are working and too absent from the lives and minds of their offspring.

Well, you say, that's why there are private schools. True, but I'll liken private schools to the parents that overcompensate by mollycoddling their children, and, ironically, tend to rarely really communicate providing yet another impetus for young people to tend to act out their aggressions.

I got hit by a grapefruit sized snowball thrown from a car once. It knocked me on my arse and winded me so hard I thought I was going to die. I didn't.

But, I think they should make snow illegal cos if snow was illegal then there wouldn't be any snow, and if there wasn't any snow then people wouldn't be able to make illegal, grapefruit sized snowballs, and if they couldn't make grapefruit sized snowballs then they wouldn't be able to throw them at passersby from speeding cars.

Whilst they're at it they might as well make throwing illegal as well, that way there wouldn't be any throwing, and the people that threw the grapefruit sized snowball at me wouldn't have been able to throw it at me, because that would have been illegal.

The economic squeeze is tightening on most. We need humor, Florya, thanks.

I was hit by a banana thrown from passengers riding in a truck bed. Think it was a landscaping truck. A little taken aback because, as is known, when you're shot you get hit before you even hear the sound, so for a second there I was in fight or flight.

Riding in a car with a neighbor and his mother when I was young, the car was egged by other youngsters.
What's crazy is the ringleader of the kids that did it was subsequently hit a couple of weeks later and sent to the hospital by my neighbor's mom, who would drink and drive. I wasn't riding with them on that particular occasion.

And my then-girlfriend and I had some kids throw a brick at our car once.

Throwing - It's the root of all evil.

fixed.

True enough, and entirely agreed. If we replace 'stabbed' with 'being violent', that pretty much describes any school. Kids have a tendancy towards being vicious, unpleasant fuckers, whatever their background

I'm always stuck on the quandary between determinism and individualism. On one hand, people always are who they are 'Tigers can't change their spots'; on the other hand, no-one has to be a violently anti-social cunt. However, the kids that don't go around stabbing people can still, inadvertantly (to a point) give those around them massive complexes. Having said that, there's an absolute cunt at work who was clearly bullied by the sporty types when he was young, and harbours massive, generalised grudges against all sport, and most people, as a result. He may have had a troubled childhood, but he's the product of his parents more than he is his school. There comes a point in adulthood where you simply have to say 'I don't have to be bitter the whole of my life', and he's never going to find that point, which makes him the bigger cunt than whoever abused him at school.

I wouldn't say I or anyone else was exceptional, for, y'know, boring reasons. I think what I'm trying to say is that the brutality of poor schooling in this country (which I've experienced to a far lesser degree than a lot of these kids stabbing/ shooting each other) is more a manifestation of society in general than it is causal. Like I say, not everyone in London is a cunt. There are, however, a lot of ruthlessly selfish and belligerently dickheadish people about, and this is by no means exclusive to those 'under-priveleged' sorts. The manifestation of being a prick when you're a city-based prick in a suit is to walk past someone being stamped to death (as happened at Highbury and Islington a few years ago at rush hour). The manifestation for this (very, very small minority) of kids who carry skeng is to stab someone for 'disrespecting' them. School is not causal, it's a microcosm of society at large.

I think there's some core nucleus of agreement between me and the three I've quoted here. It's all terrifically complicated and quite worrying.

Incidentally, I'm disappointed that no-one thus far has thought to make the pun 'drive-by fruiting'.

there was almost no violence at my school, which isn't to say there wasn't any bullying, just not the physical kind.

Yeah, you posh cunts don't like getting your manicured hands dirty except to fist each other after Polo, do you?

same here. i went to richy mcrich rich private school. and let me tell ya... sometimes the nonviolent bullying was so brutal that i'm sure people would rather have just been punched in the face.