YES! Someone that agrees with me,

[drusillamac]

I'm sure if you live in Britain at the moment, you have seen this new moral panic surrounding knife culture. If you believe news reports, almost everyone in the UK carries a knife. What utter bollocks.

Once again, Polly Toynbee comes to the rescue by pointing out some facts here. The prison population has rapidly increased. One sign of a moral

Comments

Knives...

[darkkat]

I thought the only reason everyone was going bananas over knives was because the police are in the middle of doing their highly-publicised knife amnesty...

But yeah, it's just the latest moral panic to hit the streets. I expect we'll be on that old chestnut of football hooligans next week...

[fechtbuch]

Knifings are nasty, no question. A knife can kill all too easily. That's why assaults etc draw heavier sentences if knives are involved than blunt instruments, and always have (see Thomas's Current Sentencing Practice for evidence, if you're in a law library). But there does seem to be some collusion between the police and tabloid press at the moment - as you spotted, they're giving prominence to stories about knife assaults/murders.
I don't think a knife amnesty will do much to deter those carrying them as weapons anyway - these things tend to be mainly used by generally law-abiding people to get rid of that switchblade they bought in a fit of bravado at age sixteen, or that old sheath knife.

a media moral frenzy

[weequine]

how many will read the facts ? they'd much rather swollow the sun pish (vicar of dibly)