To ban crossbows & Military style knives in UK?

What purpose do they serve?

A hobby for strange men, incels, we all know the kind. They should be banned in our country as they dont serve any useful purpose at all.

Really surprised by the responses here. This is a no-brainer ban. Who cares if the murders are rare. There shouldn't be any such murders! Also disagree that these 3 women would all have died if he'd just had a knife. Two of them could have run for help whilst he was killing one. With a crossbow, it's like a gun, so he can kill all 3 in quick succession. Killing 3 people with a knife would take quite a bit longer, so gives others the chance to escape.

The responses on here sound just like anti-gun control americans! "it's not the gun that killed, it's the murderer!" yes, but funnily enough you don't get mass gun murders in countries that don't have guns!

With incidents like this, there is always a call to ban whatever weapon was used, which sadly misses the entire issue, which is that the victims would still be dead regardless of whether said weapon was banned. If someone wants to kill someone, then they'll find a way, be it with a weapon or their bare hands.

People asking about why anyone would want a crossbow; well, others here have listed many reasons. In addition, there are an increasing number of people who enjoy learning and mastering more traditional skills such as bushcraft and target practice. Bushcraft requires knives, axes etc... bladed tools but rather than seeking to murder people they are learning valuable skills like how to build a shelter, how to carve their own spoons, bowls etc... and such people are getting out in the fresh air and actually partaking in very worthwhile and perfectly innocent hobbies.

Archery type activities (involving crossbows, recurve bows, traditional longbows etc) tend to follow as they are part of the more traditional skillset. I know people who have their own land and simply enjoy target practice - it is actually an extremely calming activity and 99.999% of people who enjoy it will never have any intention of harming anyone - they simply enjoy developing their skill.

Some people may be a member of a club and as such will likely have membership with the BAA and/or other formal bodies. And yes there are crossbows that are more modern in design - same as modern recurve bows and compound bows - they are not the same as a traditional longbow or whatever, but the skill/hobby is effectively the same.

I don't agree that banning is the answer; all you do is punish those who own a knife or a crossbow for perfectly legitimate and innocent reasons while the person who committed the crime would still have found a way to do so regardless. A weapon being illegal is hardly going to deter someone who is out to murder someone; their regard for the law has long departed.

I want society to foster a culture of deep shame applied to violent and abusive men. Led by men and linked to the sports, social activities and image men care about.

I agree. Male violence against women used to be despised.

Of course men still committed domestic violence and other crimes against women, usually in secret. But people expressed disgust, not admiration, for a man who demeaned himself by hitting a woman.

I suppose the big difference was that violent misogynist pornography wasn’t widely available, in fact I think it was illegal. Now violence against women is everyday entertainment.

Anyone travelling, or wandering around a public area (other than within very specific and obvious contexts) with a strung bow is an instant red flag. No archer would do that to a bow, let alone risk the public consternation it would cause!

Also to clarify, for legal purposes, a bow isn't considered a weapon until the arrow is nocked. I can travel with my bow and arrows on my person but they aren't dangerous until the arrow is actually in place. It's very very bad form to travel with a strung bow and I imagine the popo would be called pretty quick.

I'm an archer, we shoot various bows at my club. The overwhelming majority of people that own Bows of any type buy them from reputable sellers that require club membership details etc to show basic competence , you can't shoot at a club unless you have shown competence and passed a beginners course. We are governed. We love our sport and we are 100% responsible and pay fees for insurance and spend hundreds to thousands on equipment.

What checks do you need to own a razor sharp 10 inch kitchen knife? Because you can bet your bottom dollar a knife is much more dangerous not only if it's thrown at somebody but also in close quarters. It's incredibly hard to actually hit where you aim with a bow, even at 20 yards.

I mean, it’s literally your thread title, and the main premise of your OP…

I’d also like to point out that it is already illegal to hunt with a bow (crossbow or otherwise) in the UK.

There seem to be a lot of people on these threads saying that it’s a legitimate use, or that licensing crossbows will prevent this - if someone is willing to break the law, further regulation is unlikely to affect their behaviour.

It would be a good start to publicise the laws around bow ownership and use in the UK - so that people can understand and report infringements and hopefully the laws that already exist could be better enforced.

Would he have chosen a kitchen knife to murder three women though? Or would he have chosen something equally legal and more damaging - an axe, for example, used in a home attack like this one would likely result in the same outcome.

The point is that licensing cross bows won’t prevent people from owning them, and thus won’t prevent occasional violent incidents - much as with legitimate gun ownership in the UK. I don’t think it will make any noticeable difference to violent crime statistics, and I think fixating on banning cross bows undermines the real problem, which is the misogynistic undercurrent in society, and the violent outbursts that provoked.

Ban them. 99.9% of crossbows will be in the hands of ‘never do wells’ and manboys with brains firing below capacity.

And you @VolvoFan

That's no problem. Have a nice day.

@VolvoFan I completely disagree with you re legislation around weapons, and regarding what you see as ‘misandry’ so there’s no point me engaging any further as I find discussions frustrating where there is no hope of agreement.

I would ban crossbows actually, purely because they are so often abused by horrible kids to shoot cats. And recently near where we live, by small gangs of men to shoot deer.

But in relation to the recent brutal murder of Carol, Hannah and Louise, this is not the conversation we need to be having.

Ive just turned the radio off in anger after calls for a phone in about banning crossbows. Siting an incident in 2018 as the most recent example of such a crime. Not one single word about the absolute tsunami of VAWG every bloody week! Why do so called journalists not raise this?

@FourLeggedBuckers I’ve seen mention that crossbows have been used a number of times in recent crimes, including in acts of violence against pet animals. That piece of shit who murdered three women on Tuesday had a crossbow- had he ‘only’ had a kitchen knife or even a baseball bat, the women would have stood a slightly better chance as there were three of them and only one of him.

Banning things won't make a difference, like I said previously. The only way you're ever going to stop people hurting/maiming/killing other people or even themselves is to put everyone in straitjackets and lock them up in padded cells.

Not every incident like this is squarely down to men. To single out an entire sex like this is misandry, in my opinion. The suspect is a man, the keyword there being 'suspect'. Based on what is currently known, there is active suspicion that he murdered those women. In all likelihood, yes, he did end those women's lives.

However:

Was there intent? Can it be proven?
Was it premeditated? Can it be proven?

Leave it to the police to gather evidence and to the courts to bring the appropriate sentencing.

But instead we're swinging an axe to crack a walnut and wanting to ban everything that can be turned into a weapon.

Technically I own a cross bow (albeit a very small, lightweight stone bow, so it couldn’t do any noticeable damage, and doesn’t shoot sharp bolts). It’s a nice piece of history (replica, but it’s the mechanism and style than interest me), but it’s more of a toy than a weapon.

The trouble with banning things is that it doesn’t deal with the actual problem - that a lot of men think women are there for their pleasure and deserve to be punished if they won’t comply. If a man wants to find a weapon, they will. We can’t ban kitchen knives, and all the other legitimate potential weapons in the UK.

Regulating crossbow ownership isn’t the worst idea in the world - I believe you can’t own one in Ireland without licensing, for example - but I doubt it will make the world noticeably safer for women.

Wyoming and Chicago really cannot be compared. If people in Wyoming came into contact and conflict as often as people in Chicago do then there’d be a lot more violence in the former. You can’t even begin to compare the geography and population density of the two.

I'm not in favour of banning something that apparently 299,999 other people seem to do mostly legally and without incident.

Zombie knives, machetes, bayonets are all banned because they were increasingly involved in all spiraling knife crime problem. Banning them probably saves some lives and there's no legal uses to consider

People call for firearm bans or restrictions in America not simply because of guns but because lots of people do die from guns in the USA. There are other countries with high gun ownership and low murder rates, it's a pretty uniquely American illness

You didn’t mention the US but you said that you thought a society where people are armed is a polite society. I was just pointing out that the US would seem to be an exception to your rule.

As for differences between States- it would be interesting if someone looked at the reasons behind that. Population size? Average education level? Poverty? Other crime rates? Generational trauma and criminal activity? Meaningful employment? Rates of substance misuse? Mental health statistics? It seems simplistic to assume that strict gun controls= more violence; lax gun controls= less violence. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation (see ‘Ice cream sales vs shark attacks).

I agree with the many posters that the real issue here is male violence- of course it is. I too would like that tackled, obviously, but so far no one seems to have come up with any solutions. And yes, people can do a lot of harm with a kitchen knife or a car if they want to. But we don’t have to make it any easier for violent men to harm others by giving them guns and crossbows. Or if you’re going to allow those, just let them have tanks and missiles too, why not?

I’m glad that after Thomas Hamilton ruined hundreds of lives at Dunblane that we didn’t all shrug our shoulders and say ‘Well, men are always going to do shit like that, banning guns won’t make a difference’.