To think all knives including religious ones should be banned, after what happened to Henry Nowak

I don’t think Sikhs with kirpans are a particular risk.

But specific exemptions from laws for named religious groups is a bad idea anyway.

Both on principle and for public faith in/support for the law. That gets more important not less the more diverse society gets.

(If a proposed law said Methodists must get a double helping of pudding in restaurants, you’d probably oppose it even if I could prove there was no safety risk).

I think we should ban cars, more people are killed and/or hurt by people drink driving and drug driving than knives.

If we're going to ban something then make it a worthwhile ban.

The ONS does not publish a category for "kirpan homicides", and I am not aware of any official dataset showing kirpans as a significant contributor to homicide numbers.

You can be sure Tommy and Farage would have found kirpan murders if there were any.

Your statistics missed out the one demographic that means anything. Men. Always men.

Everyone always talking about agendas just because they don’t agree.

Yanbu and it’s good to see the majority say the same.

It wasn't a kitchen knife though and I'm not talking about a kitchen knife but an actual weapons collection. This guy had a weapon collection. It's also not a random roll of duct tape but finding duct tape, rope, chloroform etc together in a backpack or car boot would clearly indicate someone was preparing to use it as a kit. As I said, perhaps... But we shouldn't be trying to prevent people from practising a religion that's been practised without issue based on the fact that one person of that faith used a weapon (not even the one he's permitted to carry) and the media incorrectly drew attention to the fact that people of that faith are permitted a specific exception for a specific item, which wasn't used.

Again though this comes down to personal choice. If it makes you feel safer then that's for you to decide. But I think the problem is that for certain people like Farage they have their own agenda and honestly I believe people could assimilate as much as physically possible and he'd still find a way to scapegoat them to take heat off his own back and to generate influence. The man would sell his own granny if he thought it would gain him power and influence. We are still suffering the aftermath of brexit which farage was highly instrumental in getting over the line and that's ironically created huge issues with COL rising and immigration and processing asylum claims. So it suits farage and reform to blame that on migrants because if people are busy looking at them we aren't looking at him. His party unfortunately won't care how much someone attempts to assimilate they will continue to stir hate because that is benefiting him and he knows exactly what he's doing.

So if someone chooses to do what you are describing then I understand the logic behind it and if that makes them personally feel safer I completely respect that, but I also think that shouldn't be required of people in order for an inclusive and respectful society because I don't think it will make anything better long term. There are many other ways of tackling those issues that don't require uk minitory or global majority groups to give up parts of their identity if they don't want to. For some people it may even make them feel less safe to do so. I work with lots of women who wear hijab or niqab and that's very much their choice and they'd be devastated to be told they weren't allowed to do that and o think they would feel unsafe as a result. I actually don't think they'd comply and rightly so.

That's completely unworkable. Confiscate any weapons - Every knife in the house? How will they cook? Anything that could could make a kit - confiscate their duct tape? Take their cricket bat? And that's before you consider that pretty much anything can be used as a weapon. I could do a lot of damage to someone with a tin of dogfood. You would have to leave them in an empty room. Rash calls for laws like that are why we shouldn't rush to make changes based on one terrible, but incredibly rare, event

In the 100 or so years that Sikhs have lived, contributed and integrated within the UK, this is the first case I've come across where someone identifying as Sikh has used a knife on an innocent person. My understanding of the faith is that you should never draw your kirpan except to protect someone from imminent harm, and clearly it is taken very seriously considering that our laws have permitted the carrying of a kirpan for all this time and it's never caused problems. As many have said, the weapon used wasn't even a kirpan so why would you punish an entire faith for the act of one person (who was already kicked out of their Gurdwara)? Perhaps more checks and restrictions on anyone who has had behaviour reported would have prevented the perpetrator in this instance from having access to the weapon he had, and that's the control we need... if anyone is given a warning about use of weapons or threatening behaviour, checks on the items they have at home should be made and items confiscated. That would include confiscating surveillance equipment from stalkers, any weapons, and anything that together could compromise a kit to cause harm from someone who has threatened kidnap etc.

The problem for the police is that they failed to prioritise the welfare of a person lying on the ground. That is the first thing they should have done and what they are trained to do first. Next, they dismissed Harry's assertion that he had been stabbed and took no action on any of the nine occasions he said he could not breathe. Then they handcuffed a person who was not resisting arrest and who posed no risk to anyone as he was prone on the ground (as we now know because he had been stabbed).

I must admit to having some scepticism that this is purely a story about anti-white racism and DEI training resulting in a person from an ethnic minority being prioritised over a white person. The right are pushing this line unashamedly, and politicising Harry Novak's death against the plea of his family.

Confirmation bias seems to me to be a more significant driver than race in this case. This in turn led to the series of errors that followed. The police turned up believing they were attending a racist incident, and one that did not involve stabbing. The the aggressor's brother told the police on the phone that no-one had been stabbed and said that his brother's turban had been ripped off as part of the racist attack. That information would have shaped the approach of the officers who attended the scene.

None of this excuses the deeply flawed actions of the police but it does show that the narrative is not linear but multi-faceted. The idea that the police are trained to, and do, disadvantage the white majority while favouring those from ethnic minorities serves no-one and is a demonstration of reckless political leadership.

YANBU all knives should be banned and there should be a massive crackdown with harsh penalties for carrying one. We could have an amnesty first then a big crackdown with instant significant jail time for carrying one.

Nothing.

As awful as it is, Henry was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If it wasn’t him it would probably have been someone else who happened to walk past Vikrum 5 minutes later.

Evil, violent people exist, they always have and they always will.

Stopping Sikhs from carrying their religious artefacts is not going to change this fact in any way.

I have a set of knives in my camper van, for cooking. The van also is used regularly just as a normal vehicle.

I also have a river knife, usually kept in my buoyancy aid in case of entanglement when kayaking.

It’s standard behaviour in the UK to drive a car, done by women and men of every variety, a norm, it’s not standard behaviour to carry a knife around that is something that has been granted (contrary to common sense) to people who have certain beliefs. That right should not have been granted and should be made illegal.

Drivers kill, on average 5 people a day in the UK, but you're not asking for cars to be banned? This is a terrible loss of a life, however you look like a hypocrite for wanting to ban religious knives but have no issues with drivers killing multiple people, and injuring more, every day

That would be an ecumenical matter, Prime Minister 😀

Do you have kitchen knives how did they get in your house?

I think you have a hidden agenda (or not so hidden) against the Sikhs. Probably a fan of modi and want to get rid of anyone who isn’t Hindu.
did your family take part in the hate crimes against Sikhs in India in 1984?

What is the baby and what is the bathwater in this analogy?