Reframing the Southport killings as being about knife availability

[Macrodatarefiner]

AIBU to think that's the least of it?

I can't stop thinking about it, it's so horrific. The poor families and neighbours and everyone involved or touched by this. Hearing it said that its somehow Amazon's fault sounds completely absurd to me. He produced ricin for goodness sake, if he didn't get the knife from Amazon it would have been somewhere else. This incident should (and will I believe) change history. And it has NOTHING to do with where or how he got hold of a knife.

Politicians can't address their own failings. Something must be done - this is 'something' - so let's do it even though it completely misses the point.

If he'd had bought the knife weeks later he would have done so legally. The knife isn't the issue and I agree op, it's a distraction.

It's not the knife. If he couldn't get it from Amazon he would have got it from elsewhere, or another weapon.

It's about radicalisation. He was referred to Prevent 3 times.

It's about the fact that authorities knew he was a danger yet did not stop him.
I'm not sure whether it's just about Prevent though.
He must be seriously psychologically disturbed to be so obsessed with violence and killing. I'm not sure whether that is because he was radicalized or had a serious mental health issue or both.

The utter lack of availability of intervention when someone is so 'sick in the head' (and I use that phrase specifically for this man and to distinguish from the many people dealing with mental illness without impacting others) is alarming. We must do better and invest quickly and if necessary change the law. The horror of the man who killed the 2 students and caretaker in Nottingham also springs to mind.

I agree. He'd have got the knife elsewhere. His kitchen, by shoplifting, theft, whatever. Twiddling about with Amazon is fiddling whilst Rome burns.

Yanbu, I have knives, a car, matches etc etc, I could very well kill someone with something I own. Most people don’t do this and most people own knives. It’s ridiculous and it’s shirking responsibility.

It's a huge part of it. Knife crime is getting out of control they have to at least try to do something

Watching it on Sky news is horrendous. One of the girls ran away & he ran out and dragged her back in. Absolutely horrendous 😢

I'm curious op, how do you believe this incident will change history?

The change I would like to see is a huge investment in, and systemic change of, the SEND and mental health support for children and young people.

Absolutely agree - it has nothing to do with the availability of knives. Pretty much any everyday item can be used as a weapon when in the wrong hands. It's obviously easier for politicians to drone on about limiting knife sales to gaslight the population into thinking they're " doing something ". Utter nonsense. What we really need is effective services - from social services to mental health provision to appropriate sen support to a prevent programme that works... but this all costs money and they'd rather spend their time and energy elsewhere. I don't want to make this into a bash Labour post, but the writings on the wall as far as I can see - the public have had their fill of ineffectual government and will start demanding change. Enough really is enough.

It's not really connected with knives.

It's the degree of autonomy he had. Weapons, internet searches on massacres, social services needing the police to be present, and a fascination with extreme violence.

I am not into conspiracy theories. But how does someone who is so conspicuously manipulative and obsessed with violence end up in a house with a cache of actual weapons, not just a kitchen knife? And talk about his fantasies for years?

Although knives isnt the main cause, it is a factor that is easy to control and action can be taken straight away. But i agree it shouldn’t distract from the other causes.

who is blaming Amazon?

While knife crime is horrendous, the human being using it is the problem, not the knife. I agree that it shouldn't be easier to get knives online than it is offline (which it currently is) and that needs addressing - I believe Yvette Cooper had some ideas about this, not sure how practical they are.

But focusing on where he got the knife from is irrelevant. He could have got one out of the kitchen drawer. The real problem is why people commit knife crime. Gangs and drugs are a big part of the problem. This case is different but equally problematic. The state failed to do what it needed to do.

Machetes and zombie knives ARE a different matter and do need addressing separately.

Like issues involving alcohol, smoking and social media, the focus is yet again on arbitrary age limits (which don’t cost money) rather than investing in mental health and support services (which do).

The killer was referred to a multitude of different agencies and clearly had horrific intentions and probably a serious mental illness. The fact he purchased a knife a few weeks before legally allowed is here nor there, really.

@MJconfessions Most of today's papers

THIS.

This is the glaring problem that any of us at the mercy of these inadequate systems know.

I have not seen one report talking about this. Every report is skirting over this and focusing on knives from Amazon ( give me a break), and Prevent. This doesn't even lie at the foot of Prevent.

What service provision was available in the lead up to all this to support his clearly deranged mental status. Was he officially diagnosrd as Autistic and were other co morbids assessed for? If some significant personality disorder is responsible for his obvious mental derangement, how much access did he have to professional child psychiatrists.

My guess will be fuck all

I feel sorry for his parents. I bet they knew no help was coming.

They're focusing on some bizarre idea that, if he'd been a few months older, that would have been fine.

That's if he hadn't used any number of everyday objects that you could kill somebody with, should you be so minded and determined.

Even if the knife had been the only option, if he couldn't legally buy one, he could have gone into a shop and stolen one from the shelf. Shop staff are too frightened to stop people with stolen baby milk, so they're hardly going to tackle somebody who's wielding a knife.

He'd only have used something else. Knife or not, the only thing that could have stopped this was appropriate psychiatric intervention. Something denied to so many of us.

I also was a bit 🤨 when I first saw the focus being on Amazon and his ability to get the knife. Much easier to blame a corporation as opposed to his family, school and the authorities he was known to. His dad stopped him getting in a taxi to his old school not long before the attack . But, sure, let’s blame Amazon.

The killer was referred to a multitude of different agencies and clearly had horrific intentions and probably a serious mental illness. The fact he purchased a knife a few weeks before legally allowed is here nor there, really.

This ^

I don’t think the label of mental illness is particularly helpful because ‘illness’ suggests that it’s in some way treatable. You can give him labels that describe how he sees the world and his pattern of thinking but this is who he is and always will be. When it comes to treatment, those labels are of no more use than calling him ‘evil’ or ‘mad’. He’s not suffering from schizophrenia, where medication could make him functional. He doesn’t hear voices or have black outs. He’s obsessed with violence and finally carried out the kind of horrifically violent attack he’d been planning for years.

Can you even have an Amazon account if you're under 18? He could have very easily ordered it with a parent's/older person's account.

Indeed, if he lived in a house with a kitchen, they most probably already had big sharp knives anyway.

Utterly absurd to blame Amazon for this - any more than it would make sense to blame Ford if somebody deliberately drove one of their cars into a crowd.

This argument makes some sense for guns because a person can do so much damage in such a short time. You could perhaps extend the argument to large swords, but those require actual
skill and strength to use well.

a person with a garden variety knife is no different than a person who has grabbed any other object that can be turned into a weapon if desired.

I’m an artist. Half the objects in my studio could be used to hurt someone. I have an entire drawer of different sizes of awls. Should we ban those too?

Agree, and there are already enough knife restrictions for normal people (I've been asked for ID to buy normal cutlery sets with butter knives in them). Clearly he got around them...

This . And this is why the narrative is where he went shopping for knives FFS.

It's deflection, and stupid deflection at that. Every kitchen has lethal knives. The problem isn't the weapon, it's the person who wielded it.