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.

Yes precisely this.

Agree OP; knives and other implements are part of everyday life. I have a shed with gardening tools, a sewing basket with scissors etc that could all be used to harm. There may be issues re easy accessibility of knives but this does not get to the root of the problem and is deflecting from the main issues in my opinion. I live in the Midlands and the scale of knife crime is dreadful (there have been 3 serious knife incidents local to me now, in just one week) so hearing this attempt at blaming Amazon is frustrating. There has to be a much stronger, determined attempt to understand what is going on and to deal with it.

The state of the law for teens carrying knives needs to change it. It is toothless really.

The consequences of carrying knives should be much tougher. The UK has been able to regulate other weapons or things used as weapons quite successfully,

There should be an amnesty as there was in the 1980s. Give people the chance to hand them in. Afterwards, then you start using the system. It can be used for rioters, it can be used for knife carriers.

@bombastix They have had knife amnesties where knives can be handed in. They are not a sustained strategy for obvious reasons. Anyone can get hold of a knife from a kitchen. It’s that simple to kill. The knives do not have to be bought from Amazon. Therefore the problem is what is wrong with the killers.

Exactly - Zuckerberg seems to be relishing Trump being in and is calling for "more male energy" in the workplace, so are we amazed men are being brainwashed into being aggressive and violent? If you then add the underfunding of SEN and the drop out of school hole so many kids find themselves in with no one looking out for them, the authorities passing this family from pillar to post despite their calls for help - this is not going to be the last time this happens and the only reason it was knives was because we have banned guns, making a crossbow or knife easier to get hold of. Women are killed by many things regularly - you can't take all men's hands away.

It's about an evil scumbag. A piece of misogynist racist filth.

So instead of it's the fault of the knife, we now want to blame "autistic kids".

They vast majority of knife crime is committed by kids who have no special needs. Most of them go to school. And increasingly violence amongst young people is being committed by young women and girls. This is not Minority Report and we can't predict who will commit a crime, when or how. Labelling people as risks because of their mental state is as stupid as blaming Amazon for selling knives, and will solve nothing.

Perhaps stop and search for knives should be introduced. Targeting anyone wearing a hoody with the hood up.

I'm not blaming anyone apart from the repeated underfunding of SEN services by the Tories and the radicalisation by social media giants https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/07/staggeringly-high-number-of-people-with-autism-on-uk-prevent-scheme

Autism does not equate to violence. I have ND children and if anything they're more vulnerable to abuse and/or violence from neurotypical people. It was a neurotypical boy who assaulted my son at school and a neurotypical woman who abused him in the workplace. Its very easy to blame this unfathomable horror on something to distance ourselves from it but the fact is, evil people exist across the whole spectrum of humanity.

No one is saying it does. It can cause hyper fixations though, which happened to be channelled into murder in this instance. If we have kids not in school with access to the internet and megalomaniacs like Zuckerberg telling them to effectively "man up" what do you think is going to be the outcome?

@Expletive makes no sense. Public resources should be used according to intelligence. Like drugs.

I would suggest you sweep schools, train stations, buses etc.

This country has been successful in regulating weapons. Knives are different but not that much.

@MrsSkylerWhite DC can be deprived of their liberty for a number of reasons and removed from parental control. There are deprivation of liberty orders where dc are sent to secure units. They are usually full and we need more of them! It takes a lot to get to a court and for one to be agreed. The LA pursues them. The young person and parent are also represented.

The difficulty here is that he committed crimes which were trivialized and so was his mental health and his wellbeing. There should perhaps be lower triggering of such court appearances. Police accompanying social workers might be one. Knives being carried might be another. The police did not investigate yet knew the child had a long history of criminal behaviour and had received calls about him.

Everyone has knives in their homes.

It isn't the issue.

The responsibility is on the individual but there are wider issues. Enough to write a book.

His family.
Their background.
Intergenerational trauma.
Race. Of perpetrator & victims.
Sex. Of perpetrator & victims
Covid lockdowns
Public service cuts
The internet. access to information/shopping
Radicalisation
Regulation loopholes
Education
Social services
Youth services
Justice services/lack of provision/lack of deterrent
The glorification of violence
Alienation
Building security
...

You are generalising though. My autistic son was out of school due to neurotypical abuse within school. He was safeguarded at home away from that. So to write that kids out of school accessing the internet is going to lead to a murderous outcome is a potentially damaging stereotype because not everyone out of school goes down a dark hole of the internet. And besides, whether you are in school or not, all young people have potential access to the internet. Why focus on autistic people? We should be safeguarding ALL children and young people.

I think we need to make it harder to buy knives yes, but it’s clear this vile scumbag would have used another means if he couldn’t have accessed a knife.

Oh I’m going to get searched on every dog walk then.

Probably not every dog walk. I doubt the police have the manpower for that.

True.

Actually you pretty much did say that it was all SEN. And you are still fixating - if I may borrow your term - on autistic or neuro-diverse children being the problem. What about the others, who happen to be the vast majority of perpetrators of violence, who are hearing the same messages? You are identifying a causal factor, yes - but you are saying that one very small part of the aufdience of that message are to blame. Autistic children (or adults) are no more likely to knife someone than any other child. And suggesting they are is not only wrong, it is discrimination, pure and simple.

Difficult conversations/discussions need to be had which probably are not very palatable and are unlikely under a labour government….

More institutional and residential places for mental health and those with violent disorders.

A frank discussion about the demographic and ethnicity of those who commit these types of crimes and who carry knives

More stop and search with zero tolerance for carrying knives

Quesions around 1st and 2nd generation immigration and the demographics/values of who we are letting into the country

Less British citizenships given out making it easier to deport those who break the law

Deportation of those who commit crimes with zero tolerance and families of those who commit serious crimes.

@NordicwithTeen My ds is autistic, as am I. We haven't got bad bones in our bodies. We have lots of empathy. Yes there are fixations but I think you've got to be from a pretty toxic environment or be unwell to actually want to actively hurt people. Being ND has fuck all to do with it and I'm sick of that being pushed like we're some freaks.

Agreed. Its one of the easiest weapons to find. Every house has a sharp knife. If he hadn't had access to a knife he could have used a vehicle or acid or anything really.

Restrictions on knife sales won't have an effect. Increasing sentences for carrying a knife won't have an effect (look at the death penalty for hun use in america).

The only thing that will help is early identification of children who are likely to get into trouble when they are older and various agencies working with them in a preventative capacity to keep them engaged in a normal life. This is what Glasgow did successfully to massively reduce knife crime in the 80s / 90s.

In this case, and others as I linked to, the perpetrator was autistic. By ignoring their increased risk of getting into such situations no one is helping them.

Agree. Hyper-focus is a better term to describe my family and it can be a positive thing because they can develop huge skill in a particular area which can be a good for society. Its a pity this has been spun as something negative because its this sort of thing that feeds the ableist attitudes my family have to deal with.