To think that the law needs changing about right to protect yourself.

[NumbFeeling]

Things are getting out of hand in the country, and the level of violence and sexual assaults is out of control.

AIBU to think that the law needs changing about how we can defend ourselves? For example, if we were allowed to carry pepper sprays someone may have been able to stop further stabbings last night.

I’m not talking about carrying weapons, I’m talking about something that would immobile a killer, which doesn’t maim them. I don’t understand why they aren’t legal TBH.

Police arrive after an attack. Incidents aren’t being prevented, so at the time it’s you against an armed person, and you have no chance.

Things are out of control now, and I think we need to be able to at least have a chance.

AIBU to say we should be allowed to carry pepper sprays or similar?

Security guards are everywhere for “just in case” less training than a police officer less wage

Maybe we should have police in every carriage, every hotel, every arena, theatre, literally every street corner...

It would mean nearly everyone would have to be an officer but...

With no power of arrest, can’t be armed with tasers, batons, or firearms, you’d still need 20,000-30,000 of them based on the calculations earlier, would still cost an absolute fortune……

OK, how about we give men a curfew then? Far cheaper and more effective than any other options.

Big enough for you?

Oh thats a great idea.... we could ALL just train as police officers!

Except the wrong 'uns, obviously

Run. If you can’t run hide. If you can’t hide fight.

But with years of kick-boxing and having been in a few emergency situations, if someone with a knife wants you dead, you’re dead. No amount of self-defense is going to work.

And I’ve seen pepper/bear spray used in enclosed spaces by drug dealers. You do not want twitchy, batshit members of the public letting it off every ten minutes because someone looked funny on a bus. Every asthmatic in the country would be dead. And all the criminals would have it.

Great idea. Pilot scheme based on crime statistics and the nationalities/ethnicities creating the most chaos first. This would probably see a rapid reduction in crime.

• If they commit an offence say threatening behaviour, theft (however small) etc automatic curfew for 6 months.

Per capita we're locking up men, and the Royal Family.

Sounds great.

No, I just think that unless they are working we make them stay home after say 9pm.

Only issue is domestic violence would go up. Reform don't care about that though.

No, I just think that unless they are working we make them stay home after say 9pm.

Fair enough. When can we roll this out?

Special powers can be extended such as the extended capabilities of community support officers or railway security. Not a huge problem to develop and extend the role.
People in employment pay taxes which basically pays for the extra job openings.

It's crazy to me that people will come up with all sorts of batshit ideas for the situation where it's too late and you can't do anything. If someone is rampaging around an enclosed space with a knife and you don't have specific training and a cool head (and a bit of positional luck) then you can't do anything about it apart from run or hide. Bad luck.

But no one comes up with the ideas to prevent the violent thing from happening in the first place, because it's easier to believe that some people are just evil and you can't do anything about them than to actually go deep in terms of the causes (at a guess, and this is mere speculation, but this incident is giving all the signs of something directly caused by the denuding of mental health resources in this country over the past 15 years).

It's actually not random acts of terrible violence that make me despair, it's how normal people react to them.

Folk have been carrying knifes since they were invented

I was a teenage boy in 80's Scotland, and I had knifes. The ones I had are illegal now.

Do you remember the Rambo knifes that came out about then? They were for sale in almost every seaside souvenir shop in the country.

We had stabbings too. I remember at least one stabbing murder in my town in the 80's.

Before the Rambo knifes there were the flick knifes, and before that the razors, as used by the Glasgow razor kings.

We have always had knifes and knife crime. What we did not have was internet news were near every stabbing makes national news.

The best course of action is to run away, although this isn't always possible.
So many people have this hero fantasy that they could take on the attacker and win, especially if armed.
However the when faced with someone who has no fear of being hurt you will almost always lose out. Whether they are having a psychotic break, are ideologically motivated to martyr themselves or have taken substances there will be no fear or hesitation on their part.
Unfortunately there is no real solution in this situation and why all good self defence courses will say your only priority is to gain separation from the attacker in any way possible.
I do applaud the guys on the train who jumped in to protect others, but as we saw a number of those were critically injured.

I heard an interview on the radio today where they were talking about security on trains. I don’t think people realise that British Transport Police are mostly funded by the train companies, and they are not part of the police force that you see on the streets. So, its all good to say there should be more police on trains, but I doubt the shareholders are going to take a drop in their dividends to to pay for them, they will just raise ticket prices even further.

It was a horrible attack but the reality is that violent crime has been falling for some time. Homicides are half what they were 20 years ago despite a rise in population.
There are many people in politics and the media who want to spin this story of social collapse and rising crime but it actually isn't true.
This awful event is very very rare, and while I know that is no help to the poor victims, it should be reassuring to everybody else that the chance of it happening to you is very small.

And there were male passengers putting themselves in the line of danger to protect other people and give them a chance to escape

There were men who rushed into the horrific incident at the dance school too

Police investigating previous stabbings

It's all so predictable now.

I wonder how many other chances were missed to lock up this piece of shit so he can't harm the public.

Again the institutions meant to keep us safe are failing us time after time after time.

This. How on earth have you not seen reporting of the incredibly brave men who directly intervened and without a shadow of a doubt saved lives? One of them a train worker, still in a critical condition in hospital.
You’re seeing what you want to see.

Obviously they are racist bigots who didn't respect Anthony Williams culture....no wonder the police arrived so quickly.

ID cards should help sort this out. Facial recognition will give police a better background on these people when they first offend on highstreets.

I watched a man on the news with horrific head injuries and his hand slashed up who had seen people running to the buffet cart so faced the attacker and kept him distracted for as long as he could so people could get to safety before the man began to slash at him and he managed to escape to a toilet, seeing the people in the buffet cart were locked in safely

Oh get over your anti-police ravings

I think we need a law banning face coverings in public - especially at demonstrations. No exemptions for religious coverings, sorry. Religion doesn’t trump public safety in a secular country.