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

[BritIndianGal]

A more sensible thread this time. I think all carrying of knives should be banned with no religious exemptions allowed , the law should be called the Henry Nowak Bill ....in memory of the young man who lost his life

Drug driving?

Sikhs have a martial, saint-soldier tradition that dates back centuries and is a core tenet of the faith. The Sikh regiment is one of the most decorated military units in the world. The martial tradition is embedded in their religion, culture, music, history and literature. Rubber, plastic and imaginary kirpans really wouldn’t cut it.

In all the time that Sikhs have been living in the U.K, no one has been murdered by a Sikh kirpan. 50,000 knife crimes in the U.K. last year, and not one involved a kirpan. More people have been killed by football hooligans in football matches. Doesn’t mean we should ban football.

This Vikram Digwa person was a deranged psycho. He stabbed Henry and then filmed him for an hour trying to get away. Then he lied. He had his family lie.He lied throughout the court case. He was a throughly despicable human being, but he was a lone actor. All Sikhs should not be collectively punished for his actions.

Years ago I always had a Swiss Army knife in my handbag. It was so useful in so many ways. The actual blades had a multitude of uses from cutting up a Camambert on a picnic to opening a parcel. And of course there were the other tools such as scissors, tweezers, the tiny screwdrivers and one tool that was the perfect size for unclogging a Tippex bottle.

Sadly, I haven't felt able to carry one for years. There are loads of good reasons for carrying such a useful tool and it should be possible to deploy common sense to distinguish between safe and legitimate use and a threat. But seemingly nobody is prepared to deploy common sense these days.

Its alrrady illegal to murder people. Banning knives wont make any difference.

Knives don’t kill people, people kill people type thing? I think in general we ban / control things to make it harder for people to kill people. Otherwise we’d be seeing the sort of mass shootings that are prevalent in the U.S.

Guns have one purpose - to kill. There is no other use for them

Knives, as is abundantly clear from this thread, have 1001 legitimate uses by all sectors of society. The most lethal blades used solely for killing are already banned as is my very useful foraging knife which I already cannot now carry outside legally.

I don't know if this would be appropriate or not but if the followers of that branch of Sikhism have carrying these knives openly as part of their religion , why can't they be fake? Just rubber ones, like from films?

So who is going to police this ?

Off MN, in the real world. I learned that the whole reason the kirpan is the novelty size it now is, is because when the British (that's "us" to a large number of posters here) occupied India they decided that their decree overrode religious expression and insisted the kirpans were novelty size. Not quite sure what that adds to the debate, but it does rather illustrate that this is hardly a 2026 - or even 1926 issue. Rather puts modern discussion about foreign countries sticking their nose into British affairs into perspective.

Nah. When someone wants to stab someone, the law doesn't usually bother them.

A Swiss Army knife is legal provided the blade is under three inches.

You don’t need to justify carrying such a knife.

(Just don’t carry it as an offensive weapon).

So shocked and terrified by the anti immigrant protests in NI and Glasgow this week ....they attacked anyone looking non white

Terrifed to send DC to school .....