The real cause of knife crime? It’s hidden in a fog of cannabis smoke
by Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday:
Does any powerful person in this country ever thin
k? It has been quite astonishing watching the alleged debate about knife crime over the past few days. Not a single thought took place.
There is a very good reason why people generally don’t stab each other. Normal, sane humans recoil from the very idea of plunging a sharp blade into a fellow creature, let alone driving it so deep that it is bound to kill.
The crime has been rare because nobody wanted to commit it. Yet now we have a significant minority who do not recoil. So what has changed?
It is not because knives are more easily available. There have always been plenty of knives. You do not need some menacing, wickedly curved weapon to end a life.
Every home in this country contains blades that could kill, in the hands of a person who wanted to use them that way.
Even if they didn’t, the person who wants to kill can fashion a deadly weapon from all kinds of readily available things.
The crucial factor is his willingness to use it.
The problem has, in fact, been growing for years, concealed by the brilliant skills of our paramedics and doctors. Night after night, they have saved the lives of appalling numbers of stab victims.
If we still had the medical facilities and techniques of 50 years ago, this change would have been obvious for some time.
So what is it that has changed? School exclusions? No. Global warming? No. Police numbers? Oh, forgive me while I laugh. The police have been absent from the streets of this country for decades now, reacting to crime after it happens and so losing control of it.
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