31 August 2006

Knife hysteria

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times has the sad news of another Civic stabbing, this time at the Meche nightclub (will we see an ADFA ban on going there?).

Simon Corbell makes the reasonable point the increased penalties would offer little deterrent to carrying a knife. Steve Pratt on the other hand has never seen a problem he didn’t think could be fixed with harsher penalties (his staggering historical ignorance is a testament to the party processes which delivered him into our Legislative Assembly).

“Increasing penalties won’t stop people committing crime,” he [Simon] said.

Opposition police spokesman Steve Pratt said he “couldn’t disagree more”.

“The incidence of knife carrying and violence with knives is on the increase, and there will be no respite until there are tougher laws in place so that people will fear carrying a knife,” he said.

Mr Corbell said he understood the three stabbing fatalities in the ACT in the last year had all involved kitchen knives, and no one could ban kitchen knives.

We can only hope Steve does try and take away our kitchen knives as the electoral backlash would be a thing to behold.

UPDATED: With thanks to Bonfire, the Liberals have put out a media release calling for permits to be required to carry a knife. I hope stores carrying boxcutters keep the form by the checkout.

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what gets me is they make stanhope’s motley crew look like the better option.

it gets better – yet another press release from the ‘liberals’:

“The fact that anyone is carrying a knife suggests they would be prepared to use them as a weapon.”

How is this a fact ?

Whenever i get my meat cleaver out to prepare a bbq im secretly thinking of running through Garema Place attacking the good citizens ?

Nonsensical scare mongering.

Yet more attempts to criminalise citizens.

I’ll quote Walter Lippmann circe late 1940’s:

‘the generation to which we belong is now learning from experience what happens when men retreat from freedom to a coercive organisation of their affairs. Though they promise themselves a more abundant life, they must in practice renounce it, as the organised direction increases, the variety of ends must give way to uniformity. That is the nemesis of the planned society and the authoritarian principle in human affairs.”

if im carrying a knife its because knives are useful tools. ‘the fact’ that someone is carrying a knife does not mean that they will use it as a weapon.

what next ? making kids at karate licence themselves as deadly weapons in case they decide to batter someone to death ?

let’s look at that quote again:

‘The fact that anyone is studying karate suggests they would be prepared to use themselves as a weapon.’

If this is an effective opposition, were doomed to more stanhopia.

I used to work with a pommy guy who showed me how to construct a ‘Manchester Brick’, out of a standard newspaper. It could be used to smash a human skull without much effort, provided the correct (and easily learnt) technique was used…

“A mate of mine was attacked with a milk carton once.”

They build houses entirely out of milk cartons in Nigeria. I kid you not lol

Just noticed the comment by DJ above ” (vii) religious purposes;”

Could carrying a knife for the purpose of beheading unbelievers or sacrificing babies be used as an excuse for carrying a knife in public?

Part of me thinks: what a load of crap. Just a bunch of tossers who wish to be seen to be doing something to stop crime, without actually doing anything to stop crime. Just more ban-it ban-it sqwawking from the retards.

The other part of me thinks: Who cares? I carry a knife (small one on the keyring) all the time, and some rather nasty deadly ones for my recreational pursuits. The police here are basically a reasonable bunch of people and if you aren’t a total f**kwit they aren’t going to chuck you in the slammer over a blade, so long as your reason for having a knife on your person is a good one.

Most laws are an ass, it’s the discretion and common sense with which they are applied that matters – no problem there from our local plods.

And we’re in the ACT so you could use the suffering from banana withdrawel defence in Court

Mr Shab, with the price of bananas at the moment that may just be a better option than paying for them.

I can’t afford bananas at the moment anyway.

You’ll get my banana when you pry it from my cold, dead hand.

barking toad4:04 pm 31 Aug 06

Is pratt a closet member of the labor party?

Why not permits for pointed sticks? Or bananas?

pratt by name and by nature has just issued a press release proposing carry permits for knives.

i recall many many years ago when the vic govt introduced ‘gun registration’

“register your weapons, we have no intention of ever confiscating them”

well several ‘gun amnestys’ later im sure those registers were thoroughly used to track down ‘offenders’ who decided they werent criminals and would prefer to keep their once legal property.

i hope this foolish proposal goes no further than his press release.

apart from utter impracticality (hello, i’d like ot register my parang for a carry permit) its yet another step towards stripping you of your liberty.

Ahh youth gone wild – reminds me of Skid Row circa 1989 … ahh the memories

You could have sent it to Today Tonight as an example of youth gone wild.

i saw a yoof skateboarding down benjamin way this am carrying a baseball bat.

oh for a camera…

The pre-existing penalties are quite sufficient.

Same can’t be said for the people whose job it is to apply those penalties. Unfortunately those people will never have the reality of the situation hit them in the face, as they reside on another planet

Should the ACT ever consider infringement notices, the fundamental difference between these and parking/speeding tickets would be that if the fine is not paid/disputed within the provided timeframe it would turn into an arrest warrant. Presently if you don’t pay your ticket or parking fine, your licence and/or rego gets suspended – that is all, there is no recourse other than that should you not pay. I am sure after a few fines or arrests, the weak little men that feel a need to carry them out on a Saturday night will get the message. I think it is a realistic approach that could be implemented at minimal expense to the government. As we all know the likelihood of anything changing regardless how many people are robbed, stabbed, killed etc is zero.

Thumper: Suprisingly painless 🙂

The other suprise being we ended up with a 9 track album, slightly more than the 5 (maybe 6) track EP we had planned. About half way mixed now, a few more mix issues to sort through.

Thumper: LOL.

Tool (your choice of userID, not mine ;-): I’m not really that convinced how effective infringement notices would be. The fact is, people still speed and park where they shouldn’t. These morons carrying knives around will probably continue to do so, regardless of the penalty. They don’t *expect* to get caught.

I doubt ADFA will ban people from Meche. The stabbing at Cube just gave them reason to do it.

Absent Diane10:37 am 29 Aug 06

yes messiah danman

Who wants to join my new religion – Thugs anon – teh perks are we get to carry baseball bats – concealed knives and pistols and get to commit mass kool aid suicide at the high moon so we can join the tail of a comet that will deliver us to the utopian afterlife planet called generica 123

Scary thing is some quacks will believe me

the knife isn’t the problem, its the people. Think about it, a big enough cross can be used to stab someone.

Has anyone seen the movie the godfather? I think it’s in number 2 when they kill the guy with a pair of glasses. I don’t think the knife is the issue. People these days get angry quickly and for no reason, I think the biggest problem these days is tolerance.

Absent Diane9:17 am 29 Aug 06

religious purposes can suck my asshole.. unless of course it is for ritual suicide…it’s the mindless religious drones that are likely to stab someone due to decreased mental capacity and/or inability to think for themselves.

Give the police the power to enforce the legislation. $1000 on the spot fine (just like speeding ticket) with 30 days to pay or dispute. Do neither and the fine turns into a warrant and you go to jail for the relevant time period.

Infringement notices seem to work well in other jurisdictions, perhaps it is time we gave it a go here, and it won’t make a difference to the general population who are law abiding citizens.

Sikhs for one are required to carry a small knife of a certain design as a commandment of their faith.

religious purposes?

no, but it will make the people inside the venue safer.

I think the metal-detector idea is good but wouldn’t stop some hoodlum from getting one out of a nearby car/friends car.

or maybe they should do what most sydney nightclubs do, metal detector on the door.

ACT legislation allows the possession of a knife in public. The offence relating to possessing a knife in a public place hinges on the part which states “without reasonable excuse”.

“382Possession of knife in public place or school
(1) A person shall not, without reasonable excuse, have a knife in his or her possession in a public place or school.

Maximum penalty: 10 penalty units, imprisonment for 6 months or both.

(2) Without limiting what may constitute a reasonable excuse, it is a reasonable excuse for a person to have a knife in his or her possession in a public place or school if—
(a) the possession is necessary or reasonable for, or for a purpose incidental to—
(i) the lawful pursuit of the person’s occupation; or
(ii) the preparation or consumption of food; or
(iii) participation in a lawful entertainment, recreation or sport; or
(iv) the exhibition of knives for retail or other trade purposes; or
(v) an organised exhibition by knife collectors; or
(vi) the wearing of an official uniform; or
(vii) religious purposes; or
(b) the possession is of a prescribed kind.

(3) It is not a reasonable excuse for a person to have a knife in his or her possession in a public place or school solely for the purpose of self-defence or the defence of another person.”

Two things come to mind…

Firstly, the penalty seems appropriate but will the Courts enforce them? Unlikely…

Secondly, maybe the nightclubs will be more selective about who they let in and search each person as a condition of entry.

I doubt the guy was stabbed ‘just because’. It would be over some stupid thing like ‘You lookin at my girlfriend? yeah ? i’ll stab you’ *stab*

i think that the knife isn’t the problem, it’s the people. If someone wants to stab you, there’s plenty of other things they can use, specially in a club (bottles, etc). Many people carry knifes on them, and not all of them carry them to stab people.

All depends on their definition of reason to believe huh ?

Although – it would be f*cking hysterical… and justified – if they were on their way home from Carlo’s in Watson

Dunno about 3am – but there would be a few freelancing cooks floating around Civic with about half a dozen scary-arse knives around 12…

Danman – I can’t see a cop pulling up some 1st year apprentice in check pants and a red toolbox, and capsicum spraying them for saying “Knives” when asked “what’s in the box”…

Although – it would be f*cking hysterical…

I would imagine that there are a fairly limited number of legitimate reasons to be carrying a filleting knife in Civic at 3.00am on a Sunday morning … but hey, I might be wrong.

Knife carrying is obviously something that would be extremelely difficult to police. I guess it would be up to police to distinguish if the person carrrying a knife would use it as a weapon.

Danman – it’s the nature of the world we live in. Like your cleaver tale, I too recall, with some nostalgia, taking my firearm to be repaired at a Melbourne gunsmith in the mid-1980s. I parked about a hundred metres away on Franklin street and walked to the shop carrying the shotgun. These days I doubt I would have got 20m before being surrounded by police and pinned to the ground …

People are going to get so paranoid that we will have to keep our knives in knife safes – register our knife serial numbers with law enforcement agencies and have specific clubs away from residential areas were people can go and test their chopping skills ( after the obligitary police record check ) – gone are the days of apprentice chefs lugging around their red toolboxes on busses to get to Tafe – I can see them explaining why they were late just because they had a beard and got on a bus with a tool box full of knives. What next – banning people in public because they pose a threat to the safety of the common public. Simply put I think its bullshit.

a knife is just a tool.

more people are stabbed to death with kitchen knives in domestics than in the ‘street’.

i have carried a pocket knife since i was a schoolkid. they are uesful tools. i will not stop carrying a knife.

i reject this mania for describing all knives as weapons.

a piece of wood can be used to beat someone brains in or frame a picture. shall we define all lumber as ‘weapons’ ?

madness

Absent Diane10:41 am 28 Aug 06

maybe we should just imprison everyone… and let out those who don’t commit crimes.

I remember working at a manuka fine dining location PRE Coles era – having a head chef who lived about 200m from manuka.
One day I had to walk to his house to get some produce from the garden – imagine the looks I got walking to his house with a blunt old clever in my hand to hack some vegies out of his garden. This was all topped off by stopping a police car on the zebra crossing and giving the boys in blue a huge smile and wink – no questions asked.

Perhaps we need laws to imprison idiots?

Oh hang-on most of the pollies would end up in the lock up then.

Maybe idiots should be forced to be smarter. Thats it compulsory “get smart” courses. Is that a good idea Chief

Absent Diane10:02 am 28 Aug 06

yep harsher penalties won’t stop these kind of crimes. The kind of idiots that carry around knives with intent to stab are exactly that… idiots.

The only time Steve makes sense is when he says Canberra needs more police. It is a pity he goes overboard with these other ideas.
– So on a related note – this huge increase in the AFP that is happening – will that result in any more police in Canberra?

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