Ever since civilisations were formed many thousands of years ago man has had to deal
with individuals and groups of people raising problems through illegal and immoral ac-
tion, and today is no change. With weapons such as the knife costing as little as one
pound and available from just about any local shop it’s no surprise that we are faced with
the issues and concerns that we have in today’s society.

So, to begin with we must define what a weapon is. A weapon is an implement or tool
that can cause bodily harm or damage when used in an aggressive manor. Wikipedia de-
fines a weapon as ‘a tool which can be used during combat to kill or , to destroy property,
or to otherwise render resources non-functional or unavailable. It may be used to attack
and defend, and consequently also to threaten. The use of weapons has been recorded
since the advent of cave painting, and the process has been formulated resulting in both
martial arts and strategic doctrines’.

So with a broad mind to weapons, we can begin to look at what is more commonly used
in today's society, and what implications this has on us. It’s safe to say that in the UK at
the moment knife crime is the most dominant type of weapon motivated attack, although
having said that gun crime within the United Kingdom is also increasing rapidly. So,
with anything as small as a penknife concealed in a coat pocket right the way up to a
submachine gun openly visible around somebody's neck it’s no surprise that we as a free-
style club take every measure to ensure all our training is based partly around defeating
an armed adversary.

The honest truth is that there isn’t really much that can be done to crack down on this
type of crime. Man has used weapons ever since the ‘caveman’ era and man will continue
to use weapons until we are extinct. Governments try to beat the problem with weapon
amnesties and more heavily armed police officers, but this is a small effort when you
consider how many knives you have in your kitchen draw right now, and how easily you
could slip one into your pocket on the way out the door. The truth be told, if your stupid
enough to use a weapon, then you will be able to, and usually with considerable ease.

The main problem is that people just aren’t educated enough on gun crime and knife
crime. In 68% of all cases [independent source] a stabbing is simply ‘accidental’. It’s all
about image. A knife is drawn to intimidate the adversary. One thing leads to another,
and before you know were you are, the attacker panics and takes a swing or the adver-
sary falls onto the knife. Either way it’s not usually intentional, how ever it is the power
that is received by the holder that drives these people to go to such measures.

It is almost impossible to stop those more determined attackers. For the type of people
that take a weapon or especially prepare a firearm there is nothing that we can do other
than remain vigilant, because the odds of uncovering this is almost nil.

As for spur of the moment attackers, we can prevent this. When you feel your self
heating up, simply remove yourself from a situation. If you do go to grab something, drop
it or smash it against a wall or table, not the head of the guy that you’ve just had an argu-
ment with.

The basic fact is that it is highly illegal, and in the UK for instance you will receive a 5
year minimum sentence now for just carrying a knife.

The only thing we can advise is that you leave the knife at home. It doesn’t make you
hard and it doesn’t make you tough. The home truth is a simple one, if you carry a knife,
you can not use it, if you do you will be spending a greater part of your life in prison. If
you draw it , you stand to spend at least 5 years of your life behind bars. Is it really worth
that?

If you are one that enjoys fighting, or finds your self in similar situations quite often,
do not coward back to using weapons. Stick to martial arts as a source of self defence.
Even if you use the knife in self defence, you are still liable to be charged for carrying an
illegal weapon.

We can make a difference in today’s society if we choose to be a part of it. Do not re-
spond to knife crime by taking one with you, because you are adding to the problem. It is
not necessary, and it causes more hurt and frustration than you can imagine. If you
choose to draw a knife out, then ultimately you are choosing to kill somebody.

Picture somebody you love, and now picture them being stabbed to death. Feel that
emotion you would feel. Not very nice is it? Don’t be a mug - leave the knife at home.


-- Just a little something to think about. The article it's self is heading for our website, but we thought we'd just stick it on here.. just to maybe inspire some responses reguarding knife crime.

Actually, (attempted) murders or "More serious wounding or other act endangering life" crime is going down:



Possession of weapons is down by 2% from last year



Those are the official fixed statistics from the Home Office.

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page108.asp

You can't stop knife crime by telling people to leave weapons at home. I bet if you were REALLY angry with someone you'd contemplate killing them and if you were weak-minded then that's what you would do and without a second thought to it either. People don't think about consequences when they're angry, which is why educating people won't work as effectively.

Also, if you were walking in a notoriously dangerous place at night time, you'd probably want to take something like a knife to arm yourself for defensive reasons - I know I would.

That's not an accident, that's carelessness. It's only an accident if its both unintended and unexpected. If person A is waving a knife at person B, its not unexpected that person B is going to get cut by that knife. An accident would be more like if the machines at the knife factory malfunctioned suddenly and exploded, making the knives fly through the air and stab people... and even then, we're assuming that nobody knew that there was a problem with the machines beforehand.

Anyway, it'd be nice if we could stop assaults by telling would-be assailants not to stab people. We could also tell would-be rapists, thieves, and murderers not to go rape, burgle and murder people, and remind them of the consequences of doing these things. But people know that they aren't supposed to be doing these things already, so I don't think that reminding them how bad it is will do much. The people who do these things are aware of the consequences, but they either don't care or are in too much of a frenzy to stop and think. Yeah, the best thing would be for them to leave their knife at home, I certainly won't argue with that. I'm just not entirely sure that people are willing to listen, since it seems that they've already been told at least once.

hey if every had a gun and it was free will do what ever with it ,what do you think will happen ?

i think that owning a weapon is something to do with fact that if you aren't allowed something, it makes you want it more. As weapons aren't allowed, people want them more and so more people have access to using a weapon to hurt somebody. Which, when you think about it, is pretty pathetic.

Weapons of any sort will exist forever. Everybody knows that. If humans could not feel physical or emotional
pain, then weapons would not have been invented. The purpose of a weapon is to cause physical and/or
emotional pain. A person being stabbed is feeling physical pain, and the family and friends of the victim
are feeling emotional pain. The problem is that pain would stop intentional attacks, but accidents would be
on the rise as the lack of physical pain means that people would not know that things could hurt them.

I personally think someone should gather an army and destroy every modern weapons factory. EVERY ONE...and then the labs for weapons research, and then the weapons themselves, and then the missiles, the nukes, the tanks, the subs, the planes, and finally the weapons of the army itself. And then hire a load of blacksmiths and equip them with swords, pikes, siege weapons
then,xecute all weapons scientists and weapons factory owners (heck, they are the real murderers anyway)
and finally pass a law forbidding anyone to research weapons, or to make saltpetre ( the white powder neccesary to make gunpowder)

weapons will always exist, but what humanity can do is make sure that the weapons in question are more likely to kill soldiers than civilians. For what medieval army that wasnt commanded by an evil bastard killed civilians? look at saladin's army...one of the most fierce medieval armies in the world, but how many prisoners did saladin kill? One. Uno. Reynauld de Chatillion...he may have killed more i dont know, but not very many at all...whatever, the majority of the men he killed were not prisoners or civilians, but enemy soldiers who's business it was to fight.
compare that with today - every single modern military operation, whether its carried out by a democratic "good" country or not, is bound to kill civilians when they shoot off their bombs and missiles.

and now think....we have the united nations, democracy, moral values... no tyrannical regime is ever looked on favourably...imagine how little civilians would die in wars, imagine how little wars there would be if you kept the moral values/united nations/democracy of modern society, and took away the guns and modern weapons of modern society

It sounds like a great idea, but the problem is that laying down all our weapons will never happen.
In war, people will always want more advanced weapons than the enemy. Even if everybody went
back to medieval times in terms of weapons, in the future, we still would come back to the same
state.

There is also the problem that somebody will come and attack us after we have laid all our weapons down.
We have to keep our current weapons and make sure that they stay powerful. The trick is to only use them
to uphold justice. A person is evil when they use a weapon against somebody or something for some other reason
than upholding justice.

The only real solution to long lasting peace is gradual. We have to take future technology and make sure that
it doesn't go in the wrong hands.

For example: The United States Government wants to be the first to have weapons in outer space. Other
countries don't trust the US.

In my opinion, the best thing to do is to make sure that nobody gets weapons in space. That way, nobody
feels threatened.

Who knows how long it will take. Ten years, fifty years, a hundred years, a thousand years. Whenever we get as
close to peace as possible, I hope that children of the future will look at our history books and think how
much of war-hawks the people of today and the past are.