There are those who will be rather hard on the judge here. for the suggestion is that knife crime is caused by all our domestic knives being too sharp and pointy. We should thus file them down, despike them, and teenagers in rug gangs won’t get stabbed.
Yes, I too struggle slightly with the logic here. But then we must recall that this is rather the purpose of judges:
A judge has proposed a nationwide programme to file down the points of kitchen knives as a solution to the country’s soaring knife crime epidemic.
Last week in his valedictory address, retiring Luton Crown Court Judge Nic Madge spoke of his concern that carrying a knife had become routine in some circles and called on the Government to ban the sale of large pointed kitchen knives.
They are, in fact, supposed to be out of touch. They are there to apply the King’s Justice (not all have quite caught up with the fact that we’ve had a Queen for what, 70 years?) and that itself is based upon what was accepted law in 1189, otherwise known as “time immemorial.” Err, yes, that last bit is actually true too, that’s how the Common Law works.
Here we have a documentary made about how this works:
Or there is the story from the 1960s. A judge felt compelled to ask “Who are the Beatles?” to be answered by a barrister “I believe they are a popular beat combo M’Lud.” The point of this story is not the wit of the response, it’s that it is right and proper that a judge be immune to the passing fashions outside the window and concerned only with the ancients of justice and the rights of the citizenry.
Yes, I know you’re not buying this but it is still all true. We would prefer judges who made silly comments about filing the pointy bits off knives to those who insist that dead black teenagers is all because of the institutional waaacism of late stage capitalism – the current fashion passing by outside those court room windows – wouldn’t we?
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You said Black. We are not encouraged to link one sort of crime with any community, are we?
You said Black. We are not encouraged to link one sort of crime with any community, are we?
"Rug gangs" gives reason to ponder. We're talking mobs of knife wielding toddlers in nappies here? Sounds entirely possible.
@BiS: Rug gangs could be toupée thieves.
AIUI (IANAL) the purpose of the judge asking "Who are The Beatles?" is not for the benefit of himself or the jury, but future generations of lawyers who may be reading the case a century or two hence, when the identity of the popular beat combo will be an obscure trivia quiz question.
All right, hipster, then who are "AIUI" and "IANAL"?
Since you insist, Spike :)
As I Understand It (I Am Not A Lawyer)
But, rather than 'hip', I think these have been around as long as the Internet (certainly as long as Usenet).
AIUI (IANAL) the purpose of the judge asking "Who are The Beatles?" is not for the benefit of himself or the jury, but future generations of lawyers who may be reading the case a century or two hence, when the identity of the popular beat combo will be an obscure trivia quiz question.
All right, hipster, then who are "AIUI" and "IANAL"?
It is not the judiciary but the welfare state that invented the concept that misbehavior is a given and that everyone else must adapt so that lethal consequences of misbehavior might become physically impossible.
Most judges are equally clueless when it comes to sentencing. Separating the assailant from the community, punishment, and something from the Department of "Corrections" tend to take a back seat to getting the perp into the welfare system. Each monthly check is tied to a caseworker home visit and a ludicrous scolding to get his life together.
I read elsewhere that London's knife crime epidemic is the result of yuppies having cocaine at their dinner-parties. I don't believe this. This is simply what happens when global warming deniers vaccinate their children and feed them genetically modified glyphosate.