The headline reads “Police tackle Internet knife gangs“, but it is completely false.
It seems that the cops in the UK are looking at profiles in Facebook and other popular Internet sites. If they see a picture of someone posing with a knife, a picture taken in a public place, then they go arrest the miscreant. It would appear that simply having a knife in public is enough to have the full weight and power of the law come down on your head. The police can arrest you, and the courts will convict you, even if there isn’t any reason for them to suspect you are up to no good with that knife.
It is legal to own knives as long as you keep them at home, but that doesn’t stop the cops. Even though no law has been broken, they still will lecture the poor knife owning bastard and confiscate his legally bought and held possession.
Notice, if you will, that there is no hint that a gang is involved. The cops are targeting people who want to look tough in a picture on a social networking site, not criminals. What gang? Where are the gangs? There aren’t even any “Internet gangs”, just some isolated kids!
Let us consider this as yet another reason why I thank God every day that I was born an American.
(Hat tip to Milo, who seems to have morphed into my go-to info source for British government overreach.)
One of the major systematic defects of political decision making is that they choose to address small but visible problems. Grabbing people making a quasi-public display of knives is more visible than arresting a burglar.
And it’s probably a lot less trouble, going after some wanna-be toughs than some… I don’t know, going after actual real criminals?
Why would the go after kids with knives? I thought all Britain’s murder problems were completely solved by banning guns. gee.
It’s much safer to arrest a peaceful citizen than an actual criminal.
What a worthless political class they have.Sham democracy.