Pwned

So another politician jumped the gun, huh? No surprise here. However Mr. Brown, this is the real world we're talking about, not Wolfenstein. :P

To be fair, you're not allowed to glamorise knife usage in films in the UK, either. I don't see why games should be exempt from that rule.

"the real reasons for knife crime are complex, difficult, and will take a long time to solve"

Huh?

Shouldn't that read as "the real reasons for crime are complex, difficult, and will take a long time to solve"

Looks like GTA IV will be banned in the UK since you can use switch blades in it.

http://www.gtagaming.com/gtaiv/inc/information/weapons.php

@koku

Then why carry it if you don't intend to use it? You and the lack of maturity people like you show are part of the problem.

Knife violence seems like a pretty minor issue. It's a lot harder to go on a killing rampage with a six inch knife than a sniper rifle (I'm NOT defending or promoting a gun ban).

Like the author said, violence has much larger and more complex roots than a mere video game. The person's home life, family, friends, level of poverty, and the crime that already exists in the neighborhood are much more telling factors in crime and violence. While the person in question may watch a movie or play a game and become inspired to attempt what they see, they wouldn't think of that unless the seeds for it were already in them.

@ Oh Noes

Why not? Why shouldn't he carry a weapon? He merely said he didn't intend to use it. I'm sure if he were threatened, or saw someone being attacked, he'd be ready to use it to defend himself or others. That's not so much immature as prepared.

Why do you wear a seatbelt? Do you intend to get in a car crash? Same principle.

Then why carry it if you don’t intend to use it? You and the lack of maturity people like you show are part of the problem.

I carry a knife. As part of my multi-tool. Because you never know when you'll need a tool to do something.

I don't consider it a weapon, but a tool. If you want to insist, then I could consider my laptop a clubbing weapon, my keys a gouging weapon, my screwdrivers a stabbing weapon, etc.

@ Gameboy

I feel it makes a bad situation worse. The fact hes carrying the knife for self defence means he intends to use it otherwise why carry it. Any situation where he were to brandish a knife immediatley causes an encounter to escalate.

I highly doubt he is mature enough to understand that by carrying a knife he may kill someone.

So in your mind, when would it be acceptable to carry a weapon? To work? To school? To a bar? When your walking to a friends? What kind of weapons should be ok? Guns, clubs, big knifes, pen knifes, flick knifes, swords, a board with a nail in it?

@ Oh Noes:

Please, You seem to be inferring that anyone who would think about drawing a knife against an assailant is just as bad as their attacker.

You're an idiot.

In an insecure world where the government is so unable to police it's citizenry (see above article referenced about knife violence) that its publicly blaming the crimes on a media that is far more dominated by guns than knives, you're stupid not to protect yourself.

Mostly, if it's less than lethal, it's less than capable of defending you person and your property, because some PCP'd up crackhead isn't going to slow down if you ask nicely so you can slap him with your laptop.

To reiterate, you're an idiot.

Dennis, how do ye come upo with that many puns anyway?

My faith in humanity hit an all time low today, yet it has been rekindled slightly, lets hope it lasts the day.

Which videogames actually have knives as the centerpoint of its combat?
Video game characters would sooner use M16s rather than a steak knife. ;)

If I'm not mistaken the UK has the highest number of battery charges of all Europe and North America, proportional to the entire population. It must be true then, that people have a much larger issue with knives in this country since they already have firearms out of the way. You gotta complain about something, I guess...

Remember, ladies and gentleman, this 'Prime Minister' has never been through an election process as head of his party. Personally, I'm getting more than a little sick and tired of him trying to squeeze through all this shit when the actual people of the country have still had no say as to whether they want him to represent them. Yes, we voted Labour, but we voted for Labour with it's policies defined under Blair (for better or worse), Browns' policies are different to Blairs, and, as yet, we've still had no chance as a nation to give our opinions on those policies on a national scale.

@ GoodRobotUs - I couldn't agree more (although that's not to say I think the opposition are much cop, either).

@ Oh Noes - would it be completely out of line to suggest that we round up the Chavs, cull them and use them for fuel? They're a renewable source of energy, after all...

@ Oh Noes

I keep a powered stun gun in my car's glove box, but I don't expect I'll ever use it. Now this isn't quite the same as a knife, but a stun gun is painful if applied correctly...

For the benefit of americans who dont know who chavs are, consider them the UK's version of rednecks, only less eloquent.

for further details google 'devvo' which may be parody, but like all good parody, is true to life.

@chris

Rednecks are entertaining though. They're also consistently smarter than Chavs.

@ Oh Noes: "I must have a different perspective on things than the people in this forum. I’m from the UK myself, certainly less gun crime and PCP fuelled nutjobs where I live. What we have is a minority of kids between 12 and 18 from deprived areas frequently getting wasted on cheap drink and playing games of ‘who’s the hardest.’"

A few points for you. First, you have less gun crime, but more crime overall. Taking the guns away didn't solve the problem; neither will taking the knives away. People intent on killing other people will find a way, even if it means taking a big rock off the ground and beating someone else's head with it.

Second, you're looking at one detail of the problem, and assuming that's the problem. You see, "kids die in knife fights," and somehow conclude that the knives are to blame, not the kids. Ask yourself this question: What can make a person feel so powerless in their lives that the only way they can feel empowered is to kill another person?

Third, what you call, "who's the hardest," goes by a different name here in California (and Mexico). Here, it's called, "Quienes Mas Macho," which loosely translates to, "who's more badass." It's not a unique problem to England; it happens everywhere to one degree or another.

- - - - -

To @(#*$0: There's a word for what you're talking about. It's called paranoia. Or a bleeding stupid strawman argument. Take your pick.

Take away the guns and people will use the next best weapon, the same applies to knives. You may not be able to catagorize it as easily when some guy attacks you in the street with his 18v Cordless Black & Decker Saws All, and another guy uses a phillips head screw driver like an ice pick but it will still illicit the same reaction.

The world we live in is far from utopian, those who want to do harm to others will always find a way to do it. Take away the knives they'll come up with something else to use, then you'll take that away and yet again they'll find something else to use.

A knife is not only a weapon but a tool we've been using for a very long time. As a tool it has millions of uses only 1 of which is "Stabbing another human being". People need to stop acting like Knives are guns, guns have a sole purpose of injuring/killing something else, you can't use a gun to chop an onion, debone a chicken, dig, cut rope, etc.

A couple of my friends do carry a knife around. Both have encountered a rape situation, of so I've been told (I'm not liable to believe that really, but it could happen). BOth of which used the knife to escape fro the situation as such.

Yeah, it can make a situation worse, but it can also help someone out

Jerros also makes a good point that knives have a million uses, only 1 of which is stabbing another human being.

A metaphorical broadside.

Now all you is for the PM to read it....

well, according to the latest news release

"If you carry a weapon it doesn't mean you will be safe from attackers, it will mean that people will attack you more!"

wow, the stainless steel pushblade that has been elasticised on to my arm, which as far as I am concerned, should stay there, I never plan on using it, in fact the only reason I have it is in case I become the victim of an attacker on our chav filled streets!

yet I am more at risk of being attacked because I carry a weapon that no one knows about?!
I haven't been attacked since the fight in the last year of high, which left my arms almost separated from my torso, (try kerb stomping with toe cappers), the fight which prompted me to get the weapon in the first place.

I keep hold of the tool just in case I get involved in another such engagement, yet so far no such fight has occured, no one knows about my weapon, and for all I care no one should, if I haven't been attacked in the last 3 years, then what does that say for these politicians theories?

At # @(#*$0:
"well apparently someone cant detect sarcasm.

oh no that breaching my safety, maybe I should stab him."

I can detect sarcasm just fine... but since you seem to be unable to make your point without using over-the-top sarcasm, perhaps your point is rather weak to begin with.

@Goodrobotus

Didnt brown promise elections at some point? i have trouble paying attnetion to the monotonous windbag myself.

And then he withdrew his promise when he realised he had no chance of winning, since no one likes him. The worst kind of politician, the kind that ignores the wishes of the people in favour of their own.

Since the Prime Minister blames videogames for knife violence. Well...I suppose we're going to have to ban the Cooking Mama series. No, really you use kinves in there to cut up vegetables. Really what's the difference between cutting up a cucumber and cutting up an arm?

/sarcasm

I don't need a ruddy knife when I can pick up a good lead pipe or a tree branch and wield that.

Failing that, the urban environment probably has something you could use as a makeshift weapon. Won't protect you from a stab to the nuts, but at least you've got a slightly better chance of survival than if you're using your fists (which are also weapons with the right training, but if I cut your arms off, I'd be violating your Second Amendment :P)

But really, Mr. Brown, maybe you should fire that woman you put in charge of the police and hire someone from the police force as her replacement.

I know two officers who could fill her place.

@ '# @(#*$0'


You are a retard.
Stop being melodramatic and going round saying you are going to shoot people, it's pathetic and just makes you come across as stupidly hotheaded and immature.
Grow up.

I applauded Brown's succession over Blaire at first, now I am severly dissapointed. Once again, pointing the figer and blaming but lacking complete hard evidence.

You are a retard.
Stop being melodramatic and going round saying you are going to shoot people, it’s pathetic and just makes you come across as stupidly hotheaded and immature.
Grow up.

Just Like Most people in society?

Once again, we are witnesssing an angry old man complaining about how videogames ruins society. Well, when I was young in the 1970's it was TV and those comic books that ruined society...the difference from now and then is of course that I now am nearly 44 and Gordon Brown is about 20+ year older (than me) and Prime Minister of England (UK/Great Britain).

It is very easy to forget that those people who decide to pull a knife on other people, probably would have done so - even if they hadn't played videogames. At worst videogames may inspirere people who otherwise would have pulled knifes on other people to do certain moves seen in videogames. But from this point to blaming videogames for all knife-related incidents there is a really, really long way.

And do there even exist games in ehich you solely fight with knifes ? I know in RPGs you fight with daggers, bows, and swords, and in some FPS games you can kill an enemy quickly of you move silently and backstab him.

In Denmark we've had extensive media coverage on the latest 2-4 knife muggings that's happened in our big cities. Of course, this is a sad :( state of affairs, but I do find that the media in Denmark, too, way too often blow this all out of proportion. If we look at statistically only about 2-4 percent of the violence done in ayear is knife-related, with domestic disturbance (man beats his wife) having a much higher percentage.

The thing is that the media seems to be all about 'who's in charge' today as well as asking questions about what are you going to do about this problem?' The easy route out for any politicians is to blame an external force for this, like videogames or tv or comic books or the internet. An easy route of this for any politician is also to appear being on top of the situation and taking action by (simply) proposing higher penalties, often in form of higher fines or higher jail sentences for e.g. having a knife on you or committing a crime with a knife (not a recommendation, though...)

The thing is, though, every study show that violence is going downhill fast in our society as more people get jobs and become richer, violent assault goes downhill rather fast. Yet, the media seems to have upped their coverage quite a bit. Its actually something I've noticed even in the Danish media as well. They spent long hours talking about violent assualts and traffic killings, much more so than they did in my youth in the 1970's.
I would like to see the media tone their hysteria down a notch or two and maybe focus on the real issues at hand, like, oh say, the war in Iraq.

Yes, I did it. I did indeed bring the war in Iraq into this debate since to this is worthy of a debate, even in this forum, because imo the war in Iraq can be seen everyday on almost every tv-channel (all over the world). And I'm pretty sure that the war in Iraq also teaches some people to be violent toward other people, or at least inspires them to do something violent that they (maybe) would have done anyway. See, the point I'm trying to make is this: If knifes in videogames are damging to our children and should be banned in videogames, why aren't newscasts from Iraq banned as well? assuming that both knifes and watching covering from the war in Iraq is equally bad for you, of course. Not a view that I hold, by the way, but I'm just saying...

Knife violence in the UK existed long before videogames. Look at Glasgow in the 60s. They have no solution and need a scapegoat.

VIDEO GAMES DO NOT ENCOURAGE VIOLENCE. IF YOU DISAGREE IN ANY WAY CONTACT ME AT : figsnake12@googlemail.co.uk