Drizzt
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Knives now 'weapon of choice'
March 09, 2006
KNIVES are replacing guns as the weapon of choice of violent criminals, Victoria's top cop has said, as a fourth person was stabbed to death in Melbourne in less than a week.
Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said gun control measures such as buybacks had seen a reduction in the use of firearms in violent crimes.
"So now we are moving to the easiest, most accessible weapons people can find," she said on Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"We see the fact that knives are in fact being the weapon of choice. It used to be more firearms, and so that's changed."
But Ms Nixon maintained that the recent spate of knife attacks was a "statistical blip", and violent incidents involving knives had actually fallen over the past 12 months, according to police statistics.
"It just seems over the last few days that there's been an amazing number (of knife attacks), but overall what we are seeing is a decline," she said.
Ms Nixon said police were working to convince people not to carry knives, using laws that allowed knives to be confiscated and the 400 metal detectors available to police.
She said some police had raised concerns that penalties for carrying knives were not tough enough, or that some types of decorative knives should be made illegal.
But she said recent problems had not generally involved large ornate knives or street violence.
"What we are seeing is family incidents, people who are closely related or who have had relationships, they are the spate of stabbings we've been having recently," she said.
"So it's about a bigger issue around people's violence to each other as well as using the knives as a way to do it."
A woman is dead and a man was taken to hospital after a stabbing in Melbourne's west early this morning.
Yesterday, a man in his 20s was airlifted to The Alfred hospital in a serious condition, suffering multiple stab wounds from a domestic incident at a home in Kilsyth.
The day before, an elderly couple visiting from Sri Lanka, Sammy and Iranganie Perera, were stabbed to death as their daughter and a grandchild looked on in a house at Hallam.
Their son-in-law, Sarath Hettiarachchi, 46, of Hallam, was charged with the murders.
On Tuesday, John Taleski, 28, of Seddon, was charged with the murder of Benjamin Rootes and the attempted murder of Rootes's friends, Lee Halam and Scott Howard, in suburban Spotswood on Saturday.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18400200^29277,00.html
March 09, 2006
KNIVES are replacing guns as the weapon of choice of violent criminals, Victoria's top cop has said, as a fourth person was stabbed to death in Melbourne in less than a week.
Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said gun control measures such as buybacks had seen a reduction in the use of firearms in violent crimes.
"So now we are moving to the easiest, most accessible weapons people can find," she said on Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"We see the fact that knives are in fact being the weapon of choice. It used to be more firearms, and so that's changed."
But Ms Nixon maintained that the recent spate of knife attacks was a "statistical blip", and violent incidents involving knives had actually fallen over the past 12 months, according to police statistics.
"It just seems over the last few days that there's been an amazing number (of knife attacks), but overall what we are seeing is a decline," she said.
Ms Nixon said police were working to convince people not to carry knives, using laws that allowed knives to be confiscated and the 400 metal detectors available to police.
She said some police had raised concerns that penalties for carrying knives were not tough enough, or that some types of decorative knives should be made illegal.
But she said recent problems had not generally involved large ornate knives or street violence.
"What we are seeing is family incidents, people who are closely related or who have had relationships, they are the spate of stabbings we've been having recently," she said.
"So it's about a bigger issue around people's violence to each other as well as using the knives as a way to do it."
A woman is dead and a man was taken to hospital after a stabbing in Melbourne's west early this morning.
Yesterday, a man in his 20s was airlifted to The Alfred hospital in a serious condition, suffering multiple stab wounds from a domestic incident at a home in Kilsyth.
The day before, an elderly couple visiting from Sri Lanka, Sammy and Iranganie Perera, were stabbed to death as their daughter and a grandchild looked on in a house at Hallam.
Their son-in-law, Sarath Hettiarachchi, 46, of Hallam, was charged with the murders.
On Tuesday, John Taleski, 28, of Seddon, was charged with the murder of Benjamin Rootes and the attempted murder of Rootes's friends, Lee Halam and Scott Howard, in suburban Spotswood on Saturday.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18400200^29277,00.html
