I visited London in 2008 and was amazed to see exactly the kind of after effects that people here have warned of if we banned guns. Basically, the new scapegoat was knives. Those evil knives.
In the Tube (subway), posters were hung that said "If you carry a knife, you're a criminal." And "Help fight knife crime - don't carry a knife." It was utterly bizarre.
See this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/28/beyond-the-blade-the-truth-about-knife-in-Britain
The parallels to "gun violence" programs here in the US are startling:
"The answer to Fola’s mother’s question – “How many more of our children have to die before the government act?” – is both damning and complex. Many more children will die from knife-related violence; indeed, four more have been stabbed to death since she posed it. But it is not because the government and related agencies are not acting.
Pretty much every week, somewhere in the country, there is some kind of initiative to tackle “knife crime”’ – an amnesty, a new charity in the name of the fallen, an appeal from police, a mayoral statement.
The trouble is that these efforts seem to have little effect. That might be because efforts to make a positive intervention are dwarfed by all the things the government is doing that are making the situation worse. These deaths occur at a moment when the country has made a conscious decision to defund and under-resource its young.
When you slash youth services, underfund child mental health services and make swingeing [sic] cuts to education and policing, there will be an effect. The most vulnerable will suffer. Austerity didn’t invent knife crime, but it is certainly contributing to the conditions in which it can thrive."
Ban guns, they'll ban knives. Then bats. Then heavy objects, rocks, sticks. I mean the issue here isn't the tool used to commit the crime, it's that more individuals are deciding (sometimes impulsively) to commit the crime. The argument here is, well if you don't have a knife, then you can't impulsively stab someone and commit a crime. Doesn't turn out well for your law-abiding self when Evil Jimmy pulls his knife on you because he wants some money for food or booze. Then you're left with giving him your money, or life, or both. But no hope of fighting back. It's a human instinct to protect yourself.
