It has been a while since we’ve looked at weapon news from across the pond, but with Americans everywhere having just celebrated the Glorious Fourth and our independence from British monarchy, the timing seems particular appropriate.
Previous alerts have described Great Britain’s national “firearm surrender” campaign (aimed at encouraging residents of the sceptered isle to surrender firearms, ammunition, weapons, and any other object even vaguely reminiscent of a gun to local police stations), the weaponization of generally benign items like pliers, files, and discarded bicycle wheels (prompting the sarcastic response, “You[’re] doing God’s work out there. Lost my mother to a bike wheel”), and this year’s new ban on what the Brits call “ninja swords.”
In addition to the “ninja sword” ban, the law enforcement focus remains on bladed weapons generally.
“Operation Sceptre,” for instance, is a nationwide, semi-annual initiative dedicated to intensified police action against knife crime in England and Wales, in which police officers conduct “knife sweeps” in outdoor public areas and patrols in “knife crime hotspots,” visit retailers to test whether they sell knives to minors, and set up temporary “surrender bins” in which the public can drop off knives and blades to “bin a knife, save a life.” A local police official commenting on their Sceptre activities last year made it clear that “[t]here is no excuse for carrying a knife. Our message is simple, carrying a knife puts yours and other lives at risk ... anyone caught with a knife will be arrested and put before the courts.”
The U.K.’s latest “anti-crime” push appears to be a new “knife amnesty” announced by the Home Office this month, coinciding with the amnesty and compensation program for banned “ninja swords” ahead of that ban taking effect on August 1st.
In what the government calls “its most ambitious surrender scheme yet,” the amnesty is aimed at encouraging youths to dispose of knives or “offensive weapons” anonymously, at either a roving, “purpose-built and fully secure van” or any one of 37 new and “amnesty bins” located in the three highest areas for knife crime in England (London, Greater Manchester and West Midlands).
Compliance with the amnesty has its own risks of arrest, as it requires the person to follow the strict instructions in a Home Office guidance or potentially face prosecution for committing a weapon crime:
You must take all reasonable steps to make any item(s) that you are surrendering safe to handle whilst travelling to the mobile surrender van or a surrender bin. Items must be contained and transported in a manner that does not cause distress or alarm to other members of the public. Items must be wrapped and placed in a sealed bag or box. They must not be carried openly at any time. Carrying bladed articles in public without a good reason or lawful authority is an offence. Carrying the items according to these instructions is likely to be considered a ‘good reason,’ namely that you are about to surrender the articles at your nearest surrender bin or at the mobile surrender van, if stopped by the police.
An “anti-knife crime campaigner” participating in the knife amnesty initiative describes the “launch of the UK’s first-ever amnesty van” as “a historic moment… For years, we’ve worked tirelessly to remove knives and other weapons from our streets, and this van is a major step forward in that mission” to save lives and break “the cycle of violence.”
Good intentions aside, the evidence on whether knife amnesties save lives or have any discernible impact on crime is far from encouraging. So-called gun “buybacks” in the United States, based on a similar premise, are likewise presented as effective crime-fighting measures by various gun control activists and legislators (here, for instance), while the research shows that these buybacks don’t work (here, here, here and here, for example).
A 2019 “evidence briefing” on knife crime prepared by the U.K. College of Policing cites police data that shows the impact of knife amnesties “is often limited or short term, indicating that removing a proportion of knives from the streets does not address issues of availability, or the motivations underlying an individual’s decision to carry knives… little is understood about who surrenders knives and their motivations for doing so, meaning our knowledge around the effectiveness of amnesties is currently limited.”
An older study, from 2007 (Centre for Crime and Justice Studies) reviewed the effects of a 2006 national knife amnesty in the U.K. that netted a total of 89,864 knives, and found that the results were unlikely to support the government’s assertion, at the time, that fewer knives on the streets meant greater security for everyone.
“Assuming that there are approximately 22 million households in England and Wales, each possessing a single kitchen knife, the amnesty has been successful in removing 0.0041 per cent of knives that might be used in crimes.” Given that miniscule percentage (despite using the most favorable scenario), the study found it was “at best questionable whether this will result in a reduction in knife carrying and knife-related offences.” Further, data from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) on the effect of the amnesty indicated that reductions in “MPS Knife-Enabled offences” continued for only about six weeks beyond the end of the operation “before returning to pre-operation levels.” Overall, “knife amnesties address but one tool of expression of interpersonal violence and do nothing to address the underlying causes of such violence.”
Worse still, knife amnesties may inadvertently furnish the criminally inclined with a no-cost, easy source of weapons. A 2023 news report describes the “[h]orror as ‘overflowing’ amnesty bin makes massive zombie knives” easy to access. That particular knife surrender bin, placed outside a police station, was described as a “hazard” to the community after a lawyer pointed out that it was actually “so overfull that there are knives actually falling out of” it, meaning anyone could “just put [their] hand in there, grab a knife and go on [their] way.”
One may joke, as a National Review writer did, that the “ninja sword” ban “is good news, because up until this point my primary reason for resisting travel to the United Kingdom … was the fear of getting caught in the middle of a gang war between pajama-clad assassins,” but the sword ban and knife amnesty are excellent examples of what happens when a government sidesteps the actual problem, treats the entire population as potentially dangerous, and opts to restrict everyone’s freedom in the name of the greater good.
Much like gun “buybacks,” the U.K.’s latest knife amnesty is unlikely to deliver any public safety benefits. Taking some knives out of circulation may keep those knives from falling into the wrong hands but, as the 2007 study points out, “once a knife has been disposed of it merely takes a trip to the kitchen drawer to get another. As long as there is unsliced bread, opportunities for ‘knife crime’ will exist.”
And when the amnesty fails, as it inevitably will, criminalizing the contents of the kitchen drawer is next. British researchers (joined by the Church of England and others) have previously argued there is “no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all,” as kitchen knives actually “have little practical value in the kitchen.” Earlier this year, the U.K.’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was reportedly considering a ban on kitchen knives with pointed ends.
How very much times have changed. Peaceable defensive carry of ordinary arms was lawful in England under the 1689 English Bill of Rights (as an amicus brief on the development of Anglo-American law in the case of NYSRPA v. Bruen points out), and for “over two centuries after the Bill of Rights, Parliament never passed a general law against peaceable carry.”
While it’s sadly true that not all Americans enjoy their full panoply of rights under the Second Amendment (a state of affairs NRA works daily to correct), we at least have the freedom to dice onions, cut our food into manageable bites, and re-enact scenes from Enter the Ninja. It’s no small thing to reflect, as our former occupiers now demonstrate, it could easily be otherwise.
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