98 years after gun control, London faces murder epidemic, cracks down on knives

by WorldTribune Staff, April 9, 2018

Amid a huge spike in murders in his city, London Mayor Sadiq Khan is calling for heavy knife control and the increased use of a police technique that he had once referred to as “racist.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan. / Getty Images

Khan tweeted on April 8: “No excuses; there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.”

London has seen more than 50 homicides already in 2018. Most were committed with knives. London has had strict gun control measures in place since 1920.

The Daily Wire reported that UK Parliament “is also set to take up heavy ‘knife control’ legislation when it resumes this week.”

In February and March, London for the first time in modern history had more homicides than New York City.

If the trend continues, London will far surpass the 130 murders in 2017 and reach a number not seen since the early 2000s.

Among the immediate measures Khan intends to take are the deployment of hundreds more police officers to crime-ridden neighborhoods and the use of “stop and search” by police.

During his mayoral campaign in 2015, Khan said he would do “everything in my power to cut stop and search,” claiming it “undermines” public confidence in local government and policing systems.

Amid the current crime wave in London, however, Khan calls stop and search a “vital tool.”

Other measure being taken include a ban on home deliveries of knives and acid, two of the most common weapons used in London today.

On April 2, Breitbart News reported that Britain “began an incremental adoption of stringent gun controls in 1920. The controls were ratcheted up during the decades that followed, until the hoops one had to jump through for legal handgun ownership reached a point were doing so became impractical. (The handgun prohibitions were contained in the Firearms Act of 1997.)”

In 2009, just 12 years after the passage of the Firearms Act, the Daily Mail declared Britain was “the most violent country in Europe.” It reported that Britain had “a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S.”


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