Computer Game Combats Knife Crime

[Varsity]

BBC News reports (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4542536.stm):A mock computer game is the latest weapon in the Metropolitan Police's fight against knife crime. A DVD of computer generated images and real life footage showing the effects of using knives is being distributed to thousands of teenagers across London.

The DVD's main character starts off as an animated image who carries a knife for protection. When he is involved in a confrontation he uses his knife and as the consequences become apparent he changes into a real person.I don't know what the general reaction will be, but I think this is a great step forwards.

[Heretic Machine]

I don't know what the general reaction will be, but I think this is a great step forwards.

...I really don't get you British people sometimes. You know in America, damn near everyone carries some kind of a knife, though usually not for the purpose of hurting other people. We use guns for that. I mean, I'm sure most of your violent crime centers around knives, but if you somehow got rid of all knife-related crime you'd just see people carrying baseball bats or retractable battons.

Maybe it'd be a good idea to make a movie against violence in general?

[Rirath]

Honestly, it sounds as lame as most of the anti-game attempts. I'm not one of them "right to bear arms" guys, honestly, but I don't like the tone of this story already. He carries a knife for protection, not looking for trouble. A police officer once stopped me while walking and took my very old Swiss Army pocket knife out of my back pocket (with my hands in the air) just because I matched the very general description of a guy causing trouble with "a knife" at a highschool a good 10 minutes by car away.

Crazy, I tell ya. They let me go, especially after I made it clear I had several witnesses that saw me leave home just minutes ago, but I still don't think I convinced this guy I didn't do some super human dash across town after apparently threatening people with my magnifying glass. "Just do me a favor, If you have to carry a knife, just don't be taking it out or anything. It could scare people." *sigh*

[Doctor Worm]

I think the attitude is slightly different here. I for one don't carry anything for protection (unless you count a DS stylus), in my experience the people who carry around such implements do not usually carry them for self-defence purposes. I agree with the right to bear arms to an extent but you have to look at the kind of people that will carry knives around in the first place. Also to me this film does not really come across as being anti-gaming, call me crazy but I got a decidedly '"anti-knife" vibe from it...

[joruussuun]

I remember at my high school a few years ago, this police officer came in to show us extrememly graphic slides of the results of gun shots and knife attacks in order to discourage violence.

[Varsity]

The aim of the strategy this DVD is a part of is halting the spread of the knife culture that is starting to crop up in poorer communities; all carrying a knife does at the stage Britain is at is exasperate any situation you find yourself in.

[Heretic Machine]

...So, do you British guys just not carry pocket knives for utilitarian purposes?

[Varsity]

I can't think of a reason why someone might need one when walking down the street unless they were doing a specific outdoors job.

[Spigot]

I thought that this little ad was very well done. Effective? I don't know. But the ad itself was pretty neat.

[kokyunage]

So, what next? Show the dangers of martial arts training and start banning that?

[joruussuun]

I carry a Leatherman Multi-Tool (with knives) around with me everywhere I go (heh, except the airport). It has many uses, and I use it constantly (like MacGyver).
So, what next? Show the dangers of martial arts training and start banning that?
Hah! I remember reading this story earlier this year or last where these two or three guys broke into some guy's house and tried to rob him (he was old too) at knife point, but he was like a second degree blackbelt in some martial art and one or two of the robbers actually DIED.

[bean19]

Link to the ad (http://www.itsnotagame.org/)

I don't know that this actually has much to do with games. . . It is basically an anti-crime ad to say that knife violence is very real and hurts real people. It isn't a game.

The fear I have is that this will link video games and teen violence together in people's heads, when there is no actual connection between playing violent video games and being a hoodlum that gets in knife fights.

[Spigot]

Link to the ad (http://www.itsnotagame.org/)

I don't know that this actually has much to do with games. . . It is basically an anti-crime ad to say that knife violence is very real and hurts real people. It isn't a game.
That's the way I interpreted the ad too. It's like the old frying pan ad about your brain on drugs. It was just using an easy metaphor... not saying that eggs are bad for your brain. Same with this ad. It will grab kids' attention and it uses a common experience that they can relate to (most kids having played videogames at some point).
The fear I have is that this will link video games and teen violence together in people's heads, when there is no actual connection between playing violent video games and being a hoodlum that gets in knife fights.
Come on. Nobody would ever make THAT kind of assumption... would they? :rolleyes:

[01010]

Rising knife crime? As far as I was concerned violent crime over here has been on the decrease since the early 90's. I live on one of the most deprived estates in this country (apparently) and let me tell you, knives aren't an issue. In fact the main problem is gangs of kids that most people are too scared to even look at, just standing around cause there isn't anything to do.

The only places I really hear about having problems with violent crime are the inner cities (Birmingham, Manchester, London, Liverpool) and that stems from inner city life more than anything else (hence this being tried by the Metropolitan police force and not out here in the sticks).

[GrinR]

I agree with the right to bear arms to an extent but you have to look at the kind of people that will carry knives around in the first place.

The kind of people who don't like getting their face stomped in? The people who can't afford to give up everything on them to the many thugs in their neighborhood?

It always amazes me when I read/hear the bourgeois view of self-protection. Not everyone has police/security/quiet neighborhoods - and those of us who don't tend to not enjoy being victims.

[F3nyx]

Pointy sticks next on the list, of course.

[bean19]

The kind of people who don't like getting their face stomped in? The people who can't afford to give up everything on them to the many thugs in their neighborhood?

It always amazes me when I read/hear the bourgeois view of self-protection. Not everyone has police/security/quiet neighborhoods - and those of us who don't tend to not enjoy being victims.

A confrontation with a knife or other weapon is far too much risk.

You have to weigh the possible outcomes. For most people, the possible outcomes of either injuring or killing someone or being injured and/or killed are far worse than losing any amount of money you have on you.

If I were to have my wallet stolen. I'd lose at the most $60 in cash, and then I'd be inconvenienced by having to replace my Driver's License, credit cards, etc. If I were to kill or injure someone, I could possibly face criminal charges that could land me in prison for years, and if I were killed or injured, the best I could hope for is a slight injury that doesn't cause any permanent impairment or necessitate a long recovery time.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in the right to bear arms, and my family is a military one (I wasn't able to join the Navy because I have asthma, but I have 5 cousins serving right now (really big Irish/Texan family, and my brother who was a Navy nuke has only been back for a year, but is afraid of being forcibly re-enlisted if we go to war with North Korea).

Still, we were taught from a young age that weapons are not used to scare or intimidate, and that you should not carry one unless your intent is to stop something using deadly force. Personally, I'd rather get robbed a hundred times over than have to kill someone. My father, who served two tours in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, doesn't own a gun.

[Neosho]

When it comes down to it, i think this is a case of the "when the only tool you have is a hammer..." syndrome.

I've only come close to getting in a fight once. In that case, one of my friends headed me off, told me it wasn't worth it, and to move on. However, if i had gotten in that fight, started to get my ass kicked, and had a knife on me...chances are i would have pulled it at some point to get the asshole off me. After the stabby ended, i could be covered in blood, need to take a shower, and also could have a ruined future.

Now if i didn't have a knife, he'd kick the shit out of me, and that'd be the end of it. Escalation == bad.

[GrinR]

Rather be tried by twelve than carried by six. It's an old and cliched phrase, but you can count me as a adherant. Bean, Neosho, I appreciate your viewpoints - but they both assume luxuries I have not experienced. When you're under attack on the street in the dark by 3-4 guys who are yelling, "Smash his skull!!" you don't have the luxury of deciding whether or not they might kill you or just leave you with "an ass kicking". I certainly agree that weapons are to be brandished only when there is an intent to use them, but the reality in a non-war, non-law enforcement framework is that there are no rules and the stakes are often your life.

In that light, I ain't no gambler.

[KarmaGhost]

I don't think this will work and neither will having a police man coming into a classroom to show gruesome slides to children. Let me give you an extreme example:

People with psychotic tendancies have difficulty with social interactions (among other things) and therefore have difficulty relating to others. They literally don't care how their actions affect others. Now, as I said, having a psychotic person roaming around is an extreme example, but even someone with slight tendances is not going to react to being shown images and being told "this is what happens to your victims." Some people with psychosis don't even feel pain as we know it.

[dead]

I'm not american but i heard that it's legal to carry concealed firearms in Texas. Is that true?

[bean19]

I'm not american but i heard that it's legal to carry concealed firearms in Texas. Is that true?

No. . . this isn't true. It probably stems from the fact that you cannot carry a handgun in plain view legally. It MUST be concealed, and you must have a permit to carry a concealed weapon (handgun). Also, they are not permitted in a ton of places.

At least, that was what I learned years and years ago when taking my hunting license course (while in Boy Scouts). The laws may have changed since then, but I certainly have never seen anyone other than security or law enforcement openly carrying handguns.

Hunters carry rifles openly, and you can shoot handguns at shooting ranges, etc. Basically the law is that they must be concealed while out in the public. Also, most people don't carry handguns here. That is a myth.

[Neosho]

It's a state to state law, as bean says...and you have to go through the permit process to purchase any sort of gun, much less carry one concealed. I don't think anyone with a criminal record is allowed to carry a concealed weapon.

[Neosho]

Rather be tried by twelve than carried by six. It's an old and cliched phrase, but you can count me as a adherant. Bean, Neosho, I appreciate your viewpoints - but they both assume luxuries I have not experienced. When you're under attack on the street in the dark by 3-4 guys who are yelling, "Smash his skull!!" you don't have the luxury of deciding whether or not they might kill you or just leave you with "an ass kicking". I certainly agree that weapons are to be brandished only when there is an intent to use them, but the reality in a non-war, non-law enforcement framework is that there are no rules and the stakes are often your life.

In that light, I ain't no gambler.

Having never been in a situation like that, i can't really talk. As a white/asian middle class kid, i don't have to worry about being jumped. If that was a worry, maybe i would carry a knife. As it's not, i don't. I don't think that this article is trying to target the people that are under attack though, i think it's trying to combat the "carrying a knife is cool/hardcore" viewpoint that many kids in my socio-economic level have.

If you've got 4 people kicking your ass in random alleys though, i'd get a permit and start carrying a damn handgun. If you're going to do something, do it all the damn way.

Edit: Either that or stop walking down the alleys with people camping them :-P

[Adewade]

Yeah, if that was a problem, I'd either do my best to rectify the societal problem itself, or just be a coward, avoid the spots, and maybe move so that I could go back to having faith in humanity.