On the other hand, Britain's obsession with banning knives/sharp objects appears to be unique - many countries have no such restrictions and yet they don't seem to have a stabbing epidemic.

>many countries have no such restrictions and yet they don't seem to have a stabbing epidemic

Are you implying there's a stabbing epidemic in Britain? (apologies if I'm misunderstanding that)

Britain doesn't have a stabbing epidemic[1]. It's a meme

Media attention made the obsession, not whatever actually happens in the real world. Ah, if only people cared as much about heart and brain diseases :(

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-... (click on Rate per 100k on the last table)

> Are you implying there's a stabbing epidemic in Britain?

No, my point is that the insane knife restrictions we have aren't actually necessary since many countries lack such restrictions and still don't end up with a stabbing epidemic as a result.

The fact that the police does confiscate sharp objects and arrests and prosecutes people leaves you with two possibilities:

1) There is in fact a need to curb knife crime, without these measures people would die a lot more.

2) There is no significant risk of knife crime, UK uses arbitrary law application to harass undesirable individuals and/or instill a "harmless mindset" into its subjects.

Not sure what's worse.

Americans kill more people by non-gun means than say Australians total (per year per 100k).

Whatever their problem is it's not guns.

Guns are definitely a major problem - a lot of people who shouldn't have access to guns do and use them. I'm not talking about intentional, targeted murders or settling gang disputes - those will happen anyway regardless of the law.

However, easy access to guns mean that people in an unstable mental state might use one to commit (mass?) murder in an act of folly that they would otherwise not do (or at the very least significantly reduce the amount of victims if they had to use a knife instead of a ranged weapon).

Only in California, where they cause cancer

Those who want to kill a lot of people just rent a truck and wait for a big public gathering.

What you describe is a definition of a nanny state.

> I'm not talking about intentional, targeted murders or settling gang disputes

Once you exclude these....

> commit (mass?) murder in an act of folly that they would otherwise not do

These become so rare that they are effectively non existent when compared to literally any other cause of death.

Guns are a problem.

Yes, America has an incredibly violent "macho" culture for a so-called first world country, in general and not just as it pertains to firearms. It's probable that the high rate of gun ownership is a symptom of this rather than a cause. But given that this is the case, proliferating the means for people to easily murder each other in such a society is obviously going to exacerbate things.

Yet there are significantly more British citizens moving to America than the reverse. So they do seek the American Freedom and Constitution. Massive brain drain (despite the predictions it would flow the other way around thanks to the 2016 election).

Always puzzled me.

It doesn't automatically follow that people moving to America means they want the American Freedom (proper noun?) and Constitution. As for the brain drain aspect, it's said that people who move from New Zealand to Australia raise the average IQ of both countries; they are very obviously moving for the higher salaries rather than freedom and constitution.

the total number of unarmed shootings by police each year in the US is in the double digits in a country of 400m. how many kids got raped in rotherham?