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Acid by now 'weapon of choice' for London street gangs

GinandTonic said:
The question is why people are suddenly being so disproportionately brutal.
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Good question. Maybe this article from 2012 has some answers:

http://africanarguments.org/2012/12...g-culture-on-britains-streets-ismail-einashe/

I recently gave a talk for Radio 4’s Four Thought series, exploring the links between childhood war trauma suffered by young Somali men and the way some are drawn to violent gang culture.

Like other young Somali men I arrived in Britain in the 1990s as a child refugee fresh from the anarchy and mayhem of civil war in Somalia. Prior to settling in Britain many of us endured profound traumatic events.

Once in Britain, we were thrown into existing zones of poverty in the inner cities, confused, alienated and unable to make sense of our new homes.
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I remember reading an article last year in which a black London gang member talked about how the Africans, especially Somalis and Congolese, coming over had made things more violent and brutal, although the focus wasn’t on acid attacks specifically. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the article itself.

Although a lot of acid attacks are due to gang violence, that doesn’t mean that other forms have lessened. Knife and gun crime has also risen, perhaps, as often claimed, due to restrictions on stop and search.

Knife crime across London rose by 24% in 2016-17, according to the latest figures published by the Met Police in April.

Knife crime rose from 9,742 to 12,074 from 2015-16 to 2016-17, while knife crime with injury also rose from 3,663 to 4,415.

The rise in knife crime was also mirrored by a rise in gun crime, up 41% on the year previous.
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Link with some maps.

When it comes to moped gangs, perhaps a decision by the police not to pursue suspects without helmets has led to an increase in their prevalence.
 
warpus said:
She's probably just a fan of Eric Lindros, who used to wear that number. Mind you he was probably just a Nazi
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Dammit! You've outed me as a secret ice hockey fan.

yung.carl.jung said:
katie seems more like an oldschool conservative
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Heavens no! I'd never call myself a conservative. 'Conservatives' have conserved nothing, not even the ladies' loos. It's a totally discredited brand.
 
Samson said:
Yes, you are right, I got to that bit after posting. You have to admit that the attacks are more correlated with military adventures in the middle east than it is with gay rights or whatever else they complain about.
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It's certainly fair to point out that ISIS wouldn't exist at all were it not for our disastrous invasion of Iraq. It's perhaps worth remarking that the article was published shortly after the Orlando nightclub massacre, carried out by Omar Mateen, whom the author praises.
 
Celtic Godess and FashKetchum? This is bizarre. Are we being raided or something? What's next, AryanWarrior88?
 
You could always legalize guns like us. Which is worse? Permanent disfigurement from acid, or being buried 6 feet under with a fatal gunshot wound.
 
"Gangs are using acid as a weapon!"

Sounds very scary, I agree.

But acid is a sloppy, imprecise, and inconsistent weapon. It is not a weapon anyone would choose over a knife, let alone a gun. There's a reason that the Provos preferred AKs and plastic explosives.

If muggers are using a weapon like this, that signals to me that we're living in a country that is, on the whole, safer and and less violent than it has been through most of its history.

Celtic Goddess said:
Why are these groups consistently in poverty, uneducated, and violent not just in the UK, but all parts of the world? All of this sounds like excuses to me.
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That's what they used to say about the Irish.

You'd think somebody with the username "Celtic Goddess" would be familiar with that history.
 
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Acid thrown on the face tends to disfigure you and from what I've seen have a dramatic influence over the rest of your life. Those using acid this way must be using it to make a statement. I don't think they're picking acid because they're bad at picking weapons or whatever, while it makes sense that acquiring acid should be easier in the UK than acquiring a gun
 
Traitorfish said:
You'd think somebody with the username "Celtic Goddess" would be familiar with that history.
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Well be fair she only registered when FastKetchup with the neonazi logo was banned on page two, so it'll take a while to get up to speed.

warpus said:
Acid thrown on the face tends to disfigure you and from what I've seen have a dramatic influence over the rest of your life. Those using acid this way must be using it to make a statement. I don't think they're picking acid because they're bad at picking weapons or whatever, while it makes sense that acquiring acid should be easier in the UK than acquiring a gun
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This is exactly what is so worrying. These boys could get guns easily. These boys are not making a statement. That is exactly what is so bloody worrying. The amount of potential aggro they are saving themselves is trivial.

Basically they seem to be doing it as a craze, or just for poops and giggles.
 
Well yes. And that seems to be the direction of travel. But this level of sudden asshattery is disconcerting - the disconnect of the urban yoot is alarming.
 
Traitorfish said:
That's what they used to say about the Irish.

You'd think somebody with the username "Celtic Goddess" would be familiar with that history.
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That's not a valid comparison since Ireland was invaded, had a famine, fought a war of independence, a civil war, and then the troubles, however regardless... if this is what you believe then you should be able to explain why the Irish are doing well now that their country is politically stable and why the Irish have done so well in other parts of the world where these sorts of problems weren't going on, while at the same time poverty and crime seem to plague other groups no matter where they go. I'd also like to point out that the Irish were never recipients of social programs and affirmative action where they immigrated. Must have been because of their white privilege right?

yung.carl.jung said:
Celtic Godess and FashKetchum? This is bizarre. Are we being raided or something? What's next, AryanWarrior88?
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What exactly is it about the name Celtic Goddess that makes you feel so threatened?
 
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The topic of this thread has been brought up before.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/acid-and-woman´s-face.612791/page-3#post-14707152

Gangs like acid because there is nothing illegal about carrying acid, unlike carrying a gun.

2/3 of the victims in those attacks are men. Gangs are using it as a weapon, for it's not illegal to carry bleach, and can't be traced back to them like a gun can. An attack with a knife can be attempted murder, an attack with bleach at most is grievous bodily harm.
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Bamspeedy said:
Gangs like acid because there is nothing illegal about carrying acid, unlike carrying a gun.
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Why not make carrying certain types of acid in certain containers in certain situations illegal? Isn't that what we do with things like knives?
 
Time to change the laws and give them life in prison for these attacks. I don't know what you guys over there have against prison. You can make fun of us for our "prison state", but most of them are guilty of violent crimes and belong there.
 
GinandTonic said:
This is exactly what is so worrying. These boys could get guns easily. These boys are not making a statement. That is exactly what is so bloody worrying. The amount of potential aggro they are saving themselves is trivial.
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I doubt criminals like to take risks and if the use of acid reduce the risk and have little to no downsides for the preperator it is likely going to get popular amongst them.

Guns are risky to use for stuff such as robbery and don't really have much advantages over acid in such cases.

warpus said:
Lock them up and keep give them long sentences until the craze stops. I mean what other option is there? You probably can't prevent them from getting their hands on acid by making it illegal or regulating it somehow
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Well it should be possible to make it more difficult to acquire and such. However that is really only going to mean the criminals will look for other weapons.

Traitorfish said:
But acid is a sloppy, imprecise, and inconsistent weapon. It is not a weapon anyone would choose over a knife, let alone a gun. There's a reason that the Provos preferred AKs and plastic explosives.
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Not all criminals are looking to murder people for various reasons. If London was a war zone or something these stuff would probably be quite popular. It is not really the choice of weapon I would expect a street robber to use.
 
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