Suffer the little children
 

I don't know if people are aware of this, but the UK has had a spate of murders lately, where the killer and the victim were both children. There have also been a spate of killings where the victim was an adult and the killer a child, or group of children. Usually these have been teenagers, often gang related, sometimes not.

Yesterday in Liverpool a boy of 11 was gunned down as he walked home from playing football, shot three times. His killer, a teenage boy riding a BMX bike.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...de/6959562.stm

no wonder they won't let you violent fuckers have guns. christ!

I read that knifings are so common in some sections of London, Kevlar, back to school, clothes are selling like hot cakes.

So it doesn't only happen in Philadelphia. :(

Some, very small parts of London yes.

Is Kevlar good for knives? I thought it was more of a bulletproof thing.

I guess it would be better than poly-cotton blend at least.

kevlar is designed to prevent knife penetration as well as bullet or shrapnel.

Perhaps this spate of child killings (not only in UK, I assume theyre everywhere) are a product of the ongoing nannification (nanny state?) of our world along with decreased (in general) parental responsibility i see (if not in the UK DEFINITELY in the US)?

Ill come up with an argument to support this idea when ive had less back beers

Next thing you know they'll be sending all these little shitheads over here. (I know this isn't a funny subject. It just came into my head that's all)

Seriously though, what do you think is causing all this childhood violence Dana?

I've been shocked at the amount of bullying that goes on in schools here these days. I believe our culture has become a bit desensitized to aggressive behaviour so we allow our children to behave in ways which are inappropriate compared to how (in my memory at least) it was appropriate to behave when we were children. Kids are so sophisticated these days and from a very young age. Is it any wonder they're showing the less attractive traits normally seen in adults along with the more innocuous signs?

In terms of violence by kids against kids, that's always been there. There have always been knife deaths over here. What's made the recent cases particularly shocking is the use of guns. We really aren't used to them yet. There are gangs in some of th inner city areas who look to an American style 'gang-culture' with guns holding a particular place within that gang culture, that a switchblade used to hold over here.

Those are just features though. Mostly the reasons are more socio economic than that. For the most part these incidents tend to happen in fairly deprived, high crime, urban areas. It's a complex issue though, I don't really know much about it. I would point out though that, although these are shocking and worrying trends, the numbers are still thankfully quite low overall.

The bullying thing. Yeah, it does seem to be worse. It's not that more kids are getting bullied, or more kids are engaged in bullying...it's that the results of the bullying so often seem to be worse than they would once have been. I don't know the answer.

Football (soccer).

In the States, I think you could trace much of it back to the war on drugs. We have a country piled high with personal weapons but the vast majority are never fired in anger. Mix in the drug trade and you've got violence that seems necessary to the perps and politicians and whole communities where life is cheapened.

Unfortunately there's no way to know, at this point, what the corresponding rise in gun crime might have been, had no such law had been in place during that same period.

It's not English but you'll get the point.