This Is Local London has an interview up with a former gang member about the use of knives in London. It makes for an informative if disturbing read:
Knives are normal. They are just like having a mobile phone - everybody has got one... if you get robbed, a knife is handy. If you have got a knife you feel that you have a chance of saving yourself from being attacked. But when you get older you feel that you might be the one who could get cut, so you think I'm going to have to cut them first', although I would never stab anyone
Hearing that there is a line drawn between stabbing and cutting isn't too reassuring. We've been on the wrong end of a knife only once and it's not an experience we'd recommend. And then, according to the Beeb there's the rising use of dogs as weapons to worry about:
"They're basically a legal weapon," says 15-year-old Lil from north London. "They could do as much damage as a firearm but they're legal. That's the best thing about them."
Nonsense. The best thing about them is when they wake you up in the morning with a great big slobbering lick. Or when you put them in a funny hat and take a photograph. Kids! Seriously though it doesn't sound much fun to be on the receiving end of a dog attack:
"I couldn't really feel the kicks or the shotgun being smashed in my face, all I could feel was the one dog that had its teeth in my thigh."
Shotgun to the face preferable to a pit bull in your thigh then. And that brings us to the guns.
Despite all this we still feel very safe in London. A report last week though did list us as the most dangerous capital in the EU. So do you feel unsafe in London? Let us know in the comments.
