Gun ownership is an alien concept with our British cousins across the Atlantic, but that doesn’t mean that violent crime has been reduced. In fact, with no guns readily available, though there are gun crimes in the UK, knives seem to be the weapon of choice. This isn't surprising. The rise in knife attacks has been in the UK press since 2008–and they’ve increased by 13 percent since last year (via Sky News):
Knife crime has increased for the first time in many years, annual crime statistics have revealed.The figures show there were 1,577 more knife assaults (up 13% from the previous year) and 1,000 more cases of knife possession (up 10%).
Overall, knife crime rose by 2% in the 12 months up to March this year, said the Office for National Statistics.
The ONS [Office for National Statistics] report also revealed that sex offences rose by 37% to the highest figure since 2003, but it suggested this was the result of victims being more willing to report such offences, improvements in police recording methods and a significant number of reported historic sex attacks.
The official figures for all crimes recorded by police show they went up by 3%, with a particular rise of 23% in violence against the person, but the ONS said that was purely because of changes in police recording methods.
In January, the Telegraph reported that violent crime, overall, rose by 16 percent. Yikes:
Violent crime recorded by the police soared by 16 per cent last year to nearly 700,000 offences, new figures show.Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) covering the 12 months to the end of September last year showed 699,800 recorded incidents of violence against the person compared with 604,100 offences in the previous 12 months.
The data also showed a new record level of rapes recorded by police in England and Wales.
There were 24,043 rapes in recorded crime figures for the year, a rise of 31 per cent on the previous 12 months and 81 per cent higher than a decade earlier.
The figure beat the 22,000 figures recorded in the previous quarter's data and suggests that continuing confidence in police and the courts is leading growing numbers of rape victims to come forward.
Even in 2008 and 2009, there were reports about the surge in knife crime. In fact, in 2008, the Daily Mail reported that there were 130,000 incidents that year, which averages out to be a knife assault every four minutes.
Concerning homicides in the UK, John Lott of the Crime Prevention Center noted that the rate spiked in Britain once the country ritually outlawed handguns in 1997. It only began to drop when the UK added more police officers in 2003 and 2004.