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Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

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Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#81

Post by Symbiote »

sprash wrote: post #67
matthewmacleod wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sham comment and you are a liar. The idea that there is no British culture in Birmingham is bald-faced misrepresentation and you should be ashamed of it.

Meh. Birmingham is big I probably couldn't see more than 5% of it. And I agree there are "islands" of British culture left. But you have to specifically look for them. And I'm the kind of guy who visited a concert in the Symphony Hall almost every other week (even though I was probably the youngest person in the audience).

Wikipedia says Selly Oak "had a below-average percentage of ethnic minorities with only 15.9% of the population consisting of ethnic minorities compared with 29.6% for Birmingham in general."

What British culture did you expect to find, beyond the concert hall? I assume there are pubs, sports teams, museums and so on.

In any case, the south Asian culture in Britain is also British culture. Example: Balti.

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#82

Post by vonuebelgarten »

DanBC wrote: post #71
sattoshi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he is highlighting that the problem is not the weapons but rather the people wielding them. These people will use the next best thing and the bans only really affect law abiding citizens.

gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57 I dunno, that feels like it's working.

Gun control is not a magic solution for firearm killings (after all it only affects law-abiding citizens who, by definition, are not murderers).

E.g.: here in Brazil it is almost impossible to legally own a firearm but we had 212 firearm-murders per million people in 2014 (Source: http://brasileiros.com.br/2016/08/o-brasil-e-o-pais-que-mais... ).

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#83

Post by EliRivers »

vonuebelgarten wrote: post #82
DanBC wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57 I dunno, that feels like it's working.

Gun control is not a magic solution for firearm killings (after all it only affects law-abiding citizens who, by definition, are not murderers). E.g.: here in Brazil it is almost impossible to legally own a firearm but we had 212 firearm-murders per million people in 2014 (Source: http://brasileiros.com.br/2016/08/o-brasil-e-o-pais-que-mais... ).

So seems like it's easy in Brazil to illegally own a firearm. I suspect the UK avoided a similar outcome by not only making it illegal, but also policing in such a way as to make it difficult to illegally own a firearm.

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#84

Post by [deleted] »

devwastaken wrote: post #42
weinzierl wrote: post #34

> "Bystanders who come to the aid of the victim of an attack can have an important role in minimising further injury," [..] > They urged bystanders to remove victims from exposure as soon as possible and apply "copious" amounts of water on the affected area, "to minimize the long-term effects of scarring and need for surgical reconstruction." The "'copious' amounts of water on the affected area" part can't be stresse…

Anyone know if it would be possible to neutralize an acid attack in a sprayable fashion with baking soda?/stabilizer?, like the opposite of pepper spray that bystanders can use since water isn't always accessible?

[deleted]

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#85

Post by Inconel »

rhapsodic wrote: post #58
Inconel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard this kind of argument here on HN. It sounds an awfully lot like victim blaming and I'm unsure why you think it acceptable that certain people not be allowed into certain parts of a city. Also, as a South LA resident, LA doesn't really have an inner city, or at least it hasn't been the area traditionally known for high crime.

> Also, as a South LA resident, LA doesn't really have an inner city, or at least it hasn't been the area traditionally known for high crime. The phrase "inner city" is not geographical; it's a code phrase for a predominantly black neighborhood, or in some cases, a lower-income neighborhood.

I'm aware of the origin of the phrase, and how it relates to white flight, urban deindustrialization, housing policy, specifically public housing policy, and housing discrimination, particularly as it affected the urban core of major cities. It absolutely does have it's origin in geography, which itself can often be weaponized as a tool for segregation. LA has it's own set of problems regarding these issues, but I've never heard then described as "inner city" problems, that's all I was trying to point out.

On the other hand, if the poster I was replying to meant to imply that you can't be around poor black folks without being robbed, I'd prefer they come out directly and say that, rather than hide behind coded euphemisms.

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#86

Post by sattoshi »

futurix wrote: post #69
sattoshi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he is highlighting that the problem is not the weapons but rather the people wielding them. These people will use the next best thing and the bans only really affect law abiding citizens.

If the ban would only affect law abiding citizens, then why aren't the criminals described here using already banned knives or guns?

I think I expressed myself poorly. They aren't using banned things because they are banned. Instead, they go the easier route of killing people with non-banned things.

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#87

Post by gjjrfcbugxbhf »

DanBC wrote: post #71
sattoshi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he is highlighting that the problem is not the weapons but rather the people wielding them. These people will use the next best thing and the bans only really affect law abiding citizens.

gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57 I dunno, that feels like it's working.

Add in the Switzerland and Norway figures and things look less clear. But here is a large dataset with some nice infographics.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-ho...

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#88

Post by DanBC »

DanBC wrote: post #71
sattoshi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he is highlighting that the problem is not the weapons but rather the people wielding them. These people will use the next best thing and the bans only really affect law abiding citizens.

gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57 I dunno, that feels like it's working.

It's weird to see a bunch of people trying to refute this very clear point: we don't have many guns and so we have very little gun crime.

  gun murders per million people UK:  0.236
  gun murders per million people US: 32.57

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#89

Post by gjjrfcbugxbhf »

DanBC wrote: post #88
DanBC wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57 I dunno, that feels like it's working.

It's weird to see a bunch of people trying to refute this very clear point: we don't have many guns and so we have very little gun crime. gun murders per million people UK: 0.236 gun murders per million people US: 32.57

You are being very very selective with the data. Assuming good faith please refer to the rather larger dataset with gun ownership and gun crime data for many countries provided in another post.

Re: Fears for tourists in London as acid attacks escalate in recent weeks

#90

Post by Fgapd »

dolevyao wrote: post #66
MichaelGG wrote: post #5

Odd/interesting that they don't mention motives. They give one example of using acid to commit a mugging. Yet[1] seems to state that acid attacks are mostly male-on-female violence for relationships/shame issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_throwing#Epidemiology So it is a real threat to tourists? It's like when you hear about high crime in some area, but it's mostly gang members killing each other -- it's a s…

The top 3 London boroughs for acid attacks are ones with significantly large South Asian / Muslim communities. Source: https://youtu.be/oHFfzVVRCm4

You shouldn't say that it's racist.
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