Knife crime: 'A knife is every bit as deadly as a firearm'

THE brutal stabbing of a 22-year-old man who went to the aid of a girlfriend being molested by two thugs at T in the Park has come at a time when knife crime is high up the political agenda.

Today, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is due to outline Westminster's latest response to the country's growing blade culture just days after Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill promised tougher sentences for knife offences. If what Ms Smith is said to be proposing is true, it has to be said that the approach being proposed in Scotland appears far more direct and more likely to bring results.

Ms Smith's plan to make offenders face up to their victims and visit stab victims in hospital have already been written off by opposition politicians as "half baked". To an extent that is true in that the only remorse that many who carry, and are prepared to use, a knife will have is that of being caught.

Blade crime is not a new phenomena and in Scotland can be traced back as far as the razor gangs of the 1950s and 60s. Readily available and cheap knives have always been a weapon of choice for violent criminals. But what is becoming of some concern is that there are signs that more youngsters than ever before are now arming themselves as a matter of course – with a growing number of incidents being recorded, even in schools.

Almost 1200 victims of knife attacks were hospitalised in Scotland last year and while the problems in cities such as Edinburgh are nowhere as great as in London – where 27 teenagers were stabbed last year – police have mounted campaigns including stop and search operations on buses and outside clubs to deter those who would carry such a weapon. But while there is little doubt that such initiatives have proved effective in reducing trouble in the city centre outlying areas remain a problem.

Politicians have already given the courts more powers by upgrading the offence of carrying a knife. It is time that they used them.

All too often the perpetrator's excuse for being in possession is that the weapon is solely being carried for protection. That is feeble. There has to be a presumption that if someone is carrying a knife then they are prepared to use it and should be dealt with accordingly.

Measures like being made to confront victims are all very well as part of a mix but hardly in the final analysis a deterrent that will have many quaking in their boots.

A knife is a potentially lethal weapon, every bit as deadly as a firearm. It is time it was treated as such and the full force of the law should be brought upon anyone foolish enough to carry one.

An automatic jail sentence would make many think twice before arming themselves.