A familiar horror reached Pooja Kanda first on social media: There had been a sword attack in London. And then Kanda, who was home alone at the time, saw a detail she dreaded and knew all too well.
A man with a sword had killed a 14-year-old boy who was walking to school. Two years ago, her 16-year-old son, Ronan, was killed by two sword-wielding schoolmates while walking to a neighbor’s to borrow a PlayStation controller.
“It took me back,” Kanda, who lives near Birmingham, said about Daniel Anjorin’s April 30 killing in an attack in London’s Hainault district that also wounded four people. “It’s painful to see that this has happened all over again.”
In parts of the world that ban or strictly regulate gun ownership, including Britain and much of the rest of Europe, knives and other types of blades are often the weapons of choice used in crimes. Many end up in the hands of children, as they can be cheap and easy to get.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Although the number of fatal stabbings has mostly held steady in England and Wales over the past 10 years, headline-grabbing attacks and an overall rise in knife crime have stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more.
Of the 244 fatal stabbings in England and Wales in the 12 months ending with March 2023 — the most recent figures available — 101 were committed with kitchen knives, far surpassing any other type of blade, according to the Office of National Statistics.
But the uptick in knife crime and a steady drumbeat of shocking attacks, including those that killed Ronan Kanda, Daniel Anjorin and three people in Nottingham last year, has pushed the issue to the forefront.
And certain types of blades are already illegal, including switchblades and so-called zombie knives, which come in various sizes, have cutting and serrated edges, and feature text or images suggesting they should be used to commit violence, according to the 2016 law banning them.
The details of stabbing attacks differ, but Pooja Kanda said she sees similarities — chiefly the emotional what-comes-next: bewildered, shattered families, anger that such a thing could happen to a child or anyone again.
The U.K. Home Office said in a statement that crimes with straight swords are rare and were not raised by the police as a specific concern, so officials focused instead on zombie-style knives and machetes in the law that takes effect in September.
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