OPINION:
A woman in London has been arrested for stabbing to “death” — to deflation, really — a blimp mockup of President Donald Trump wearing a diaper with what authorities believe was a small pair of cutting shears.
And this is curious because London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to take on a mayoral role in a major Western city, has banned the carrying of knives.
Yep. Banned ’em.
Back in 2018, he tweeted this: “No excuses. [T]here is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.”
That was Khan’s way of dealing with the rising tide of knife-stabbings in his city — while ignoring the coincidental simultaneous influx of foreigners to the city. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford reported a more-than-doubling of foreign-born residents of the United Kingdom between 1993 and 2015, from 3.8 million to 8.7 million. And London was where they largely made their home; roughly 41% of Inner London’s population in 2015 was deemed “foreign born” by Migration Observatory minds.
Khan welcomed the migrants with open arms, calling in 2017 for “the freedom of movement of people” and for the government’s acceptance of 20,000 Syrian refugees into the United Kingdom by 2020 — and for Londoners to build them homes to help them resettle.
“London,” Khan said in July 2017, “has a proud history of providing refuge to those seeking sanctuary and it is only right that a city as prosperous as ours offers shelter to people fleeing persecution, and plainly in fear for their lives.”
Then came the sudden surge in knife crimes in the city.
In 2014 and 2015, reported knife offenses in England and Wales stood below 25,000. By 2018, that statistic had risen to 39,818. England’s hospitals also reported an 8% increase in admissions for assault by a sharp object during that same time period. And this, from the BBC: “Knife crime tends to be more prevalent … in London. For every 100,000 people in the capital, there were 168 knife offenses in 2017-18, with separate figures, from the mayor’s office, showing that young black and minority ethnic teenage boys and men were disproportionately affected, as both victims and perpetrators.”
The foreign-borners, in other words.
A more recent report indicates knife crime has risen by 52% since Khan has taken office — and gun crime, by 30%. The common denominator?
Khan has banned both objects. He’s outright prohibited crimes of guns, crimes of knives.
And yet conservative, Trump-protecting Amy Dalla Mura, also known as “Based Amy,” managed to steal into London a sharp object — called by Mashable “a knife”; by the Daily Mail, a “bladed article”; by police by way of Breitbart, a “pointed article” — and stab away at the ballooned effigy of Trump.
How’s that knife ban working out for you, Khan?
As Trump tweeted, in part and en route to England, Khan “should focus on crime in London.”
Indeed. And given the stats, the focus ought to be on the perpetrators, not the weapons. But that would mean opening eyes to inconvenient truths of open borders and immigration.
In other words: Expect Khan’s office to release new guidance on knife bans that clarifies all “pointed articles” are henceforth and forthwith included in said bans. It’s the way of the far left people: Ignore the facts, push the politically correct, and all will be well.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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