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That the teenage girl stabbed to death on Saturday in Culcheth, Cheshire, was transgender though they don't believe it was hate crime. Brianna Ghey, aged 16 was found in a park on Saturday afternoon, a boy and a girl both aged 15 have been arrested on suspicion of murder. So if they are guilty, three children's lives have been messed up. It's a sad fact knives are too accessible and a significant number of people seem too quick to use them, like guns in America. Is this a reflection of our times with politicians ignoring the law of the land, so ordinary people copy them? While I wish I had the energy I had when I was young, I don't think I'd like to be a young woman today (something that has probably been said since time immemorial).
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It is as it is
The evil and wicked of man shall be with us just as Jesus proclaimed the poor will be with us always. Cain killing his brother Abel wasn't the first. Nor have we read nor seen the last. I've watched as good people turn bad from lust for wealth, power, or from drugs and drink. Removing what one perceives as a killing weapon stops at what point? People have been slain with a rock, cement blocks, bricks, etc. Maybe one thinks of guns? Should we disarm Ukraine?
Utopia is NOT achievable on this big blue space ship hurling through space. The Flower Child revolution begun in San Francisco is a great example. Drugs, homeless, death litters the streets. Searching for news about transgender, I read of dozens of deaths every single day. Usually not transgender though. So many young girls and young women dying everyday because they were easy prey makes me thankful I live in an uncivilized state. I'll dial nine one one afterwards. One doesn't sail across the lakes or oceans without a life preserver. Don't travel the bad lands without one.
Hugs Angharad
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Knife crime is horrible. It
Knife crime is horrible. It is hard to prevent as knives are used every day for household and work tasks. Outlawing them would be impossible.
You can only increase the fines and prison sentencing for carrying without a reason.
I carry a knife for digging arrows out of trees when I do archery, but it stays in my quiver in the boot of my car.
I know a police Sargent that worked for the metropolitan police. He said knife crime grew when the police were criticized for doing "stop and search" on young black guys. It was seen as racist. He understood that, but he said most of the victims of are young black guys. He told me to google it .
Despite making up only 13% of London's total population, black Londoners account for 45% of London's knife murder victims, 61% of knife murder perpetrators and 53% of knife crime perpetrators.
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/commission...
So for the want of a seemingly politically correct police force these young men die.
He had enough and retired early.
In the year ending March 2022, there were around 45,000 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in England and Wales (excluding Greater Manchester Police Force). This was 9% higher than in 2020/21 and 34% higher than in 2010/11.
The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife or weapon illegally is either 4 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both. You'll get a prison sentence if you're convicted of carrying a knife or weapon illegally more than once.
Even though it seems grim.
Stabbings and stabbing deaths are serious issues in countries across the world, yet in the United Kingdom, they are not as common as in other nations. With a death rate of only 0.08 per 100,000 people, the United Kingdom has one of the lowest stabbing death rates in the world. However, this does not mean that knife crime is non-existent; there have been many cases of people being victims or perpetrators of stabbings throughout the years. In particular, most reported incidents happen to young people aged between 10 and 24.
40% of the Homicides in England and Wales in 2020/21 were done using knives. Much of this was gang/drug related.
"It is estimated that gangs are responsible for as much as half of all knife crime with injury, 60 per cent of shootings"
Thank god we don't have legally carried guns.
Leeanna
That poor girl
I was wondering if somebody would mention this piece of news here. I didn’t know if it belonged on a site that discusses fiction, but it really upset me. That poor kid was far braver than I’ve ever been, in matters of gender.
It was funny: at first, when the Daily Mail (a right-leaning tabloid) carried the story, they hadn’t picked up on the fact that Brianna was trans. The comments section gushed with comments of the “poor, beautiful angel” variety. Then the story got updated to mention that the victim was transgender and a lot of downvotes started to appear. Then they deleted all the comments and locked the comments function.
They used her deadname in the news, too.
While there *might* be some room for debate as to whether this was a hate crime or not (let’s let the investigators do their job) it’s been said that she’s been the victim of a bullying campaign for years. Her school, Birchwood Community High School didn’t even have a statement about the killing on their website when I checked, which I think is despicable. It seems to me that they failed her utterly if they allowed her to suffer bullying for years, as the news appears to suggest.
Somebody created a Wikipedia page but almost at once it was flagged for deletion. Apparently the case is “not notable.”
Ever wondered why we’re* an endangered species?
* Edit: by ‘we’ I mean transgender folk.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
Endangered?
Perhaps through government action, I suppose. Otherwise H. Sapiens is a pretty durable species. Even under the worst conditions we proliferate. The last time I looked the world population was growing larger and larger. Indeed, I suspect that contributes to the mindset the life is cheap and of negligable value. Don't like somebody, for any of a large number of reasons? Kill them, no big loss.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
She looks completely female to me
Is she MtF or FtM? What was the estimated time that the crime occured? The commentary suggests that she was found in the day time. Did the crime happen at night?
For me, when the sun goes down, I am inside with the door locked.
Didn't used to be that way
For me, when the sun goes down, I am inside with the door locked.
Back when I was young, we didn't have to fear the night. My parent's main concern was being hit by a car, or our getting enough sleep. Most neighborhoods were safe, and two-legged predators were rare.
But times change, and rarely for the better.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Sad that they ever deadnamed her...
Originally they were deadnaming her in the media, but now at least, they are investigating it as a possible hate-crime
https://outsidethecloset.com/2023/02/15/transgender-teens-tr...
The 2 teenagers have now been
The 2 teenagers have now been charged.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-64625001
Leeanna
Children stabbing children
I thought Lord of the Flies was fiction, but here we are. This is actually becoming a regular thing here in the UK and it is desperately sad. That Brianna was one of us just makes it more personal.
The initial police statement that "there was no evidence that this was a hate crime" because she is trans has now been changed to say that they are now investigating the possibility that it may have been.
I don't know what can be done to stop this violence - if there were easy solutions they would have been done already. Surely there is something. Hardly a month goes by without another one. The answers have to start in schools.
RIP Brianna, you had more courage than most of us do to stand up and say "this is who I am" at such an early age.
Alison
While one is too many here
While one is too many here are the facts
Homicide returned to pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels, with 696 victims in the latest year; this is 130 more (a 23% increase) than the year ending March 2021 when government restrictions meant there was less social contact.
The homicide rate was 11.7 per million population, with the rate for males (16.9 per million population) more than twice that for females (6.6 per million population).
Although the way the media seem to report it, it is women that are in the greatest danger. Clearly not. Yes they are more physically vulnerable, but they are not the usual targets.
The homicide rate over the three-year period to the year ending March 2022 was 39.7 per million population for the Black ethnic group, approximately four times higher than for the White ethnic group (8.9 per million population).
Four times that of the white population! Gangs and drugs probably as I posted earlier
Approximately 4 in 10 homicides were committed using a knife or sharp instrument (282 homicides); a 19% increase compared with the previous year, and the highest annual total since the Homicide Index began in 1946 (similar to the previous high of 281 in the year ending March 2018).
There were 69 homicides victims aged 13 to 19 years, of these, 51 were killed by a knife or sharp instrument.
Males accounted for 72% of homicide victims in the latest year, but 93% of convicted suspects.
This shows it is mainly a male-on-male crime mainly.
None of this is good but when you look at these countries
These are per 100,000 , remember the UK 11.7 per million population
El Salvador - 52.02 per 100k people (so this would be 520 per million)
Jamaica - 43.85 per 100k people
Lesotho - 43.56 per 100k people
Honduras - 38.93 per 100k people
Belize - 37.79 per 100k people
Venezuela - 36.69 per 100k people
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines - 36.54 per 100k people
South Africa - 36.40 per 100k people
Saint Kitts And Nevis - 36.09 per 100k people
Nigeria - 34.52 per 100k people
So you have nearly 12 million to one chance of being murdered. Just don't join a drug-running gang or go to some unsavory places.
There is always a chance that some moronic idiots hating you though. Like the ones that poor little child fell victim to.
Leeanna
I'd like to point something
I'd like to point something out. Constantly demanding that a ban be placed on something that's been readily available for an enormous time is ridiculous. Criminalizing those legitimately using an item doesn't stop the people that are _already_ performing a criminal behaviour. They're _already criminals_. (breaking the law is rather a requirement for the occupation.)
In the case of deaths? People point to knives, and they point to guns, and they accuse the inanimate object, because that way, they don't have to accept any personal responsibility. I'm in Texas. There are likely at least three guns per capita in the state. That is, more than there are automobiles. Yet, when you remove suicides, there are more people killed by automobiles than by guns in the state. (Yes, you DO have to remove suicides. ) When was the last time you heard someone advocating removal of non-government owned vehicles from the road for the safety of people? How about the last time you heard of multiple people being killed in an avoidable automotive crash, by a drunken murderer, then it disappeared within a day - yet if it's exciting, like using a "weapon", the media will play it up for months.
I get it, lots of people hate "weapons". Knives, guns, bows and arrows, rocks, sticks.. Just be reasonable, and admit that it's a personal dislike. The only thing that I personally advocate is that I believe that everyone should be required to take a gun safety class. That way, if they ARE confronted with a gun (found by a child, abandoned, whatever), they know how to deal with it safely, and understand what it can and can't do. No, not be forced to learn how to shoot. Just how they work, and how to make them safe.
We could do the same with knives. I cringe when I watch someone just reach into a drawer and dig around for a bladed object. I have enough scars on my hands that I don't want them to happen to someone else out of ignorance - and I DID have lots of training in how to maintain and use my knives.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.