Should UK self-defence laws be reformed?

[hurfdurf]

What sort of paper bag are we talking about? The old white sweet shop kind or a sturdy brown primark bag?

If people could carry knives, they'd be better able to free themselves, so you've undermined your own argument there.

Disagree, they would end up stabbing themselves, paperbags would claim thousands of lives if knives were bought into the picture.

 

[arknor]

You would imagine it would be classified as armed robbery / aggravated assault though if they used any type of weapon. I don’t think criminals will just randomly spray people from the get go. They’d do what they do now, which is threaten first.

most of them will already be armed anyway
When it comes down to it they are cowards 90% of the time that couldn't use fists

 

[potatolord]

Well, you're very lucky then. Fortunately, I don't live in a bad area now, but as a skint undergraduate/postgraduate student (you tend to get more hassle as a student from the locals) I had to live in grotty rooms in cheap HMOs in Benwell/Byker in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Highfield in Sheffield and Tang Hall in York. Also, for a couple of years I was as an employee of a new start-up Biotechnology company where I had to live in a run-down post-industrial town in rural Northumberland with high unemployment and a lot of low-level crime/anti-social behaviour/juvenile street gangs and alcohol/drug abuse. (The weapons I mentioned were kitchen knives, scaffolding poles and pipes not firearms by the way)

Jeepers.

I just remembered, I did get whacked with a bottle once, and a few stitches! That was a feud, not a random robbery, mind.

My scar probably makes me look like a bad boy, so maybe it helps? Always look on the bright side, eh?