Within the UK, which has strict gun-control legal guidelines, about 4 in 10 homicides contain a knife or sharp instrument. There may be specific concern about knife crime involving younger individuals in Britain’s cities. In London, 21 youngsters have been killed in 2023, 18 of whom have been stabbed to dying.
“I can’t keep silent as extra younger lives are misplaced to those brutal and heartless crimes,” Elba mentioned. “As college returns, too many younger individuals won’t be becoming a member of their classmates and too many grieving households have misplaced a teen they love in recent times.”
The federal government introduced a ban on machetes and knives which might be designed to look threatening in August 2023, however the legislation has but to be accepted by Parliament.
Elba additionally mentioned know-how firms ought to be held accountable for knife imagery on cell phones.
“I can choose up a cellphone proper now, sort in knives and I’ll get inundated with adverts for them,” he mentioned. “We should always discover a strategy to deter tech firms, promoting, to place that away.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, mentioned knife crime and hospital admissions for stabbings had each fallen in comparison with the pre-pandemic yr of 2019-2020.
“However, nonetheless, we all know knife crime devastates lives,” he mentioned. “We do need to do extra. It’s welcome that Idris Elba and others proceed to shine a lightweight on this necessary subject.”