Since the UK banned most personal ownership of firearms, its rate of knife crime has risen to the point where someone in Britain is attacked with a knife every four minutes. In addition, London now has one of the highest rates of acid attacks in the world. No mention in the Independent of the likely cause of this massive increase in recent years, of course.

A couple of days ago, Regents Park (London) police reported with pride that they had conducted a street search and removed and disposed of the following dangerous items.

Seriously? These are all normal, useful items found in almost every home. On any given day I would be likely to have two or three of them in my pockets, as well as my Leatherman multi-purpose tool which includes a knife and several other potentially dangerous tools.

Removing tools, including knives and guns and corrosive liquids, from everyone because someone might use them to harm someone else does not reduce crime. Some other object can always be found. Focusing on the object used in the crime is senseless.