German knife attack

[Dave Grubb]

From Bloomberg this morning:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to tighten weapons regulations and accelerate the deportation of rejected asylum seekers after three people were knifed to death in Solingen on Friday.

A Syrian man named as Issa Al H. who had avoided deportation after a failed asylum application is in custody accused of carrying out the attack at a festival in the western German city near Dusseldorf and membership of the extremist Islamic State.

Speaking Monday at the site of the assault, in which a further eight people were injured, Scholz characterized the incident as “terrorism.” He told reporters that stricter rules on weapons possession would apply especially to knives and they should and will be adopted “very rapidly.”

Not sure how "safe" knives will work out but we went trough a period on airlines were they stopped using regular silver wear in business class and used all plastic Over time they relaxed that ban and went back to metal forks and plastic knives. I always thought that if I had the choice of a weapon between a butter knife and a fork the fork would win.

An irony in this attack is that Solingen is known as the knife making capital---this from Wikipedia:

Solingen (German pronunciation: [ˈzoːlɪŋən] ⓘ; Limburgish: Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr. After Wuppertal, it is the second-largest city in the Bergisches Land, and a member of the regional authority of the Rhineland.

Solingen is called the "City of Blades", and has long been renowned for the manufacturing of fine swords, knives, scissors and razors made by firms such as WKC, DOVO, Wüsthof, Zwilling J. A. Henckels, Böker, Güde, Hubertus, Diefenthal, Puma, Clauberg/Klauberg, Eickhorn, Linder, Carl Schmidt Sohn, Dreiturm, Herder, Martor Safety Knives, Wolfertz and numerous other manufacturers.

The medieval swordsmiths of Solingen designed the town's coat of arms. In the late 17th century, a group of swordsmiths from Solingen broke their guild oaths by taking their sword-making secrets with them to Shotley Bridge, County Durham, in England.

[Honda]

People who want to kill are going to find a way to do it.

[UTAH]

Yeah, one of human nature's lesser attributes. Yet, in the proper context, doing so effectively and efficiently during wartime gains one hero status.

Though I worked in a system with a significant number of moral and legal criminals, it did not dampen my belief that most people around us are good. I'm surprised we don't have more killing sprees. For, most of us have access to deadly weapons - but (fortunately) there's only a small number of killers amongst us.

Hunter