‘The rest of us are treated like criminals’: Truth behind Coles’ knives ban

The supermarket giant made headlines this week after banning an everyday item from stores. But there’s a lot more to the story.

OPINION

It’s understandable that, in the wake of an awful crime, we look for ways to prevent it from being repeated.

But why do we so frequently turn to bans and restrictions for what are usually rare incidents?

The New South Wales government last year passed laws allowing police to check people for knives without a warrant or suspicion after the Bondi stabbing and the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at his church.

In reality, that makes no difference to knife crime. It can only be done in places where knife crimes have already been committed.

Without stopping everyone on the street every day to check them for knives, there’s minimal chance such a law would ever prevent someone going on a stabbing spree – but it was an immediate reaction to highly-publicised violent crimes so, as far as the state government is concerned, they’ve done something.

Now it’s Coles taking kitchen knives off its shelves after a worker was allegedly stabbed by a 13-year-old in Queensland.

The woman is still in a critical condition and the boy, who police allege attacked randomly and alone, has been charged with attempted murder.

Coles wants to be seen to be doing something, so they’ve banned the sale of knives.

But would that really stop a child who wants to stab someone near to death from doing so?

I’m sure they could take a knife from their parents’ kitchen with ease or find something else to use as a makeshift weapon.

The horrific stabbing occurred at the Yamanto Central shopping centre. Picture: Liam Kidston

But Caleb Bond, 25, says Australia has a youth crime problem – not a knife problem. Picture: Instagram/@calebbond

We’re talking about a product – it is not created to be a weapon – that can be found in pretty much every home and workplace in the country, and we’re meant to believe that a supermarket refusing to sell kitchen knives will prevent stabbings?

It will make precious little difference. For the sake of minimal protection from rare and freak crimes, the rest of us are treated like criminals.

Knife crime in general is less common than it was two decades ago.

How often have you heard of a staff member in a supermarket – or any other shop, for that matter – being stabbed with a knife from their own shop?

It is a horrific and tragic crime, but one so rare and unusual that it doesn’t require any kind of ban or regulatory reaction.

You may as well stop the sale of cars because, like kitchen knives, they are not designed to be a weapon, but are exceedingly dangerous. They kill more than 1000 Australians every year.

But if a worker in a car yard was run over by a lunatic customer, you wouldn’t see them shut up shop and stop selling cars because of the potential danger.

Safety is important, but so are your liberties. So often our liberties are eroded in the name of safety and we all suck it up because we figure it’s for the greater good – until we wake up one day with no liberties at all, because you can never be safe enough.

The 13-year-old boy was charged after allegedly stabbing a female Coles supermarket worker in Queensland on Monday, leaving her in critical condition. Picture: 7News

And it’s emblematic of much of how crime is dealt with at a political level – treating the symptom instead of the cause.

The problem here is not one of knives. Australia does not have a widespread problem with knife crime.

But it does have a problem with youth crime. And that is not caused by the availability of kitchen knives in supermarkets.

It is caused by neglect in the home and hopelessness among youths. It is caused by light sentencing and bail laws that allow children to repeatedly reoffend without the cycle being broken. It is caused by mental illness which has, particularly since the pandemic, soared among young people.

They are far more pressing and destructive concerns than the availability of kitchen knives in supermarkets.

If you don’t fix those problems, then kids will just find knives anyway.

It’s worth asking why a child would allegedly stab a woman he has never met in broad daylight – but kneejerk reactions do nothing to help.

Originally published as ‘The rest of us are treated like criminals’: Truth behind Coles’ knives ban