Shard

Stuff like this: 400 acid attacks in 6 months. Ok, not everywhere, but something is obviously rotten in the state of London.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...n-acid-attacks

Completely agree with Amber Rudd, although I would give perpetrators the option of an acid shower in return for a slightly reduced sentence.

DXBtoDOH

Could be wrong but odds are pretty good the perpetrators are minorities and offsprings of recent immigrants.

If true, there you have it. Regardless of who it is, a disproportionate percentage of the high profile incidents in the UK in recent years have been caused by you know whats.

And now that I have made my observation I will withdraw from this thread.

Jingsamichty

When the UK suffered mass shooting attacks (Dunblane, Hungerford) the response was to remove weapons from general circulation. We didn't demonise mentally ill middle aged white men.

The sensible solution to these attacks is to enforce strict control on the supply of dangerous substances, not to demonise brown teenagers.

MillieF

I worry that previously ignorant teenagers, who didn't know how to cause such havoc are now being shown a pretty good idea and might start trying it for themselves, at school and in the wider community.

You can't buy knife without proof of age, the same should be so for corrosive products.

dbd33

This is like a racist acid attack; whizz into the thread on your moped, chuck your noxious text, zoom off and be giggling behind the bike sheds before anyone has time to take you on. I bet you're a bloody immigrant.

Pulaski

The "acid problem" is more than three orders of magnitude greater, maybe even four orders - measured in hundreds a year, not less than a handful over several decades.
Perhaps you don't realize that there are over 31 million containers of strong mineral acid in the UK, and evenly distributed across the country such that most homes have an average (mode, not mean) of two.

The idea that the primary solution to the problem is to "control the supply" or require proof of age is wholly unrealistic, and pretty much unworkable. I think many of the attacks are by men aged 18 or older, so I don't think it would help much anyway.

Jingsamichty

Yes of course I am aware of car batteries. However my point is that when a problem arises, the sensible response is to try to find a solution for it - it may be control of supply, it may not.

The incorrect response, however, is what DXBtoDOH did in post 2 - immediately start blaming entire sections of the population, the vast majority of whom are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

BristolUK

Strong? What would they be?

I just googled and see mention of hugely varying strength. The "common" use I easily found was cleaning the inside of boilers, fertiliser and cleaning swimming pools. That doesn't really sound like a common to household thing.

Perhaps these 31 million containers are more common to industry, farming or warehouse rather than under the kitchen sink.

Pulaski

See post #7 above.

JonboyE

DXBtoDOH?

Pulaski

Except he didn't, if you can take your blinkers off for long enough to read what he actually wrote. .... What he said was that the perpetrators are overwhelming contained in a clearly defined subset of the population, not that the entire subset is doing anything wrong, that is entirely your reading something he didn't say .... though he may have intended to imply it.

What certainly does no favours to anyone, and makes a solution harder to find, is to bowdlerize the reports so as to imply that the problem is uniformly distributed across all segments of the British population when it manifestly is not.

BristolUK

So what does one do, siphon out the liquid from the car battery or something? Serious question.

Partially discharged

Having a look at his most recent posts on forums (Sand Pit seems to be popular for him) he doesn't like many people from countries not his own yet he lives I believe in the Middle East. One thing in his favour is that he doesn't like licorice allsorts so he can't be all bad.

Pulaski

Syphon, pour, drill a hole; a car battery is just a funny-shaped bottle full of sulphuric acid. You can probably buy replacement acid fairly easily too as some batteries are (? certainly were) shipped "dry".

Another alternative source of strong mineral acid would be rust remover which contains concentrated phosphoric acid which is nearly as strong as sulphuric acid.

scrubbedexpat142

Statement from Wiki entry on the subject-