England teachers now allowed to search for knives

Back in the old days, the teachers had to call the police to search the kids.  The regs are that there must be at least two teachers/staff members at each search, they must be the same gender as the student and they must do it in a way that keeps the rest of the students and faculty safe.

Okay, so here's a funny part:

-- "It is the kind of thing we expect to hear in the US but it is a major concern that it now applies to our own schools."

-- "This side of the Atlantic we’ve sat comfortably for years and watched the violence grow in the US, falsely believing it wouldn’t catch on here. But just as the latest Nike trainers or hip hop star in the US sooner or later becomes hot property in the UK, the violence was bound to come to our shores eventually. The US is the trend setter for youth culture in the UK whether we like it or not.  We shouldn’t have ignored the warning signs from US society, but that’s just what we’ve done. That is not to say that the US is responsible for the current environment in Britain. It is just that the combination of factors that got the US into the position it finds itself today with regard to violence in schools, was bound to come to Britain and when it did, we should have been ready to ensure the end result was not the same."

I was going to bold some important parts but let's face it, it's all bullsh*t. 

It's so easy to blame someone else isn't it.  It always strikes me as odd the way some people (not just the British, though I hear that ALL the time here) use America to make themselves feel better.  No matter that Scotland, for example, has an enormously high crime rate, higher than much of the U.S. if not all (as this article indicates).  I guess they don't really take into account that we've only been around about 230 years - or they do, but then their arguments are fueled by jealousy - but you'd think we invented violence, invented war, invented killing and torture. 
Yeah well, we learned from the best didn't we?  The difference is we have a heart and a soul.  But that doesn't fit in to the rest of the world's master plan.  Very sad. 

That's that, now on to the knives.  Obviously from past posts I've made my position on firearms and knives very clear.  I'm proud of that. 
But I'm not for school age kids bringing bowie knives or machetes to the playground (though there were several times when I made excellent use of my swiss army knife, which was indeed pink as shown).  I'm not for messed up in the head naive tryin' to be big kids kids tearing each other apart.

I am for a teacher protecting their students and themselves. Even so far as to allow them to carry items to use for their protection.  Like, just off the top of my head, a Para .45ACP Warthog, or even pepper spray. 
Not gonna happen on this side of the ocean, but there you go.   

Comments

[Pat]

There is a tendency for people to blame America for everything and if I were in your shoes I'd be mad as hell but have you heard them talk about the French and the Germans etc etc. It is just blind ignorance and there is a lot of it about.

[Goalie]

I was doing multimedia for a kids' thing at church one night, and started cleaning out my pink purse in the downtime. Toward the bottom, I found a pocketknife. A moment later, another. In a pocket, another. It was gleeful to ponder the threat some would have perceived if the little two-inch blades had been discovered while I was at class.

On teachers "carrying": people trust us with their children daily. Do they not trust us with their children's lives as well?