
Acid Attacks on the Rise in the U.K - zeristor
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/08/06/541209398/acid-attacks-on-the-rise-in-the-u-k
======
alpsgolden
A key question here is what has changed to make these attacks more prevalent.
One possibility is it is related to immigration and changing demographics. The
area with the most acid attacks by far, Newham (
[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/acid-attack-capital-
bri...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/acid-attack-capital-britain-
revealed-10008792) ) is also very immigrant heavy (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Newham#Demog...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Newham#Demography)
). In this NPR article, the example is of a guy with a white/British name
attacking someone of middle eastern heritage -- but I know from experience on
news coverage in my own region that NPR cannot be trusted on racial issues to
select anecdotes that match the real patterns of behavior. Do any of the Brits
here have any more insight on how immigration and changing demographics might
be related to these attacks?

~~~
mcrocop
Something that is prevalent in the Middle East is now also prevalent in the
place where large numbers of people from the Middle East have come to.

Something tells me its not a coincidence.

~~~
hmmmmn
> _Something tells me its not a coincidence._

Yes, that something being racial prejudice. Sad to see this attitude rife on
HN.

~~~
mcrocop
Pretending that cultural differences don't exist on this planet is just plain
silly. It's sad to see this level of virtue signalling on HN.

~~~
mcrocop
>Jumping to conclusions that fit your anti-immigrant racial prejudice,
pretending that it’s actually about “cultural differences”, complaining about
“virtue signalling”. It’s like playing a game of alt-right bingo here.

You forgot to call me a "Nazi" and "bigot" and "facist" and all the other
things you ANTIFA folks call those who have different opinions than
yourselves.

~~~
hmmmmn
Ah, shoehorning “antifa” into the conversation (with vague insinuations that
anti-fascism is somehow a bad thing), that’s another one.

How many more alt-right talking points can you squeeze out? Your reaction is
so amusingly predictable, it’s sad to see someone so programmed to dullness.

~~~
dang
Would you please not create accounts to engage in political flamewar here,
regardless of how bad another commenter may be behaving? I've banned this one.
As the site guidelines explain
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)),
the way to deal with egregious comments is not to feed them by responding in
kind, but to flag them. In particularly bad cases you're welcome to email
hn@ycombinator.com. We value that sort of heads-up from users, because HN's
firehose is much too large for us to see everything that goes on here.

------
rdtsc
> He says assailants use acid today for many of the same reasons as they did
> in Victorian times:

Ok but there is a recent rise. Why the recent rise?

I heard that it's because guns are banned. But that didn't happen just in the
last few years. So did acid become cheaper to purchase or gun and knifes got
harsher penalties recently.

Wonder if there is sort of a copycat thing going on, people hear about it and
some say "Oh my, how horrible" maybe the criminals are saying "Yeah, good
idea, look how horrified everyone is. I know what I am using next time I am
going on a rampage".

What about parts of UK. Where are these attacks happening? Financial district,
suburbs, drug trafficking areas, maybe that might provide a hint on the
underlying reason.

------
bronz
it is interesting how this topic intersects with gun control and society at
large. the solution to this acid attack problem is the same as the solution to
a gun violence or knife violence problem: somehow reduce the number of violent
nothing-to-lose people that are on the streets. and the number one way to do
that is to structure society in a way that gives children a safe and
productive environment, and in a way that makes good behaviour much more
profitable than bad behaviour. with current public schools and current job
prospects, it is no surprise that their society has come to the point of
considering a ban on domestic drain cleaner. if you have a well structured
society, then eventually it will be filled with good people. and a society
full of good people has no need for bans on guns or draino. i think that we
could come closer to that vision simply by reaching out to a child in your
area and teaching them something.

~~~
darawk
Do you think that a well structured society has no need for a ban on nuclear
weapons? If not, how do you draw the conclusion that such a ban is unneeded
for guns?

~~~
bronz
this is an excellent observation and it is actually the point of nucleation
from which my current point of view was spawned. one can imagine a kind of
scale that could be used to rate an individual person. left to their own
devices, in many, many different scenarios, what kind of behaviour does that
person exhibit? maybe the scale could be non-violent to violent or un-
productive to productive. it is tempting to abandon the idea of "rating"
people because people are complex, and their behaviour changes depending on
the situation and various other factors. but there are examples that show that
such a scale is useful. but we all know, anecdotally, that people can be rated
on such a scale. people who benefit from great parents and mentors, who had
excellent educations, had excellent nutrition and so on, reside on the more
positive end of the scale.

so the people are the building blocks from which a society is built.
everything in that society is a function of the people. so it is possible to
assess a given society on a similar scale to the people: a certain society
that has a certain distribution of certain kinds of people will experience
certain outcomes. let us imagine that we take a large sample of societies and
subject them to this idea where everyone gets their own personal nuclear
weapon. in fact, lets boil it down to its logical core: let us imagine that
every single person in society is given a button. if they press the button,
the entire society will be instantly destroyed. they are all aware of this
when they get their button.

on one extreme side of the scale or spectrum, a society filled with extremely
smart, well educated, well adjusted and emotionally healthy people who all
have great jobs and lives, in other words a properly structured society filled
with very good people, not a single instance of button pressing would occur.
you could in fact give each person the power to end the world and the world
would go on unharmed. this is the goal. it can never be achieved because
sometimes people go insane or have a bad break up or what have you, but its no
different than an electronic device trying to use power as efficiently as
possible: electronics strive for zero power consumption and societies should
strive to reach the point where the aforementioned scenario is possible.

now we look at the real world. we see that gun control, voting, and all kinds
of other things are actually the same thing: different ways in which citizens
are trusted or not trusted with power. we see that in a healthy democracy or
republic, the vote is far more powerful than the gun. we see that any healthy
democracy or republic _requires_ that its citizens are up to the task of
handling power responsibly. and i think that if you agree with all the
previous statements, you agree that much of the western world is in a lot of
trouble right now. and say that without even the smallest shred of arrogance
or snobbery.

so, this leads to a very interesting consideration of the limits of power that
the citizens of the united states or the united kingdom might handle before
something bad happened. and it is also fun to consider what the maximum amount
of power the citizens are capable of handling after some kind of focused
effort to make them ready. how much power could they handle if schools and
jobs and everything were made better? what is the best outcome we might hope
to achieve?

so the answer to your questions is that no, individuals probably shouldnt have
nukes but they could probably handle some really dangerous stuff like chemical
weapons or heavy machine guns if you just gave them the tools they need.

~~~
darawk
I agree with you to a degree. But I think a more useful way of thinking about
it is through the lens of risk. Each citizen carries a risk of violence.
Weapons multiply that violence, education and socialization reduce its
probability. So we have an equation:

ExpectedHarm = P_incident * Harm

Weapons multiply harm, and education reduces P. Nuclear weapons cause
ExpectedHarm to approach infinity almost regardless of P_incident, so they are
out. But guns, knives, acid, and other weapons all sit along a continuum.

Increasing access to guns unquestionably increases ExpectedHarm (arguments
like 'if everyone had guns, people would be well behaved' are, of course,
ridiculous on their face), but there are social benefits to guns. Some people
enjoy hunting, sport shooting, and carrying a gun makes many people 'feel'
safer (which, though hard to quantify, remains a true social good, in some
sense). Guns are also, to some degree, a check on government power. I don't
particularly like the Bundy's position or what they stood for, but their
access to guns is absolutely what gave them the power to make that stand. You
can count this as a positive or negative depending on your perspective. I tend
to count it as a positive even though most uses of it, like the Bundy's, I
strongly disagree with.

And finally, there is the sort of 'constant' boost to the positive side you
get from the general bias we ought to have against banning things (you may
choose to set this to zero or negative if you hate freedom). So, the full
equation is:

SocialGood + LibertarianBias - P_incident * Harm * BanEfficacy

If this expression is greater than zero, you should leave it alone. This does
ignore some theoretical nonlinear terms (e.g. banning guns increases the
probability of other forms of violence, or vice versa), but it more or less
captures the idea. Depending on which values you input for various terms,
you'll get a different answer.

All of that is to say that whether or not any given weapon ought to be legal
should be evaluated according to a framework that looks something like the
above.

~~~
bronz
right, but what is missing here is the observation that all the duties of a
citizen also carry power to do harm. therefore, in order for society to
prosper, its citizens must be able to handle guns and draino, because voting
and going about their everyday lives have just as much potential to ruin
things.

~~~
darawk
That's an interesting perspective, but I think those activities have fairly
different risk profiles. Voting is a collective behavior and its harms are
therefore smoothed through averaging. Gun violence isn't really like this. If
1% of the population votes in a crazy way, that's not such a big deal, but if
1% of the population engages in gun violence, that's an _enormous_ problem.

~~~
bronz
granted

------
SamUK96
If anyone wonders why, it is because the UK over here has a little legal
loophole where carrying acid in any reasonable (non-truckload) amount is not
in any way a criminal or incriminating act, where-as guns, knives, and loads
of other things are.

What is sad is it's taking so long for policians to wake up and realise that
some non-scientist carrying a huge jug of acid in a backpack is kinda
obviously incriminating...

~~~
bronz
so carrying a shopping bag with domestic drain cleaner inside is obviously
incriminating? and carrying a shopping bag with a new knife set is
incriminating?

~~~
Strom
If you're young, in an area with frequent attacks, moving with a gang, and not
on a trajectory from the store to the location of your claimed clogged drain,
then yes, I'd say it's pretty incriminating.

Street officers are usually pretty experienced and capable of making a
judgement whether this should be looked into further. If needed, the evidence
and circumstances can be reviwed in court.

It's not an all or nothing situation. We're capable of nuance.

------
driverdan
> British retailers are now talking about licensing the purchase of sulfuric
> acid.

Banning or controlling something that could be used as a weapon is not the
solution. As has been already demonstrated by controlling firearms and knives,
criminals will just find an alternative.

~~~
artursapek
Really? I think making guns extremely hard to get has been pretty good for
NYC.

~~~
synicalx
I'd be more inclined to blame the reduction in violent crime in NYC on it's
staggering large and well-equipped police force. If a criminal really wanted a
gun in NYC, they probably aren't going to obtain one legally so making them
harder to get only creates a minor inconvenience.

------
nielsbot
Could people conceivably keep a package of baking soda or calcium carbonate
with them? would that be an effective on-the-spot antidote? Hmm or maybe get
to the nearest kiosk and get some alka seltzer...

~~~
parshimers
Best thing would probably be a lot of water. Here's a video of someone
willingly pouring 98% sulfuric acid onto their hand, they just wash it off:
[https://youtu.be/XeVZQoJ5FdE?t=284](https://youtu.be/XeVZQoJ5FdE?t=284) .
Plus, if someone pours a random liquid onto you, it's kind of hard to know if
it's water, acid, lye...

~~~
dEnigma
I was about to say that adding water would be bad in the case of lye, but
after some research it seems I was wrong. Probably watched/read "Fight Club"
too often. Apparently using an acid like vinegar to neutralize lye is more
painful than flushing with water and creates a lot of heat because of the
strong reaction.[1,2] So the recommendation actually is to just flush with
water for 15 minutes.[3]

[1][http://itonlyadds.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/on-chemical-
burns-v...](http://itonlyadds.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/on-chemical-burns-
vinegar-and-liquefied.html)

[2][https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-
and-t...](https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-
tricks/back-to-basics-lye-safety-guide/)

[3][http://www.certified-lye.com/MSDS-Lye.pdf](http://www.certified-
lye.com/MSDS-Lye.pdf)

------
Camillo
There is a rich literature on culture-bound syndromes [0], but the same
phenomenon is visible in certain criminal behaviors. To state it succinctly,
crimes can be memes.

In the US, for instance, the school shooting is a meme: it's just what you do
when you are massively angry at society and want to take revenge on it.
Previously, "going postal" [1] was a meme amongst angry postal workers.

In Italy, several years ago, there was a string of incidents of rocks being
thrown from highway overpasses, striking cars. The government reacted by
numbering all overpasses to make reporting easier, but AFAIK what really kept
it from becoming a meme was an informal agreement with the media to relegate
such news to small articles in the inner pages. When this was done, the number
of imitators quickly petered out, and the meme disappeared.

As for acid attacks, this is a meme that came from south-east Asia (e.g.
Pakistan), where it was endemic a few decades ago. It spread to the UK due to
its large population of immigrants from those countries, and for a while it
was mostly confined within the Asian (in the UK sense) community, but it has
now spread into the general population.

This is clearly an unpleasant observation, but it is quite obvious if you have
paid attention to the crime news over the last few decades. I remember acid
attacks in the UK making the international news when I was a child. Back then
they followed what the NPR article calls the "global pattern" ("males
attacking young women and girls, relating to rejected sexual advances or
marriage proposals or dowry-related attacks"), and the attackers were not
native Britons. But if we could look at detailed statistics for this crime, I
bet we would see both an increase in prevalence, and an increase in the
percentage of British perpetrators.

It is very tempting to ascribe these criminal memes to purely non-cultural
factors, such as the availability of firearms in the US, and their limited
availability in the UK, but it does not really work. School shootings were not
always as prevalent in the US as they are now [2], nor is their prevalence
proportional to that of guns across countries [3]; rocks and overpasses still
exist in Italy [citation needed]; and the availability of acid in the UK has
not increased relative to other cheap instruments of harm (e.g. knives,
hammers), nor relative to other countries.

BTW, the fact that acid attacks existed in Victorian times (but how common
were they?) has no bearing on any of this. A meme can die out in a place and
later be reintroduced from another source, just as a living organism can (e.g.
horses in America).

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-
bound_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome) [1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal)
[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#cite_note-
nyr2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#cite_note-
nyr20151019-40) [3]: [http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/small-arms-survey-
countries-wit...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/small-arms-survey-countries-
with-the-most-guns-1.3392204)

------
marojejian
Why was this flagged?

------
swang
it is really sad that the first thing that comes up with this issue is, "omg
immigrants are causing this" vs, why this crime is actually happening.

this article points to a case of someone who most likely isn't an immigrant
yet that is the first thing people rush to.

edit: according to the wikipedia page, a disproportionate number of the
attacks using acid are against women. why not talk about that instead?

~~~
Strom
Did you actually read the article? It says that _two-thirds of the victims in
Britain are men while, globally, most are women_. It's not about women in the
UK.

~~~
dang
Would you please read the site guidelines and follow them when commenting
here?

 _Please don 't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even
read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions
that."_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
Strom
I find it amusing that you didn't shorten this to _" The site guidelines
mention that"_. If I would have written _Would you please read the article_
instead of asking if they had read it, would that be ok, or do you reserve
that right to yourself only?

I will try to refrain from asking people if they have read anything. I've read
the guidelines several times before, but this specific prohibition just
slipped my mind. Your comment does feel effectively the same though.

~~~
dang
Yes, moderation comments suck—to write as well as to read. If the community
ever gets to the point of not needing them, it will be a dream come true.

