Attacks on buses and trains
GdP and Union call for concepts for knife ban
4/7/2023 3:07 p.m
After several knife attacks in public transport, Federal Interior Minister Faeser brought a knife ban on buses and trains into play. Police union and union is not enough. They demand concrete concepts from the minister – and see difficulties in enforcing them.
The police union (GdP) and the opposition union are demanding concrete concepts from the Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, for the knife ban on buses and trains that she has brought up for discussion. Faeser should “call less for thinking about measures, but instead make concrete suggestions,” said the deputy GdP federal chairman Alexander Poitz the newspapers of the Funke media group.
The deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Ulrich Lange from the CSU, called for “a well thought-out overall concept” from the Federal Minister of the Interior to increase safety in buses and trains. In the case of a knife ban, effective checks by the security forces of the transport companies or the police must also be ensured, the politician told the “Rheinische Post”. In addition, not only knives are a problem.
SPD politician Faeser brought up a knife ban on public transport in an interview on Thursday. “If you’re traveling by plane, you can’t take a knife with you,” she said. Gun ban zones in “certain locations” could be an effective tool in this regard, as they would allow for much stricter controls. It is also important to have more security forces in local transport and in certain places.
The background to the discussion are incidents in which perpetrators attacked other passengers with knives on trains and buses. In January, a 33-year-old killed two young people on a regional train in Schleswig-Holstein and injured five other people, some of them critically. On Tuesday, a stranger stabbed a 33-year-old mother who was traveling with her two children on a Berlin bus. She got hurt.
GdP calls for a package of measures
Police union leader Poitz also referred to the problem of enforcing bans. “Nothing is less effective than an implementation deficit,” he said in the newspapers of the Funke media group. If passengers on buses and trains are to be checked for knives, that must also happen. In view of the lack of staff, however, he sees little scope for this.
At the same time, Poitz emphasized that preventing knife attacks is complex and requires a comprehensive package of measures. This also included preventive measures and anti-violence campaigns. “The acts are hardly predictable and cannot be limited to specific places, times or groups of people,” said the police officer. It is therefore questionable whether gun ban zones can have a lasting effect in the long term.
Faeser received support from her parliamentary group for a comprehensive ban on knives in buses and trains. SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese told the “Rheinische Post”: “I don’t understand why someone would have to carry a knife there.” Reinforced random checks are “of course necessary and also feasible” for enforcement, said the domestic politician.
According to police crime statistics (PKS), the authorities registered 8,160 knife attacks across Germany in 2022. That was around 15 percent more than in the previous year. The statistics count acts in which an attack with a knife is directly threatened or carried out as “knife attacks”.