Not that it changed their views.
Much obliged if you would provide a citation for this claimed causation.
Many millions of pounds have been taken out of the council's budget. This has impacted youth, mental health, and alcohol/drug services. Changes at the national level have also effected the benefits landscape for many families in poverty. There is quite plainly less help and stability for communities most plagued by violence.
My wife works in and around child and adolescent mental health services and she and her colleagues clearly perceive the link, but I also hope it's evident from a systems thinking perspective: there is a pipeline from childhood poverty and trauma into more chaotic and violent behaviours. Anything that interrupts that pipeline is good, and taking that away is probably bad. Sure, it's an option to wait at the end, increase stop and search and just arrest everybody but that's not a particularly great public health outcome either, and perhaps there are lessons from America in diverting funds from everywhere else just to prop up police departments.
0: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/326377/9789...
1: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/inspire-seven-strate...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
There are all kinds of variants, including BB guns that are fully automatic. https://www.airgundepot.com/automatic-bb-guns.html
Air rifles 200 years ago were so effective (quiet, 30 round magazine) that Napoleon supposedly ordered that anyone carrying one be summarily executed. https://notorc.blogspot.com/2006/08/short-history-of-air-rif...
It was common in the US to do "plinking" with a BB gun at various targets, including windows of abandoned buildings, tin cans, and the unfortunate small animal. Probably still is in more rural areas. Anyway, different tradition than a weapon of war.
This was amazing find. I really am a nerd in this subject but had no idea compressed air was used in the 18th century. This really changed my thinking and historical perspective. You blew my Sunday that I will forgive. I will blow all next weekend trying to figure out why compressed air didn't catch on wtf. From my (limited!!) research the valves were super expensive and took an amazing amount of craftsmanship - which didn't allow for mass production (eg Brown Bess).