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Notes -
Update on the Scottish Dual-Wielding Incident:
The BBC has now published a brief but informative report on the Scottish “dual-wielding” incident, mostly relaying statements from the local police. If you missed the story: a Bulgarian couple, male and female, were approached by local youths in St Ann Lane, Lochee, at about 7:40 pm on Saturday. At some point, an axe made an appearance. The police have issued a statement, and the BBC, in a notably careful choice of words, clarifies: “BBC News understands that officers have found no evidence to substantiate claims being made online the youths were at risk of sexual assault.”
Of course, I have every confidence that some corners of the internet, including select denizens of The Motte, will find this hopelessly unconvincing. If your current epistemic stance is “If she floats, she’s a witch; if she sinks, she’s a witch,” then no combination of facts, logic, or official statements will ever suffice. If your model of the world is that everyone is lying except you and your Telegram group, my ability to shift your priors is probably limited.
Still, let me offer my own semi-informed perspective as someone who is, if not a local, at least more familiar with the Scottish context than your average Redditor. From the beginning, both /r/Scotland and /r/Dundee expressed skepticism toward the popular Twitter narrative. You know the one: a pair of wide-eyed local waifs accosted by a “brown pervert,” who then had no choice but to brandish medieval weaponry in righteous self-defense. You can practically hear the John Williams score.
Now, Scotland is not short on delinquent youth. The British white underclass is, in fact, legendary for its supply of teenage hooligans. Here in Scotland, the local taxonomic label is “ned.” While “non-educated delinquent” is probably a post hoc invention, the behavioral phenotype is easily identified. There is a rich ecosystem of teenagers hanging around bus stops, acting tough, and performing questionable antics. One of their favorite tactics, if challenged, is to shout “pedophile” at the nearest authority figure, thus flipping the script from “annoying brat” to “potential victim.” This tends to work, at least until they age out of the game and (statistically) either get jobs or fall prey to Dundee’s prodigious drug scene.
On the question of weaponry, it bears repeating that it is illegal in Scotland to carry anything that even vaguely resembles a weapon for self-defense. For the Americans in the audience, this is not Texas. Not only is it illegal, it is also, in local context, not normal to walk around with an axe. While I actually find this arrangement not to my libertarian sensibilities, that's neither here nor there. My own priors, which seem to match those of most actual Scots I’ve spoken to, lean toward a more mundane explanation. The girl went out carrying because she wanted to impress her boyfriend, or at least to raise her standing among her peers. She might have been looking for trouble, or simply wanted to show off, and twelve is not too young to have social status games on your mind. Puberty isn’t the only thing that comes early in these parts.
I can only reiterate that an axe is not normal to carry, even if one feels threatened. A pocket knife? I can understand, sure. But this is about as 'extra' as taking a hand-grenade to a seedy pub when you're worried about being roofied.
As for the “migrant crime” angle, I want to point out that Scotland is not England, and certainly not Rotherham. The “migrant problem” is much less pronounced here. Outside Edinburgh or Glasgow, brown skin is still a curiosity, more likely to prompt a friendly question than suspicion. Most of the time, it’s just an excuse for conversation. Scotland has its own problems, but racialized sexual predation is not at the top of the list.
I would like to believe that this clarification settles things, but I am also not naïve. If your epistemic filter is tuned to maximum paranoia, then the absence of evidence is merely further evidence of a cover-up. For everyone else, the police statement, local skepticism, and sociological context should nudge your priors at least a little.
Of course, if you prefer your axes in the hands of twelve-year-olds fighting imaginary Bulgarian sex pests, I suppose nothing I write will convince you otherwise.
Open carrying weapons is common in some American states, and nowhere else. By definition, this makes red states the exception. To each their own, but the base prior has to be that the 'woman wielding the unwieldy weapon was wrong'. The outrage was contrived.
Yeah, by default, weapons are illegal. If they believe otherwise, then the burden of proof is on the Americans. And the pudding ain't sweet.
The open carrying of weapons has been the norm across the world for 99% of human history. It only became banned when modern high capacity states gained the capacity to suppress vigilantism.
This is another example of how the modern right has erased class from their view of history. It was not normal in almost any premodern society to allow just anyone to open carry weapons of any kind. The carrying of weapons was nearly always carefully prescribed according to class-status concerns, and the carrying of weapons served as a denotation of class. The peasantry and urban underclass were almost never allowed to openly carry weapons without punishment.
Not weapons as such, but there are many tools the peasants would carry on a daily basis which could be used to hurt/intimidate someone if needed. You'd need to be able to fight off wild animals outside the cities. It would be bizarre for someone not to carry a knife at all times - they're just too useful.
Of course, the knife the average person carried looked very different from a jeweled dagger or weapon of war.
It was also fairly common for anyone to have a cane/walking stick/cudgel with him at any time.
But the size, shape, and type of tools/weapons/accoutrements allowed to ordinary folk was heavily regulated and violators harshly punished in urban areas throughout European history.
Yeah, you couldn't hold your ground against someone armed with a real weapon (like a noble or their household) with what the peasants carried around.
I would imagine that would depend very much on the combatants, right? There's a lot of combinations of guys where I'd bet on A with a shovel over B with a broadsword.
I'm more getting at the fact that at many points in history, a peasant who walked about with a real weapon of war was liable to punishment under local custom and law.
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