The knife the attacker used wasn’t even a kirpan, nor was he carrying the knife for religious reasons. Which is to say that he was carrying a knife that was illegal to carry under UK law (because it wouldn’t have been eligible for the religious exemption). A law that forbade Sikhs from carrying a kirpan would not have prevented this murder, because the knife in question was already illegal to carry.
We shouldn’t be thinking of this under an “us vs them” framing that would place half a million Sikhs in the same category as this despicable murder, because this murder has absolutely nothing to do with the fact the man was Sikh. The only “us vs them” distinction that I’m comfortable in making us “murderers vs not-murderers” — and that would put me squarely on the same side as the vast vast majority of British Sikhs — who are not murderers.
The knife the attacker used wasn’t even a kirpan, nor was he carrying the knife for religious reasons. Which is to say that he was carrying a knife that was illegal to carry under UK law (because it wouldn’t have been eligible for the religious exemption). A law that forbade Sikhs from carrying a kirpan would not have prevented this murder, because the knife in question was already illegal to carry.
We shouldn’t be thinking of this under an “us vs them” framing that would place half a million Sikhs in the same category as this despicable murder, because this murder has absolutely nothing to do with the fact the man was Sikh. The only “us vs them” distinction that I’m comfortable in making us “murderers vs not-murderers” — and that would put me squarely on the same side as the vast vast majority of British Sikhs — who are not murderers.