Brass Knuckles and Crime

Just as some things can be used for good, they can also be used for bad. One of our favourite examples is the good old Louisville Slugger, better known as a baseball bat. If this bat was used to crack a baseball way over your local stadiums fence for a homerun, everyone would be cheering and celebrating. If that same bat was used to crack open someone’s head, the reactions would be a lot different. The object remains the same, it’s inanimate. The bat didn’t turn evil and decide to go after somebody, it was the person wielding it who was at fault. Likewise, when we talk about brass knuckles and crime, we want you to keep this in mind, brass knuckles are inanimate objects and deserve no punishment, it’s the people wielding them that do. We’ll be diving into how brass knuckles became popular with criminals, why do criminals use them and much more!

How Brass Knuckles Became Popular

Brass Knuckles have been associated with criminals for decades now. The root cause of this leads back to them being glorified by movies, TV, video games, rap music and the news. They have been infamously associated with the Mafia as the weapon of choice for enforcers, various scenes can be seen in movies, games and shows of mafiosos brutally beating on victims with brass knuckles. Also, with the rise of social media over the last decade the use of brass knuckles to portray oneself as “hard” or “tough” has increased tenfold through the vast reaches of the internet.

Why Criminals Use Them

Criminals use brass knuckles for a variety of reasons, they are easy to conceal and carry as they don’t weigh a lot. They can do a lot of damage with just a single blow. Brass Knuckles are also very intimidating, if a criminal were to flash them, he would garner a reaction of fear in most cases. Plastic Knuckles or Carbon Fiber Knuckles can be brought through metal detectors where weapons like knives or guns can’t go. But the main reason many criminals use brass knuckles is because they are in most cases, less lethal. Where areas with a gun or a knife there is a high chance of a severe injury or death, brass knuckles in comparison don’t cause as much harm. The only comparable weapon to brass knuckles that is less then lethal and similar in size is a collapsible baton and even then, a baton is 3-5x bigger. Most criminals are not hardcore murderers, they don’t want to kill anybody, they just want your money, your wallet, etc, and brass knuckles can aid them in getting what they want. Other use cases for brass knuckles include giving the upper hand in fights, criminals are known to be hot headed and violent, hence increasing the odds that they’ll get into more altercations than a regular person. Of course we can't forget to mention drugs, buying, selling or whatever the case may be the drug dealers may feel safer doing "business" with other criminals or drug users if they have some sort of weapon with them, in this case brass knuckles.

News Articles

Now we’ll go over some examples of metal brass knuckles, which are illegal in Canada being misused. Keep in mind folks, illegal things are most often the things misused. Just look at gun crime related to legal firearms vs illegal firearms in Canada.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/suspect-brass-knuckles-assault-bodily-harm-1.3967420

Here’s a news article featuring a man who got into an altercation, at 2am in downtown Toronto. This man chose to use brass knuckles in this alteration and is now a wanted man. Had he just fought with his hands the police wouldn’t have given it much thought.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9142862/brass-knuckles-bear-spray-sturgeon-heights-fight-charges/

Another place where a lot of fights occur are high schools, and where there are fights weapons follow close behind. Teens tend to use brass knuckles and other less than lethal weapons, like bear spray more often as no ones really trying to kill anyone, they’re just trying to get the upper hand. Although this news article does mention parents getting involved as well which would explain how they came to acquire homemade brass knuckles.