Car Ramming? Should Cars Therefore be Banned Like Machetes? By James Reed
Victoria's progressive government has a passion for banning objects. After a machete brawl broke out at Melbourne's Northland Shopping Centre on May 25, 2025, Premier Jacinta Allan sprang into action, not by targeting gang violence, but by fast-tracking a machete sales ban. Originally set for September 1, the ban was moved up to noon on May 28, all in the name of "community safety." Two teens were charged, one man hospitalised, and shoppers scattered. Understandable, machetes are confronting; scary for modern urbanites. But here's a question: what about cars?
Car-ramming attacks are on the rise globally, and they're far deadlier. Just this year alone:
Liverpool, May 2025: 47 football fans struck, 27 hospitalised.
Vancouver, April 2025: 11 killed at a street festival.
Jinhua, China, April 2025: 14 children and parents mowed down near a school.
New Orleans, January 2025: 14 killed on Bourbon Street in a terrorist attack.
Globally since 2000, 152 vehicle ramming incidents have killed around 511 people. The culprits? Often lone actors, not coordinated terror cells, just disturbed individuals with access to deadly tools. Sound familiar?
And don't forget Melbourne's own 2017 Bourke Street attack, six dead, dozens injured by one angry man with a car.
So, let's apply the Left's logic. Machetes are being banned because someone used them in a crime. Cars have been used to kill far more people in planned, deliberate attacks. They're easier to obtain, require no skill to operate lethally, and don't even raise suspicion when driven into public spaces. By that logic, shouldn't we ban cars?
Of course not, banning cars is absurd. Society relies on them. Most drivers aren't homicidal. But machetes? Easy political target. They're scary-looking and used by the "wrong" people, gang members, rural types, survivalists, farmers. Perfect scapegoat.
What this reveals isn't a concern for safety but a pattern: the Left bans tools that empower individuals, blades, guns, anything defensive. Meanwhile, tools used for mass attacks, vehicles, remain untouched because they're essential to the system. The issue isn't safety. It's control.
In 2024, Victoria recorded 24,550 youth crimes, but the political response is a blade ban? The real problem isn't machetes, it's the people wielding them. The same applies to car attacks. Yet here we are, banning objects instead of confronting underlying issues like violent youth culture, mental illness, and poor policing.
Want safer streets? Install bollards. Increase patrols. Address mental health. But symbolic bans on machetes, or anything else that looks threatening, are political theatre, not public policy.
What's next? Kitchen knife licenses? Hammer buybacks? Wake up, Victoria. Safety doesn't come from banning tools, it comes from addressing intent, culture, and enforcement.
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