Written by Noah Carl.
On 29 July 2024, reports emerged of a mass stabbing at a dance studio in Southport, England. Three girls were killed — aged six, seven and nine. The suspect was arrested at the scene, but because he was under 18 the police did not release his name or other details about him, fuelling speculation among the public. Many people assumed he was Muslim, and because the police did not immediately refute this, there were riots outside a local mosque, leading to the injury of more than 50 officers. As it turned out, the suspect was the British-born son of Rwandan immigrants. And his parents were evangelical Christians, not Muslims.
Last night, there was another mass stabbing in England — this time on a train in Cambridgeshire. 11 people were injured, nine critically. Once again, many people assumed the attacker was Muslim, but so far there is no evidence that he was. The police have detained one person, who is described as a “black British man”. And they have said there is “nothing to suggest” it was a “terrorist incident”, which presumably means the attacker is not linked to extremist groups and did not give any indication he had a religious or political motive.
You can understand why people assumed the attackers in both these cases were Muslim. Stabbings can be committed by almost anyone. But mass stabbings of random people are very frequently committed by Muslims — specifically Islamic terrorists. There have been cases in Britain, France, Germany and Austria.
Nonetheless, there is a tendency in Britain to overstate Muslim crime, and a corresponding tendency to understate black crime. As I’ve noted before, blacks have much higher crime rates than Muslims — yet crime-related social media posts are overwhelmingly about Muslims. This may be because people are misinformed about the numbers. It may also be because talking about possible religious causes of crime is more socially acceptable than talking about possible genetic causes.1