Glassing is an extremely violent attack, involving the use of a glass as an offensive weapon. Glassing attacks are most often carried out at bars or pubs where alcohol is being served, and hence a drinking glass is readily available to be used as an offensive weapon. The person who carries out the glass attack may smash his or her glass on a hard surface, perhaps the side of the bar, and then grip the remaining base of the glass, with the broken shards protruding outwards, and then carry out the attack using arm strength to ram the broken glass in to the face of the victim. Heavy blood loss usually ensues, and often results in life long scarring, and often in loss of vision if the attack was carried out on the victims face. In the United Kingdom, there are more than 5,000 glassing incidents each year.[1] In 2000, following a series a glassing incidents in Manchester, Greater Manchester Police and the Manchester Evening News launched a campaign Safe Glass Safe City promoting the use of toughened glass in pubs and clubs to prevent such attacks.[2]
In Science Fiction
The term "glassing" is also used in some works of science fiction to refer to bombarding an area, e.g. with nuclear ordnance or fictional high-powered energy weapons (such as those often found on starships in such works), with enough energy to indiscriminately annihilate everything in a target area (typically at least the size of a few city blocks) and even fuse topsoil into glass. For example in 'Starship Troopers' the term Glassing is used to refer to what the Federation Fleet does to the surface of the planet, destroying most life on the surface, before sending in Mobile Infantry to destroy or 'mop up' the remaining survivors. See glass parking lot. In the Halo universe, the Covenant use high-powered plasma superweapons to glass entire human planet-colonies, and a part of africa. [1 ]
References
- ^ Ian Craig. "Calling time on pub pint glasses", Manchester Evening News, 2002-10-22.
- ^ Ronald V. Clarke and Graeme R. Newman. "Modifying Criminogenic Products: What Role for the Government?" (PDF). Crime Prevention Studies 18: 49–51.
Further reading
- "Surgeon on glass bottle "weapon"", BBC News, 2003-10-24.
- "Glassed", Risky Single Occasion Drinking, BBC News.
- Brian Ferguson. "Bars face glass ban in violence crackdown", Edinburgh Evening News, The Scotsman, 2006-01-03.
- Stephen Stewart and Alison Chiesa. "Raise your glasses ... plastic cups rule is lifted", The Herald, Newsquest, 2006-06-20.
