Fishbone Jones said:I guess knives and other objects can be deadly after all. :These are not made up facts.
I guess these people were just stupid, as some contend.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/world/asia/knife-japan-stabbing-sagamihara.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2289445.stm
Nobody is claiming that lack of guns stops mass murder any more than lack of fatty, sugary food stops obesity or heart disease. It is not a binary question or they either completely explain mass murders or they contribute nothing. In formal logic the concept you’re missing is ‘sufficient’ versus ‘necessary’. Epidemiologically, easy access to guns is a massive contributory factor to mass murder.
You’ve nicely highlighted my point for me. Nobody - least of all me - is claiming that other weapons (any tool used or intended to hurt or wound is a weapon) cannot be deadly. But to find an example you hoped would convince, you had to hang your hat or an instance where a physically health adult male entered a residence for people with disabilities at half past two in the morning. All 19 of the dead were residents there; we can infer they were disabled. That was their deadliest attack in something like a decade. 19 dead in a shooting in the US would be noticeable, but hardly unprecedented or a record. The Japan knife attack you cite was as close as one can get to an experimental frictionless vacuum. He was as set for unhindered success as he possibly could have been. Your other example had a whole two people killed. That barely registers. A mass killing with a knife is hugely exceptional.
Contrast that with Dayton, Ohio shooting, where the shooter was very unlucky. He was confronted by six police who were on scene already, and was shot and killed in thirty seconds after his first shot. 9 dead, more than 20 injured. It reinforces my point that a gun is a tremendous equalizer. The Japan attacker had insider knowledge of location, targets, security, and pattern of life from having previously worked there. The Ohio shooter simply needed a gun and a crowd. Like the El Paso shooter. Or like any other mass killer who has recently laid waste with a gun.
It will always be possible to find exceptional circumstances. I was in Nice a couple days after the truck attack and walked the ground. He had about as ideal a situation and venue as can be had for such an event, and the toll reflects that. We have seen significant changes in urban security in the past decade. Big events are quite easily hardened against such attacks. Mitigating the risks of a vehicle attack is a pretty simple CPTED problem. As I presently sit here having lunch outside a typical soft target in Vancouver (BC Place stadium), I see bollards, planters and such that are relatively unobtrusive and inexpensive, but would serve well to minimize the damage that can be done. Were a crowd to be here for a Lions game, and someone went rogue with a knife, I see dozens of fit and strong adults in the immediate vicinity. Some combination of us would probably stop it fast, admittedly at the risk of getting carved up. Conversely, someone hopping out of a car with a gun could enter any of the restaurants and cafes here and kill or wound dozens, and likely fend off at least the first attempts by anyone to rush them. They could do that with minimal training and experience so long as they’ve repped out some basic stoppage and reload drills for half an hour.
A truck as a weapon can kill. With considerable luck it can kill a lot. The cost/benefit in municipal design for target hardening against this isn’t at all outlandish.
A knife as a weapon can kill. Absent exceptionally fortunate or ideal circumstances, this attack will be quickly limited by people fighting back, and the wounds, while grievous, tend to be survivable. You have to physically reach the target to wound them. Potential victims are much more likely to have weapons/shields of opportunity at hand.
Guns with the right characteristics for combat (semiautomatic, detachable magazine, and ammunition with sufficient KE to create a meaningful secondary cavity in tissue) are completely in their own class for the ability of any angry idiot to acquire and use to great effect. You can very rapidly wound pretty much anyone within sight. They are the among the hardest things to proof against through environmental design, barriers to access them in the US are negligible, and they are easy for anyone to learn to use ‘well enough’.
As I said, any entry into this debate must start with accepting the basic truth about the extreme utility of firearms for interpersonal violence, and working from there. Any position that does not in face of abundantly clear evidence is dishonest and useless.
I enjoy shooting, I am no hoplophobe, I use and instruct firearms use professionally - including in the context of responding to exactly such attacks. I don’t want everyone stripped of their firearms. Nor will I try to bury my head in fantasy though just because something is enjoyable to me. America has a gun problem, and that problem is the wrong guns (inclusive of things like high capacity magazines) too easily accessed by the wrong people, with constant tragic consequences.
