Mass killings with knives

[Retired]

This is my first post of new topic. Here goes: in March of 2014 10 armed members of a;separatist group with long cleaver knives attacked a Chinese train station in a southwest Chinese city of Kunming according to a news agency xinhua. The atackers were from Xinjiang in northweast China and with 10 knifes, they killed 29 and wounded 130 people before police could kill 4 suspects and shot and wounded a female suspect. The survivors reported that the attack came out of nowhere. Does anyone recall this story on the media? Maybe I'm old and forgetful but I don't recall this being plastered all over the media. And doesn't it prove contrary to some, that yes, even knives can be used for mass kilings same as guns. Even cars. How many innocents could be mowed down by a truck getting out of a football game with mass crowds?

[surfpup]

Well it happened in March of 2014, so it's not exactly hot news. But it was covered by many news sources... Let me Google that for you

[skilsaw]

The Rwandan Genocide which began in April 1994 and lasted 3 months was largely conducted by roving bands of Hutu tribesmen using machetes to hack to death 800,000 Tutsi and Tutsi sympathisers.

 

http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm

[ksdaddy]

It's those knife show loopholes.

[Retired]

1449283651[/url]' post='1718289']

Well it happened in March of 2014, so it's not exactly hot news. But it was covered by many news sources... Let me Google that for you

 

Thanks, someone posted something about it on Facebook today and that was the first I heard about it. Or maybe I just forgot. I just thought, 170 people taken with Knives. I guess when your swinging a machete around you don't have to stop to reload.

[Retired]

1449287561[/url]' post='1718300']

It's those knife show loopholes.

 

[rct]

In China the train stations are knife-free zones.

 

rct

[quapman]

In China the train stations are knife-free zones.

 

rct

 

 

That'll learn em

[Retired]

1449288060[/url]' post='1718303']

In China the train stations are knife-free zones.

 

rct

 

Probably, that made it a perfect attack site.

[Searcy]

21 Coptic Christians Beheaded by ISIS

[Searcy]

UK knife attack every 4 minutes; 130,000 per year

[Searcy]

Eight children killed in Australia in reported mass stabbing

[Searcy]

London police treating Tube station knife attack as 'terrorist incident'

[Aster1]

UK knife attack every 4 minutes; 130,000 per year

 

I just can't imagine why our UK brothers are so "KNIFE HAPPY" as a country? That's more than the 87,000/yr that get shot here with guns. Just under 32,000/yr of them die. How can this be, there are strict rules against knifes there. Why isn't it working better?

 

Yeah, I'm being facetious, I've seen the gun/USA thing written so often on how we're gun crazy, I just couldn't resist. Crooks are NEVER going to care or abide by ANY rules set forth onto the masses. Never have/never will. That's why they are Crooks/Criminals. They don't abide by the law. No brainer.

 

Aster

[Rabs]

London police treating Tube station knife attack as 'terrorist incident'

Yup.. that's just up the road from me... :unsure:

 

The thing is look at the numbers.. One dude with a knife led to one person with major injuries, two with slight injuries... then he was taken down...

 

Two people with guns... 14 people KILLED... and more than a dozen wounded and a shootout with the police.

 

 

That's a HUGE difference if you ask me.. If that guy at the tube station had a gun you know way more people would have been injured and or killed.

[stein]

Yup.. that's just up the road from me... :unsure:

 

The thing is look at the numbers.. One dude with a knife led to one person with major injuries, two with slight injuries... then he was taken down...

 

Two people with guns... 14 people KILLED... and more than a dozen wounded and a shootout with the police.

 

 

That's a HUGE difference if you ask me.. If that guy at the tube station had a gun you know way more people would have been injured and or killed.

Remember though, those guys had high powered rifles, and came more prepared.

 

A little concealed handgun would do far less damage. Granted, if we are taking into account both knifes and handguns are both banned there.

[Digger]

So it's back to chopsticks is it?

[Rabs]

Remember though, those guys had high powered rifles, and came more prepared.

 

A little concealed handgun would do far less damage. Granted, if we are taking into account both knifes and handguns are both banned there.

Yeah its a little odd really...

 

Half the time with these sorts of stabbings you find out that the person was mentally ill... It seems a little underprepared for a terrorist attack.. I mean, whats any of this going to achieve if its meant to make a statement.. Sadly as has been mentioned stabbings happen over here all too often so its nothing particularly unusual in that way but is still just as sad and pointless.

[stein]

So it's back to chopsticks is it?

Yea, well my cooking can be pretty bad.

 

If I was of a mind to be a terrorist, I might volunteer at a soup kitchen.

 

Don't blame the knife, blame the cook.

[Digger]

Yeah its a little odd really...

 

Half the time with these sorts of stabbings you find out that the person was mentally ill... It seems a little underprepared for a terrorist attack.. I mean, whats any of this going to achieve if its meant to make a statement.. Sadly as has been mentioned stabbings happen over here all too often so its nothing particularly unusual in that way but is still just as sad and pointless.

The link to an attack in Oz was a domestic, not terrorist related.

[milod]

One problem in figuring statistics is how often they compare apples and oranges.

 

In the U.S., for example, the left is comparing the recent Islamic terrorist attack to a nut job in a school - when it's the biggest Islamic terror attack in the nation since 9-11 where box cutters and bad men with jihadist ideology turned airliners into cruise missiles.

 

Ditto with stats on firearm-related incidents of all sorts. A gang-related shooting of one bunch of drug purveyors against another ain't "terrorism."

 

I once got into an argument with a fiction author over the deadliness of the old 7.62 x 39 medium power rifle round in a semiautomatic SKS rifle vs. a Samurai-style sword. Thing is, the SKS even with a bit of alteration still may shoot more people, but with a decent survival rate, whereas a single chop of the sword, we're talking almost an instant fatality.

 

But in both cases, neither rifle nor sword can do a thing without a person deciding to do so.

 

I'll add that also most bits of solid material used as weapons are only as injurious as the wielder is capable and inclined. That's whether a screwdriver or an Abrams tank. I'll wager most of us here could do more damage with no further training with the screwdriver than the tank.

 

I'd add that fully-automatic firearms have been illegal, for all intents and purposes, in the U.S. since 1934. Some states in the U.S. have added additional laws governing arms considered ... "bad" ... for whatever reason, usually appearance.

 

I'm reminded too of the story of the two little old ladies in rocking chairs on the porch of an old-style home for the aged, and one asks the other, "I wonder what happened to the good old-fashioned ax murders."

 

It's also noteworthy that at one time in England archery practice was mandated. In the U.S., the "nation of riflemen" first saw founding of the National Rifle Association in 1871 due to serious concerns that Americans were losing their familiarity with firearms even during the 1860s "Civil War," and that marksmanship should be encouraged. In roughly that same time period, a young woman now known as Annie Oakley was demonstrating exceptional marksmanship skills and, later as a celebrity, promoted education and marksmanship for women as empowering them as equal to men.

 

Some figure she personally taught around 15,000 women shooting skills.

 

Oh, and neither she nor her students, nor her arms, nor her marksman husband, were known for any violence against persons.

 

It ain't the arms, nor even the skills, that turn a knife, bow, sword or firearm from tool or sporting equipment into a weapon, but the mindset of those who perceive them as such.

 

Then too, consider that a military, police, boxing or "martial arts" background functionally puts a person into something of a different position in most case law - something I personally encountered as a recognized "expert witness" in a U.S. federal court.

 

m

[Markini]

Milod, well written and well said. I always seem to get some education or reminders of my education when I read your posts. You being a historian and an observer of human nature seem to always add a learning element. Excellent teacher and I don't doubt for a second you have credentials to be an expert witness in a federal court (or any court)

 

Back to the topic: It struck me that the clovis point, a spearhead from the stone age could take down a mammoth, imagine the damage to a human, same in reference to the Roman gladius,; the infamous shortsword wielded so proficiently by the Romans and Greeks.

 

I have read that a Roman bronze battle sword circa 150 B.C. were kept so sharp and so heavy that just supporting the blade in the palms of your hand would result in severe injury.

 

Then there is the most basic of hand weapons; Rocks and stones. Once again the message is the 'intent' of the perp.

 

 

 

 

 

[Retired]

1449435283[/url]' post='1718736']

One problem in figuring statistics is how often they compare apples and oranges.

 

In the U.S., for example, the left is comparing the recent Islamic terrorist attack to a nut job in a school - when it's the biggest Islamic terror attack in the nation since 9-11 where box cutters and bad men with jihadist ideology turned airliners into cruise missiles.

 

Ditto with stats on firearm-related incidents of all sorts. A gang-related shooting of one bunch of drug purveyors against another ain't "terrorism."

 

I once got into an argument with a fiction author over the deadliness of the old 7.62 x 39 medium power rifle round in a semiautomatic SKS rifle vs. a Samurai-style sword. Thing is, the SKS even with a bit of alteration still may shoot more people, but with a decent survival rate, whereas a single chop of the sword, we're talking almost an instant fatality.

 

But in both cases, neither rifle nor sword can do a thing without a person deciding to do so.

 

I'll add that also most bits of solid material used as weapons are only as injurious as the wielder is capable and inclined. That's whether a screwdriver or an Abrams tank. I'll wager most of us here could do more damage with no further training with the screwdriver than the tank.

 

I'd add that fully-automatic firearms have been illegal, for all intents and purposes, in the U.S. since 1934. Some states in the U.S. have added additional laws governing arms considered ... "bad" ... for whatever reason, usually appearance.

 

I'm reminded too of the story of the two little old ladies in rocking chairs on the porch of an old-style home for the aged, and one asks the other, "I wonder what happened to the good old-fashioned ax murders."

 

It's also noteworthy that at one time in England archery practice was mandated. In the U.S., the "nation of riflemen" first saw founding of the National Rifle Association in 1871 due to serious concerns that Americans were losing their familiarity with firearms even during the 1860s "Civil War," and that marksmanship should be encouraged. In roughly that same time period, a young woman now known as Annie Oakley was demonstrating exceptional marksmanship skills and, later as a celebrity, promoted education and marksmanship for women as empowering them as equal to men.

 

Some figure she personally taught around 15,000 women shooting skills.

 

Oh, and neither she nor her students, nor her arms, nor her marksman husband, were known for any violence against persons.

 

It ain't the arms, nor even the skills, that turn a knife, bow, sword or firearm from tool or sporting equipment into a weapon, but the mindset of those who perceive them as such.

 

Then too, consider that a military, police, boxing or "martial arts" background functionally puts a person into something of a different position in most case law - something I personally encountered as a recognized "expert witness" in a U.S. federal court.

 

m

 

Thank you Milod. Very well written and I very much agree. I'm not gifted in words but that was my whole point. Sometimes I get a little frustrated when I hear so many downgrading guns. I've been a collector of them for decades and just a few I will use at the range for target practice. To me it's fun. I just test my skills like an archer would do on a paper target. I've even toyed with the ideal of getting into Sass cowboy shooting and checked out a range. Not one of my guns or knives in the collection have ever harmed a human nor an animal in the 40 years I've owned some. Point was most anything used by an criminal mind can kill people and in this case a mass knife killing and not a gun did the job here. As you mentioned a couple of box cutters were the cause of bringing down the twin towers causing a mass killing and destruction. Almost anything can be used to accomplish the purpose of a criminal mind. And it doesn't matter rather a knife has multiple purposes as a tool and a gun only has a few. A piece of pipe was thought to only have two purposes. To run water or liquid through it or hit someone in the head. ( My wife had a cousin killed with one) but criminals use them for bombs.

[milod]

Markini...

 

Yes the Gladius was awesome in context. Ditto the Samurai sword - and so were some of what I jokingly call "battle boppers" from the late neolithic and early bronze age.

 

Again, it's tactics and training. The Zulu were known for tactics similar to the Roman infantry with their combination of shield and assengai, their version a short spear.

 

I did a piece once for a fencing magazine on the mounted and dismounted techniques of the mid 19th-century U.S. sabers... It was relatively slow dismounted, and forget the B-movie U.S. cavalry fighting mounted tomahawk-armed Indians. There was a reason such sabers were referred to as "wrist breakers" for those wielding them.

 

Oh - and some have noted that some Russian special forces train with short shovels that can be used in close quarter combat or thrown as have been axes thrown.

 

It all comes down to the person using such things ...

 

m

[milod]

Retired...

 

SASS competition that I did was the most fun I had since I was 10.

 

As I noted before, I didn't even have to buy anything...

 

m