If no guns, would a 'mass stabbing' be as deadly anyway?

[britboy4321]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26959628

Quite an interesting one this.

Pro-gunners always argue 'if you ban guns (and they become real difficult to attain which seems unlikely) the psychos are just going to use a knife instead and they'll do just as much damage'.

This is normally followed by some kind of 'therefore, anti-gunner, I guess you think we should also ban knives' daftness.

Well some guy DID try a columbine with a knife. He got about 20 people, and (very early days) no reported fatalities yet. I'd argue that this attack probably wasn't as deadly as if the same guy had come in with an AR15 and a blimin' great bag of ammo.

What say you?

[Professor]

Nah - guns are far more effective.

[eynon81]

yeah, guns are better at killing people.

however Asia has a history of deadly blade attacks, this is the most recent:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-26402367

but bombs are still the deadliest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

better question would be, why are soldiers so easy to attack?

[eynon81]

more important question "why do kids at american high-schools want to kill each other so bad?"

[Stratego]

[britboy4321]

I have my own theories mainly around:

'The whole of society tells kids they're special and important and have the potential to be anything and opportunity to DO anything and they are loved and worshipped and kissed by mom and/or dad and WOW you're amazing you can play the piano a bit. At age 14-19 their parents like them less as they're spotty horrible teenagers, but worse, they form the inevitable, truthful, painful conclusions we all do ... 'hey butterfly guess what, you're not actually special at all you're just another boring old brick in the wall. Youre never going to be an astonaught or millionnaire or famous or anything remotely interesting, you're going to be a damn photo-copier salesman earning $24000 a year raising to $36000 when you become county leader. In 15 damn years. You're destined to be a nothing. An irrelevence. A boring,average 'everything' dullard. 2 years after you die, no-one will bother remembering your banal, largely pointless existance'.

These are kids, some of which don't really know how to rationally react to the ultimate sucker-punch to the ego.

Going apesh1t with a knife - well - infamy is a close second-best to fame, and a darn large leap above 'irrelevent'. You can 'teach' all those nasty people who spelled out the above obvious truth about you. Your cr&p school grades no longer mean anything. The fact you can't get a girlfriend means nothing. The fact you've only got 2 friends, both of which have started ditching you as they are moving on (and getting somewhere with their lives) means nothing. It's actually kinda' an easy path forward.

Just my theory as to why some teenagers take the choice ..

How to stop this: Well if I said 'set kids expectations just a bit lower from the off' I'm gonna get destroyed .. such is societys RULE that we're all supposed to tell kids they can have the world and treat them like gods because they got to sing a song in the school play!!


(whoever wrote 'its because of vaccines' - I LOLed. Then I LOLed again.)

[gla22]

Although I think overall societal dissatisfaction and disillusionment comes into play in a few instances, I think the majority of the kids that do that sort of thing are just mentally ill.

[Stratego]

[John Galt]

if another student was armed he could have stopped this madness

[John Galt]