By the author of Be Ready for Anything and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted
In China, where firearms are tightly restricted, it’s probably no surprise that those who want to hurt people found another way to do it. The dramatic rise of knife attacks around the world shows that the problem these days isn’t with guns. It’s with people.
Mass knife attacks have become so common over the years that a Chinese police department recently released a video to teach citizens how to defend themselves against knife-wielding assailants and it has gone viral, with 16 million views in just a few days. It has subtitles and some great advice that even I would be able to follow.
All humor aside, some folks in the US who want to do away with the Second Amendment are probably saying smugly, “Well, knife attacks are bad, but only people with GUNS can kill dozens of victims quickly.”
Those folks would be wrong.
For example…
- In 2014, 33 people were killed and 130 more were injured when a group of men coordinated a terror attack using knives at a train station in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
- In 2015, fifty workers at a Chinese coal mine were killed in a coordinated knife attack. Fifty more workers were injured.
- In 2016, a facility for the disabled was attacked by a man with a knife. He killed 15 people and injured 45, then later surrendered himself to police.
- In 2017, 18 people walking down a city street were injured when a man attacked them with a knife
- 13 people were seriously injured by a knife-wielding assailant at a shopping mall in Beijing earlier this year. One woman died from her injuries.
This tells me that it isn’t really a problem with guns. It’s a problem with people.
Instead of school shootings, they have school knifings.
While in the United States, school shootings have become shockingly commonplace, what many don’t know is that in China, where gun control is strict, school knife attacks are a frequent threat. On the very same day as the Sandy Hook shooting in the United States, a man with a knife injured 22 children and one adult at a school in Chenpeng village in the southern province of Guangxi.
Knife attacks at schools in China are common. Last year, a man climbed over the wall of a kindergarten and attacked 11 students. None suffered life-threatening injuries.
In 2016, a man in the southern province of Hainan stabbed 10 children before killing himself, authorities said. And another man killed three students at a school in 2014 before jumping off a building.
Perhaps the worst spate of stabbings occurred in 2010 when attackers targeted schools on three consecutive days. (source)
Just last month, a man wielding a knife killed 9 children and injured 10 others outside a middle school where he says he was bullied.
This isn’t just a problem in China
There have been mass knife attacks all over the world.
In the UK, there has been a deadly knife attack every third day of 2018. In 2017, Met Police recorded 37,443 recorded knife offenses and 6,694 gun offenses. The problem is so bad that a judge has suggested banning the sale of large kitchen knives and that those who already have kitchen knives should file them down to avoid stabbings.
In 2016, two soldiers were attacked by a man with a knife in Belgium, and a few days ago, a prison inmate on day leave stabbed two police officers then took their guns and shot them.
Four people were injured and one was killed when a knife-wielding assailant attacked them in Paris last week.
These are just a few examples and I haven’t dug any further than the first page of Google. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.
What happens if you take away guns
In each of these cases, something different was blamed.
- Some of the attackers were shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they stabbed their victims.
- Some of the attackers cited crippling stress.
- Some of the attackers said they were bullied or mistreated.
- Some of the attackers were mentally ill and had a history of psychological problems.
- Some of the attackers had religious and ethnic differences from their victims.
- One attacker just didn’t like disabled people.
You can’t fix people who want to harm others for their various reasons by taking away guns. You can only make it harder for the rest of us to defend ourselves against them.
Take away guns, and you get knives. Take away knives and you get improvised explosives. There is no way to take away the yen that some people have to kill others.
And if I am involved in a knife-fight, well, personally, I’d rather take a gun.
Thanks for this, it just proves my point. Never take a knife to a gun fight.
In the land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king.
In the land of the 2-inch blades, the man with the 3-inch blade is more equal than the rest.
In the land of the guns, they all fall to hollow point.
To add to the “Take away X and you get Y,” theme:
Add trucks, and acid attacks.
Knives never run out of ammo. The perp can keep going and going and going.
While living in Germany we had a guy who was being bullied then attached by 3 guys. In self defense here stabbed 2 of them , almost killing them & the 3rd guy here sliced him open from shoulder too his hip across the body. Took all of 45 seconds.
Before we took prayer out of school the worse thing was talking & gum chewing. Now we have shooting. We throw out God & wonder why we have such evil in our society.
We have thrown away our moral compass and with no compass we are left to drift.
The Bible states. The heart is desperately wicked who can know it. I think that about sums it up pretty well
You’re complaining that God isn’t allowed in school. Did you miss the part where some of the attackers were reported to be shouting “Allah Akbar”?
Seems like those guys were full of religion. Probably went to a very religious school too. They were probably from a very conservative, closed minded culture that not only fears but absolutely hates anyone or thing different from them.
The author is right, the problem is people. It’s not the guns, knives, trucks, acid, explosives or any physical thing used to do harm. The problem is people driven crazy by constant fear mongering, stress at work, insecurity, and relentless competition against the entire world over the most trivial of things. The problem is a system that rewards obnoxious, selfish, childish behavior with millions of dollars and “likes”.
You can force kids to pray all you want but don’t be surprised when it works as well as all those useless thoughts and prayers that come after every mass murder.
You’re right. In China a lot of these stabbings are done by Uyghurs from western China, a small minority group of Islamists. Wherever there is tight gun control, the Islamist’s weapon of choice is the knife. A good example is Jolly Old England where knife violence alone is more than all violence in New York City. Knife violence will be on the increase everywhere the Religion of Peace is. That’s why I carry a firearm with an extra magazine. That and situational awareness. It’s a harsh way to live thinking everybody around you in public could be a potential assailant. But, until the “good guys” rise up and take our country back, that’s the way I’ll live. It’s my “new normal.”
These monsters are jihadis and they are far from “conserative”
Islam is NOT a religion but rather a political system that preaches
if youre not one of them ‘youre an infidel an worthy of death!
Do some research….READ THE QURAN!!
That’s an interesting assertion, that Islam is not a religion. Since Islam has a belief in a god who cares about the lives of humans, a belief in an afterlife for followers, a set of rules and rituals for prayer and worship, holy days throughout the year with expectations for the followers, certain lifetime requirements (you might even call them sacraments) for followers a belief in the intervention of their good in world events and a belief in the supernatural, I’d say it strongly qualifies as a religion.
Can you explain why Islam is not a religion?
And how are religious zealots not conservative? You must have a personal definition that I’m unfamiliar with. I’ve actually read a couple books about people living in Iraq and Iran at different times. One was by a Westerner living with a Bedouin sheik and his wives. The other was by an Iranian woman who was born just before the Islamic revolution. Both described a very conservative lifestyle in both regions. By conservative I mean a system of beliefs and world view that favors tradition in the face of changing times and values.
Could you explain what you mean by conservatism?
“In God we trust.” With God in people’s minds, morality is also in people’s minds. It used to be unthinkable and against one’s character to actually try to hurt someone. When people are their own policemen, then it is unnecessary to create a police state.
You haven’t actually read your Bible, have you?
The great thing about a knife is, it is silent, deadly, and you can just walk into any store and walk out with one (no waiting period). Toss it when finished.
I think maybe some are missing the point of the gun control debate. What is being said isn’t “guns are the only weapons available to people and if we take them away the world will be warm and fuzzy and safe again.” Gun control advocates are saying, “Guns allow unhinged/dangerous individuals to more easily kill lots of people in a short amount of time from a distance, and we should be taking better steps to ensure that such people are not legally able to lay hands on one.” It’s pretty obvious that an AK-47 is more dangerous than a knife in the hands of an individual—if it weren’t, then we would just send our soldiers into battle with swords. But we don’t, and we all know why. Just like we all know that if it came down to it, we ourselves would much rather have a gun in a life-and-death altercation than a knife. It’s not called “the great equalizer” for nothing. So trying to say that if we impose some common-sense gun control measures in this country (like hey, let’s not allow people on the terrorist watchlist or men who have restraining orders taken out against them to purchase guns, even at a gun show, whaddyasay?) won’t do any good at all, well, I have to say, “How do you know?” I think it is worth a shot at least (pardon the pun). And yes, I own several guns myself (although no AK-47’s).
It is a known fact that restrictive gun laws have absolutely NO effect on criminals. Look at Honduras or Mexico, or Chicago. No, it has reached that invisible “line in the sand”, for law abiding gun owners. No more infringements. No more unconstitutional gun laws. The lie that, “nobody wants to take your guns” has been exposed. That was the long term plan, which goes back decades. The anti-gun crowd has been boiling the frog slowly for far too long. ENOUGH. It stops now. The Second Amendment was put there as a failsafe. Try to infringe upon it again, and it is quite possible that 100 million previously quiet gun owners may decide that the government is no longer serving the will of the people. Trust me, neither of us wants that. My rant, hath ended.
Why does it have to be men?
Hate to say this, it’s already illegal for anyone with a domestic violence-related restraining order to buy a gun ANYWHERE. The “Terror Watchlist” is of dubious reliability, with many added to it that probably aren’t terrorists–former Sen Edward Kennedy was on it for a time. The problem is that there’s no accountability for those who irresponsibly or maliciously add a name to it, and no way to get off of the list once one’s name is added. Kennedy did, because he was a politician, you or I could not. The idea behind it IS a good idea, but it needs to be revamped, and every name vetted before we start restricting any American citizen’s inalienable rights based upon it as it presently stands.
As far as the liberal panacea of universal background checks for private party transfers go, it’s a dead end. If every transfer had to have a background check who would perform it? How much would they charge? If the “background checkers” happen to be gun dealers, why would they assist me in selling my brother a rifle when the gun shop sells the same new rifle for perhaps twice as much as I’m asking for my used rifle? The short answer is: they won’t. Not long ago, a buddy in another state offered my a killer deal on a matched upper and lower receiver set for an AR-15 project. Because our states are no contiguous, he had to ship it to someone with a Federal Firearms License, who would then perform the background check before releasing it to me. I approached the owner of a gunshop near my home at which I already do business, the answer was: NO! He stocks AR-15 receivers, and if I wanted a pair, I could buy them only from him. At a much higher price, of course. This would become typical if all transfers required gunshops to facilitate them. The value of used guns would be $0, because no one could buy them from a private party, and no gunshop need buy it at all unless they can do so for pennies on the dollar, because you’d have nowhere else to go.
The solution to this problem isn’t going to be simple, and finger pointing at the NRA, Donald Trump, violent movies/video games, religiosity or non-religiosity, political parties or Killer Klowns from Outer Space leads nowhere. Hardening schools will be the cheapest and easiest way to start, stop reportage of the name of the lunatic shooter, since I suspect they do this get attention, and the media is unintentionally giving these people exactly what they want: Fame and a place in history.
Beyond that, parents need to start parenting, for a change.
Most people are in agreement with you. The problem is the gun control people are not out for laws that are reasonable. They want gun prohibition. The democrats that control California have clearly though their actions stated that. The 50 caliber rifle a rifle that has never been used criminally is a felony to posses in Ca. AR-15’s that people purchased legally years ago are a felony to posses in Ca. People for ‘gun safety laws’ get on TV and state we “don’t want to take your guns” well when these people get into a position of power that is exactly what they do.
So the moral of the story is : Ban males, not guns. Men will always find a way to be violent, and women better learn how to shoot real good.
Ummm…no, that wasn’t actually the moral to the story. Any gender can be violent and to think otherwise is to overlook some serious threats. I do agree on women learning to shoot, though. 🙂
Yes, any gender CAN be violent, but look back at your links. See any women perps? Men are raised from before birth “Oh, he’s kicking, must be a boy” to be aggressive and to feel privileged, “Boys will be boys”.
So when things don’t go exactly their way, their response is to go out and kill people. Until we change the way we raise our boys, don’t look for school shootings, rapes, serial killings, or other forms of violence to decrease.
wow…who let crazy in?
I was raised the same way all boys were in the 1950’s, and sadly, have had a number of things NOT go my way in life. I’ve yet to kill my first human, strike my first woman, commit my first rape, serial killing or launch my first spree of violence. Might want to look for other reasons for why we’re seeing what we do these days. Might even want to crack open the Bible and read Revelation. Just sayin’…
Never said all men do this, just said that men are the ones that usually do this. Might want to look at violent crime statistics. Women have the same difficulties in life as men, PLUS get raped,have unwanted pregnancies, get stuck with the kids, make less money, etc., yet rarely deal with all that by going out and shooting people.
Guess these chicks were just having a bad hair day,then? Jodi Arias,Karla Homolka,Julia Phillips,Adrienne Hickson,Amber Trudell,Amy Bosley,Angelina Rodriguez,Ana Trujillo,Ann Kontz,Ashleigh Pechaluk,Bernadette Perusquia, Camia Gamet, Robyn Davis and Carol “Sissy” Saltzman, Catherine Hamborsky, Chyann Bratcher and her mother, Brenda Robertson Fine, Collette Reyes, Courtenay Savage, Courtney Shulhoff, Cynthia George, Dalia Dippolito, Darlene Gentry, Denise Bozarth, Dianna Saunders, Erika Sifrit , Heather Horst, Heather Michelle Kane, Janet Harrell, Jessica McCord, Jessica Renae Riggins, Jordan Marie Shaver, Jordan Marie Shaver, Kathleen Dorsett, Lois Kay Cloud, Kimberly Parker, Linda Pedroza,Diane Downs. Maybe we should raise our girls differently…
Assailants can roll a sea cucumber cart in front of where you are staying it looks so natural them chowing down with long knives in hand until you step outside
I remember reading somewhere, that there was this man named Cain, who killed his brother Abel. It was a long,long, LONG, time ago. Pretty sure there was not a gun involved. Daisy is 100%correct (again) it is the evil, in the heart of the perpetrator, which is to blame.
Put the blame where it belongs.
The disintegration of western culture.
That was supposed to say; “Put the blame where it belongs.”
.
Daisy; is there any way we can get an edit button? It would make things easier for the fumble fingers among us.
Unfortunately, the only way we can do an edit button is by having log-ins. I hate to do that because it doesn’t allow people to be as anonymous. I’m happy to fix your former post though 🙂
If you use a platform like DISQUS people can still post anonymously. In fact, most people don’t use their real name anyway when they sign up and with DISQUS posters can block anyone from viewing your history. Spot.IM is another good platform. But anyway…it’s good you want to put your visitors first.
Daisy
Keep up the good work. Your speaking out about topics others wish to ignore or act as if they don’t happen. I’ll look forward to your next post.
Solution? Trained concealed carry. All Americans capable and qualified must do this. Government to provide free training at no cost and must NOT raise taxes for the next 10 years as proof and eliminate 90% of them on the 11th year.
Then you know it really was free, sort of. But you got the weapon, you got the training and now criminals (politicians included ) now fear you.
As it should be and BONUS. NO MORE ILLEGAL EXCESSIVE TAXES!
Hi Daisy. Have you heard of the ballot measure to ban all automatic pistols and long guns in the State of Oregon. It made the November ballot. The spokesman a local Imam said we should do it for the kids. The Oregonian out of Portland is our largest paper. This not a joke. 48,000 people signed to get this on the ballot, please help spread the word to stop this madness.
Daisy, please stay out of knife fights. If you can’t carry a gun where you’re going, go elsewhere.
If we had more guns people with guns knives would not be such a dangerous problem. Why not just make bad intentions illegal? Then you would have no crime right? Simple. Ban crime.
Government mandated training? They’d have to force us to buy guns too. So that’d be government mandated purchases and training for items some people may not want, need or be able to use.
That all sounds pretty tyrannical to me…
No taxes? At all? You realize Americans pay some of the lowest taxes in the developed industrial world? We have a higher percentage of gross vs. take home pay than almost anyone else in the world along with having some of the highest wages.
You really need to rethink your solutions to problems.
Think back 2000 years ago, Romans. They developed a special blade long enough and curved that in one stick would run through one’s vital organs. Someone skilled in the use of a blade can do a lot of damage real quick. Rome conquered the known world with a blade.
Daisy,
We all know there is a certain ideology that loves to use knives to kill and behead its enemies as they believe it enhances the fear element of their attacks and in so doing, weakens their enemies which, again in their warped minds, gives them an advantage to kill more people. That ideology, a supposed religion which is in fact a satanic death cult disguised as a religion to hide its true intent, is a total fabrication by a man who was abandoned by his family, shunned by his tribe, who then turned to violence as a means to spread his false “religion” which he reinforced by giving his followers inventive by sharing money and women taken in raids on caravans and on towns where he murdered all the men who refused to join his “religion”.
That ideology began in the 6th century when the most advanced weapon was the sword which they idolized, making it into a symbol of honor. That symbol is still lionized today as it is seen on flags and many other symbols in their various terrorist groups, so it is no wonder that knives are a weapon of choice to enhance the element of terror when attacking the weak minded sheeple.
In the end, you are spot on in saying it is not the weapon that does the killing but the hand that wields it. Of course many governments adamantly refuse to admit that for that interferes with their agenda which is to enslave the people which requires the people they “govern” all be disarmed. For that reason, We the People must NEVER allow ourselves to be disarmed, for we saw in WWII what happens to people when they allow their governments to disarm them. 50 MILLION paid the price with their lives when tyrants took all weapons from them leaving them no way to defend themselves from those tyrants. We must NEVER allow that to happen again.