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It's much harder to kill people with a knife than with a gun. In the US, mass shooters have killed a dozen or more victims in a minute or two. Very hard to ach

It's much harder to kill people with a knife than with a gun. In the US, mass shooters have killed a dozen or more victims in a minute or two. Very hard to achieve with anything else short of explosives.

lazide 4y ago
Good thing no one ever uses IEDs then…..
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  As I said, short of "explosives" which IEDs need. And yes, IEDs are rarer than gun shootings pretty much everywhere, because explosives are a lot better restricted, even in the otherwise completely insane US. I guess some control works??
  - lazide 4y ago
    There are explosives, as in actual regulated explosives, and then there are IEDs, which can use anything from repurposed old artillery shells, to stolen construction explosives, to mixed kitchen chemicals and fertilizer. IEDs are not rarer than shootings because of controls, most likely. A Timothy McVeigh style attack is still very doable with off the shelf stuff. Explosives were never okay in Iraq either, post-Saddam (or guns, for that matter). It didn’t stop IEDs being the #1 threat. Same with Ireland during ‘the troubles’. Guns are direct in application, limited in impact, and expose the wielder to direct harm. Explosives, don’t. Explosives do require a degree of planning that a gun doesn’t though. And tend to be clearly ‘terrorist’/‘terrible’ in nature. The crazy just hasn’t been bottled up enough for it to get there in the US. Yet, anyway.
karaterobot 4y ago
Look up vehicle ramming attacks. Easy to commit, hard to prevent, very effective from the mass murderer's perspective. For example, in 2016, an attack with a truck killed 86 people and wounded 458 in Nice. You can't stop people from mass murder if they have their mind set on it. The best prevention would be figure out why they want to kill and solve the underlying issue, but that's too hard I guess. Strategies like "ban X" are an admission that we're not interested in root causes. Instead we pretend that removing the instruments or making the penalties worse will work. Predictably, all that will happen is people who want to commit mass murder will find other ways to do it.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Not true. Such ramming attacks are actually quite rare. And even when they do occur, they usually cause far fewer accidents. It takes quite a bit of planning or even luck to pull off a significant victim count. In "practical terms" a lot can go "wrong", like people running or jumping away or obstacles stopping the vehicle. And even if not, the victims are rather random, which is often not what amok runners want. Restricting access to guns has worked remarkably well pretty much everywhere. Turns out, the easier you make it to kill people, the more people get killed. And it's not like firearms have remotely as much legitimate use for average people like cars.
  - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
    False. One guy in Nice, France killed 86 and injured over 400 in a single attack. That's more deaths than every school shooting in the US since at least 2000, and 10x more injuries. France also saw 128 dead in one night in nightclub shootings, so all their gun laws didn't do jack. It is simply false that outlawing guns has reduced these deaths.
Ancapistani 4y ago
> It's much harder to kill people with a knife than with a gun. This seems like a reasonable statement, but I don't think it's true. If I had to be shot with a handgun from close range or stabbed with a kitchen knife, I would absolutely choose being shot. You're statistically far more likely to survive a shooting than an attack with a bladed weapon.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Were did you pull that "statistic" out of? There haven't been 641 "mass stabbings" in 2022 in the US. Plenty of people also get killed by shotgun. Still, shotguns probably aren't the worst offenders and that sounds like a total red herring when school children get dismembered by assault style rifles somewhat regularly.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
> In the US, mass shooters have killed a dozen or more victims in a minute or two. Very hard to achieve with anything else short of explosives. That is absolutely not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack 86 dead, 458 injured.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Yes, you can jump straight to the one incident that caused more victims than an average mass shooting. Do you know any others? Why is that incident already 6 years ago? They seem to be few and far between... globally. Because causing a high victim count with a vehicle attack is not impossible but hard. Which was my point, had you bothered to read my comment properly.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    > Yes, you can jump straight to the one incident that caused more victims than an average mass shooting. Do you know any others? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire (gasoline) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks (box cutters and airplanes) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide (some firearms, but mostly machetes). There are plenty more, including a bunch of genocides that took place before firearms were even invented. > Because causing a high victim count with a vehicle attack is not impossible but hard. Sorry, that's simply not true. All you need is a large vehicle and a crowd.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      You are making my point: You are cherry picking incidents while ignoring the vast number of mass shootings. All I'm saying is it is easier to kill a lot of people with a proper gun. All the "counter examples" you give are everything but "easy". They take planning and a lot of effort. Mass shooters sometimes buy their gun on the day of the attack. Then all it takes is pulling a trigger. And no, "all you need is a vehicle and a crowd" isn't true. In reality, most of these incidents end up with very few victims if at all. Turns out, a lot can go wrong with that "plan". There can be a lot of obstacles between a car and a crowd that make charging into it harder. Any bump and the car looses speed. Cars get stuck. Bigger vehicles aren't as easy to get a hold of or drive. So no, it's not as easy as with a gun, and that's why in actual reality, in the US amok runners choose firearms over vehicle pretty much every time, and everywhere else man slaughter by car isn't exactly an epidemic either.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Or poison. Or vehicles. Or hacking safety devices (e.g. traffic lights). Or on and on.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Not true. All those means of murder are way harder to pull off and are rarer. Also in most countries, even with gun control, so far as I can tell.

lazide 4y ago

Good thing no one ever uses IEDs then…..

bayesian_horse 4y ago
As I said, short of "explosives" which IEDs need. And yes, IEDs are rarer than gun shootings pretty much everywhere, because explosives are a lot better restricted, even in the otherwise completely insane US. I guess some control works??
- lazide 4y ago
  There are explosives, as in actual regulated explosives, and then there are IEDs, which can use anything from repurposed old artillery shells, to stolen construction explosives, to mixed kitchen chemicals and fertilizer. IEDs are not rarer than shootings because of controls, most likely. A Timothy McVeigh style attack is still very doable with off the shelf stuff. Explosives were never okay in Iraq either, post-Saddam (or guns, for that matter). It didn’t stop IEDs being the #1 threat. Same with Ireland during ‘the troubles’. Guns are direct in application, limited in impact, and expose the wielder to direct harm. Explosives, don’t. Explosives do require a degree of planning that a gun doesn’t though. And tend to be clearly ‘terrorist’/‘terrible’ in nature. The crazy just hasn’t been bottled up enough for it to get there in the US. Yet, anyway.

karaterobot 4y ago

Look up vehicle ramming attacks. Easy to commit, hard to prevent, very effective from the mass murderer's perspective. For example, in 2016, an attack with a truck killed 86 people and wounded 458 in Nice. You can't stop people from mass murder if they have their mind set on it. The best prevention would be figure out why they want to kill and solve the underlying issue, but that's too hard I guess. Strategies like "ban X" are an admission that we're not interested in root causes. Instead we pretend that removing the instruments or making the penalties worse will work. Predictably, all that will happen is people who want to commit mass murder will find other ways to do it.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Not true. Such ramming attacks are actually quite rare. And even when they do occur, they usually cause far fewer accidents. It takes quite a bit of planning or even luck to pull off a significant victim count. In "practical terms" a lot can go "wrong", like people running or jumping away or obstacles stopping the vehicle. And even if not, the victims are rather random, which is often not what amok runners want. Restricting access to guns has worked remarkably well pretty much everywhere. Turns out, the easier you make it to kill people, the more people get killed. And it's not like firearms have remotely as much legitimate use for average people like cars.
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  False. One guy in Nice, France killed 86 and injured over 400 in a single attack. That's more deaths than every school shooting in the US since at least 2000, and 10x more injuries. France also saw 128 dead in one night in nightclub shootings, so all their gun laws didn't do jack. It is simply false that outlawing guns has reduced these deaths.

Ancapistani 4y ago

> It's much harder to kill people with a knife than with a gun. This seems like a reasonable statement, but I don't think it's true. If I had to be shot with a handgun from close range or stabbed with a kitchen knife, I would absolutely choose being shot. You're statistically far more likely to survive a shooting than an attack with a bladed weapon.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Were did you pull that "statistic" out of? There haven't been 641 "mass stabbings" in 2022 in the US. Plenty of people also get killed by shotgun. Still, shotguns probably aren't the worst offenders and that sounds like a total red herring when school children get dismembered by assault style rifles somewhat regularly.

Turing_Machine 4y ago

> In the US, mass shooters have killed a dozen or more victims in a minute or two. Very hard to achieve with anything else short of explosives. That is absolutely not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack 86 dead, 458 injured.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Yes, you can jump straight to the one incident that caused more victims than an average mass shooting. Do you know any others? Why is that incident already 6 years ago? They seem to be few and far between... globally. Because causing a high victim count with a vehicle attack is not impossible but hard. Which was my point, had you bothered to read my comment properly.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > Yes, you can jump straight to the one incident that caused more victims than an average mass shooting. Do you know any others? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire (gasoline) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks (box cutters and airplanes) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide (some firearms, but mostly machetes). There are plenty more, including a bunch of genocides that took place before firearms were even invented. > Because causing a high victim count with a vehicle attack is not impossible but hard. Sorry, that's simply not true. All you need is a large vehicle and a crowd.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    You are making my point: You are cherry picking incidents while ignoring the vast number of mass shootings. All I'm saying is it is easier to kill a lot of people with a proper gun. All the "counter examples" you give are everything but "easy". They take planning and a lot of effort. Mass shooters sometimes buy their gun on the day of the attack. Then all it takes is pulling a trigger. And no, "all you need is a vehicle and a crowd" isn't true. In reality, most of these incidents end up with very few victims if at all. Turns out, a lot can go wrong with that "plan". There can be a lot of obstacles between a car and a crowd that make charging into it harder. Any bump and the car looses speed. Cars get stuck. Bigger vehicles aren't as easy to get a hold of or drive. So no, it's not as easy as with a gun, and that's why in actual reality, in the US amok runners choose firearms over vehicle pretty much every time, and everywhere else man slaughter by car isn't exactly an epidemic either.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Or poison. Or vehicles. Or hacking safety devices (e.g. traffic lights). Or on and on.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Not true. All those means of murder are way harder to pull off and are rarer. Also in most countries, even with gun control, so far as I can tell.