3 ms·

Where is it in knife related deaths per capita? How does it compare in deaths per unit poverty per capita? Good statistics beg good questions.

xwolfi 1y ago
I've been once threatened by an ex-gf with a knife, telling me she was gonna kill me. You know what I felt ? A mild worry, "come on, drop that, it's not worth it". She threw it across the kitchen and cried in my arms (difficult breakup, she has an history of family violence and alcohol abuse and comes from Myanmar, a tough place. We're both fine). She would have had, to actually endanger me: - to have enough strength to penetrate anything - the courage to see a lot of blood and cries to actually go through with a full murder - resist me fighting her back if it went to that, close range - not react to any rational argument I would beg her to listen to while she attacked me It was a bit traumatizing, but we laugh at it now... she failed at the first rational argument I presented "don't do it, don't ruin your life for a guy". Imagine if we were in a gun country, and she pressed the trigger accidentally... it's not the same, you must understand that, knife murders are really really hard, gun murders really really easy.
- kyleee 1y ago
  Downplaying the dangers of knives, just tells us you don’t actually know much about knives…
  - kulahan 1y ago
    I've never heard anyone say knives are particularly dangerous outside of people trained in how to fight with them. They tend to be pretty damn short to begin with, unless you're sneaking a machete around in your pants (or are you just happy to see me?)
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      There have been more than a few mass stabbings in China where lots of kids, from people who aren’t particularly trained in knifing people. There was the Wuxi vocational school stabbing in 2024 where 8 people were killed, there is a long list of school attacks, most of them are stabbings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_Chin... There was also the Kunming train station mass stabbing a decade or so ago, killing 31 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack Note that China does have a pretty low homicide rate, probably since guns are so hard to get ahold of (death penalty for even producing guns in backyard workshops).
    - jbboehr 1y ago
      I bought a knife a while back and, unfortunately, found out that it is really sharp. It could probably cut through flesh like butter.
- trimethylpurine 1y ago
  https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-crime-on-youth-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-c... Is this because they legalized knives? Obviously not. It's because murder typically rises with poverty and wealth disparity.
selcuka 1y ago
Your questions are irrelevant in the context. If you live in a country with lots of gun related deaths, you'd be concerned about getting shot. Having an equally high number of knife related deaths does not change this fact.
- trimethylpurine 1y ago
  The argument doesn't seek to change facts, it seeks to invite a broader view of the facts at hand, and the issue, which is murder. Reduction in murder is the goal. Recognizing that murder is very closely related to poverty, not gun ownership, is relevant if you're honest and objective about that goal. If you discover that reducing gun ownership increases knife related deaths, that would be very relevant to the goal. It would then be irrelevant to talk about guns. Right? Hypothetically speaking...
  - selcuka 1y ago
    > Hypothetically speaking... Exactly... > murder is very closely related to poverty US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list [1]. The previous 3 countries are Burundi, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, and the next 3 countries are Greenland, Zambia, Liechtenstein (Greenland and Liechtenstein are probably round-off errors with less than 5 deaths per year). Are you really suggesting that those countries should be the benchmark for the US? Now, according to the World Bank [2], the poverty rate in the US is 18%, which is very close to the UK (18.6%). The intentional homicide rates, though, are vastly different (5.763 vs 1.148). How does the poverty argument explain the 400% difference? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r...
    - trimethylpurine 1y ago
      > US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list US is number one or two in immigration from 3rd world countries, and that's just by legal numbers, without considering illegal immigration, in which the US is also estimated to be number one. This fits right in with the observable data you've shared. You aren't actually claiming that the guns by themselves are making people murderous, right? That wouldn't be a scientifically sound hypothesis without some evidence to back. But I'll be interested to see if you can come up with something to tie those together. Let's take Utah (since it's the topic of the thread) as an example to try to apply your argument. It has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest murder rates in the world. How does your argument, or any other, explain that?

xwolfi 1y ago

I've been once threatened by an ex-gf with a knife, telling me she was gonna kill me. You know what I felt ? A mild worry, "come on, drop that, it's not worth it". She threw it across the kitchen and cried in my arms (difficult breakup, she has an history of family violence and alcohol abuse and comes from Myanmar, a tough place. We're both fine). She would have had, to actually endanger me: - to have enough strength to penetrate anything - the courage to see a lot of blood and cries to actually go through with a full murder - resist me fighting her back if it went to that, close range - not react to any rational argument I would beg her to listen to while she attacked me It was a bit traumatizing, but we laugh at it now... she failed at the first rational argument I presented "don't do it, don't ruin your life for a guy". Imagine if we were in a gun country, and she pressed the trigger accidentally... it's not the same, you must understand that, knife murders are really really hard, gun murders really really easy.

kyleee 1y ago
Downplaying the dangers of knives, just tells us you don’t actually know much about knives…
- kulahan 1y ago
  I've never heard anyone say knives are particularly dangerous outside of people trained in how to fight with them. They tend to be pretty damn short to begin with, unless you're sneaking a machete around in your pants (or are you just happy to see me?)
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    There have been more than a few mass stabbings in China where lots of kids, from people who aren’t particularly trained in knifing people. There was the Wuxi vocational school stabbing in 2024 where 8 people were killed, there is a long list of school attacks, most of them are stabbings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_Chin... There was also the Kunming train station mass stabbing a decade or so ago, killing 31 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack Note that China does have a pretty low homicide rate, probably since guns are so hard to get ahold of (death penalty for even producing guns in backyard workshops).
  - jbboehr 1y ago
    I bought a knife a while back and, unfortunately, found out that it is really sharp. It could probably cut through flesh like butter.
trimethylpurine 1y ago
https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-crime-on-youth-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-c... Is this because they legalized knives? Obviously not. It's because murder typically rises with poverty and wealth disparity.

selcuka 1y ago

Your questions are irrelevant in the context. If you live in a country with lots of gun related deaths, you'd be concerned about getting shot. Having an equally high number of knife related deaths does not change this fact.

trimethylpurine 1y ago
The argument doesn't seek to change facts, it seeks to invite a broader view of the facts at hand, and the issue, which is murder. Reduction in murder is the goal. Recognizing that murder is very closely related to poverty, not gun ownership, is relevant if you're honest and objective about that goal. If you discover that reducing gun ownership increases knife related deaths, that would be very relevant to the goal. It would then be irrelevant to talk about guns. Right? Hypothetically speaking...
- selcuka 1y ago
  > Hypothetically speaking... Exactly... > murder is very closely related to poverty US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list [1]. The previous 3 countries are Burundi, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, and the next 3 countries are Greenland, Zambia, Liechtenstein (Greenland and Liechtenstein are probably round-off errors with less than 5 deaths per year). Are you really suggesting that those countries should be the benchmark for the US? Now, according to the World Bank [2], the poverty rate in the US is 18%, which is very close to the UK (18.6%). The intentional homicide rates, though, are vastly different (5.763 vs 1.148). How does the poverty argument explain the 400% difference? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r...
  - trimethylpurine 1y ago
    > US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list US is number one or two in immigration from 3rd world countries, and that's just by legal numbers, without considering illegal immigration, in which the US is also estimated to be number one. This fits right in with the observable data you've shared. You aren't actually claiming that the guns by themselves are making people murderous, right? That wouldn't be a scientifically sound hypothesis without some evidence to back. But I'll be interested to see if you can come up with something to tie those together. Let's take Utah (since it's the topic of the thread) as an example to try to apply your argument. It has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest murder rates in the world. How does your argument, or any other, explain that?