9 ms·
Knives are a lot less lethal than guns.
by msrpotus 14y ago
Knives are a lot less lethal than guns.
- shasta 14y agoCitation?
- kamjam 14y agoThat's bullsh*t, knives kill just as guns do. In the UK we have many more knife related crime than we do gun related crime. That said, the issue here is not how lethal one is over the other, but Google playing judge,jury and executioner for something they should have no right to jurisdict over.
- vacri 14y agoThe UK has knife crime but not knife murder, despite what the fearmongering press would have you believe. The UK murder rate is a quarter that of the US, and is in line with similar countries.
- greyboy 14y agoThe UK also has 1/5 the US' population - what does all this mean?
- arethuza 14y agoMurder rates are often given per 100,000 inhabitants - so size of country isn't really a factor: United States: 4.8 United Kingdom: 1.2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... vacri's statement seems completely accurate.
- rdl 14y agoWhile I agree the US is far more violent than the UK, most of the US's incremental violence is explained by the drug war. Even if we had zero guns and the UK had US-style gun possession and laws, I suspect US drug laws (and other forms of extreme economic/political/legal inequality) would give us a higher murder rate.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- arethuza 14y agoAnd if we had a more sensible culture around alcohol use in the UK, particularly in my native Scotland, I'm sure we'd have a much lower level of all violence.
- tomkarlo 14y agoA large portion of violent crime (~75%) in the US involves either family members or other acquaintances ("nonstrangers"). I'm sure some of that relates to drugs, but most of it probably doesn't. http://bjs.gov/content/pub/press/vvcs9310pr.cfm http://bjs.gov/content/pub/press/vvcs9310pr.cfm
- greyboy 14y agoThanks, I missed the important word 'rate' in vacri's post in my haste.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Macha 14y agohttp://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checking-ben-swann-is-the-uk-really-5-times-more-violent-than-the-us/ http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checkin... 4.8 murders per 100,000 in the US vs 1.2 per 100,000 in the UK. The figures _do_ take size into account.
- greyboy 14y agoYes, I stand corrected. Thanks.
- corresation 14y agoThis is a gigantic diversion, but saying that the UK doesn't have knife murder is pretty profoundly ignorant. The last stat I saw was that the UK had some 330+ stabbing murders a year.
- vacri 14y agoThere is an implicit "of the scale of gun murder in the US" Murders in the US are currently sitting at 14k, ~11k of which are from firearms. The US only has 5 times more people than the UK, which would turn your stat into a rough US-equivalent of 1.7k.
- rodgerd 14y agoKives are just as lethal as guns? Hey, good news, armies of the world! Stop wasting money on complex mechanical weapons and ammunition, just buy knives! Your soldiers will be just as effective!
- ta15151 14y agoArmies don't typically fight unarmed opponents in close quarters. If you're unarmed and the attacker is within a few yards of you, a knife or a gun are not that different. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9igSoJHEdUo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9igSoJHEdUo
- TomGullen 14y agoSo lets ban guns then, people only need knives for self defence.
- ta17171 14y agoSelf defense is not the only reason for the legality of guns.
- TomGullen 14y agoOverthrowing government is the other I guess? Good news is that their soldiers will have guns, and you can get a good advantage on them by staying in close quarters environments with your knifes.
- ta17171 14y agoRecreation. Target shooting. In countries where guns are not demonized, this is a perfectly acceptable activity.
- kamjam 14y agoA murder is a murder, does it really matter whether it is using a gun, a knife or even with bare hands?