Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by JimC » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:15 pm

The_Metatron wrote:Here's what I've been wondering about...

I don't know how many men there were with knives, or the demographics of those killed. The attack was in a train station, yes? If so, a quite good place to stage an attack with knives. Lots of people, tight space, very little stuff around that isn't bolted down with which to use against the men with knives.
10, I gather, each armed with at least 2 knives, and very, very determined...
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Seth » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:36 pm

laklak wrote:Hang on, I thought it was easy to defend yourself against a knife. You just have to stay a few feet away, right?
Well, yes, technically...if you can. In this case, like lions, the killers took down the slow ones in the panicked crowd trying to do exactly that. I'd much rather face a criminal armed with a firearm than one armed with a knife, particularly in close quarters. Of the approximately 15 percent of shots fired by criminals that actually hit their target, only some 15 percent are fatal. Miss a vital organ with a gunshot and the victim might well live. Slash an artery with a knife and chances are the victim is going to die before anyone can stop the bleeding.

This is why the rule for police is "shoot an assailant armed with a knife if he refuses to drop it before that person gets within 21 feet of you." This is because at less than 21 feet, even if you make a good center mass shot, a person with a knife can still rush and kill you before he dies.

A good swordsman is a very, very dangerous foe, and any competent swordsman can literally cut you in half in less time than even I can draw and fire if the attack is unexpected and in range.

I suspect that the reason knives were used is not because automatic weapons are not available to Chinese terrorists, but because they are much easier to conceal and carry about, particularly in societies like China, and they are quite lethal enough to make the desired point.
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Seth » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:39 pm

JimC wrote:I will concede this to Seth et al: if 10 knife-wielding Uighur fanatics attempted the same thing at a railway station in Texas, then those varmints would most likely be plumb fill of lead...

:hehe:
And I'd bet that if you were in the crowd you'd be hoping someone like me was also in the crowd and was prepared to take action on your behalf.
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Svartalf » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:16 pm

FBM wrote:A few people with swords would have been enough, I think. I wonder if sword-carrying is legal in China.
China has a long tradition of weapon control... especially after that Ming emperor saw what could be done by a ridiculously small force of monks with intensive martial arts training. The Qing were quite anal about hans having weapons (and risking yet another uprising... why do you think the boxers of the 55 days of Beijing fame used martial arts to fight?) ... and I assume the communist state since Mao has been quite as restrictive.
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by klr » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:43 pm

JimC wrote:I gather that it is not just an islamic thing, but resentment against the resettlement of large numbers of Han Chinese in the region, somewhat like they have done in Tibet...
Have the Tibetans engaged in that level of terrorism though?

A leading question, I know ...
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Beatsong » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:20 pm

Warren Dew wrote:A few people were shot by police as well. If more people had guns, more of the murderers would have been shot, and a lot fewer of the innocent victims.
Because you'd have some magical way of making more of the bystanders have guns, without letting any of the attackers have them?

Do let us know what that is then...

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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Beatsong » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:25 pm

laklak wrote:Hang on, I thought it was easy to defend yourself against a knife. You just have to stay a few feet away, right?
EasiER, yes. That's why upwards of 10 assailants only managed to kill an average of fewer than 3 people each. Presumably by the time they had done so, everyone else had run away.

Remind us how that compares to Utoya, or Columbine, again?

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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Warren Dew » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:58 pm

JimC wrote:I gather that it is not just an islamic thing, but resentment against the resettlement of large numbers of Han Chinese in the region, somewhat like they have done in Tibet...
Except that Yunnan, unlike the Tarim Basin, has been Han since the Han dynasty, before the birth of Christ, let alone Mohammed.

More likely it is because the area has largely missed out on China's economic gains, and it's possible that islamic kids are feeling the pinch a bit more because they 're from larger families, since the muslims, being a "minority", were exempted from the one child rule.

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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Seth » Mon Mar 03, 2014 12:55 am

Beatsong wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:A few people were shot by police as well. If more people had guns, more of the murderers would have been shot, and a lot fewer of the innocent victims.
Because you'd have some magical way of making more of the bystanders have guns, without letting any of the attackers have them?

Do let us know what that is then...
It appears the attackers didn't need guns and did just fine with knives precisely because nobody in that crowd of people had any weapons, much less a gun.

Yours is the utopian prohibitionist's fallacy that thinks that defensive firearms are only used against attackers with firearms and that they have no utility in preventing or ending attacks by criminals armed with other types of deadly weapons...like knives.

You might want to note that when the Chinese police finally arrived they didn't throw cumquats at the killers, they shot them dead with guns! It's a great pity one or two or three citizens in that crowd didn't have a gun and the willingness to use it to defend others.

You can ask Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp about the effects of not being armed when some armed nut starts executing people right in front of you. She left her legally-licensed handgun in her truck when she went to eat lunch with her parents at the Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991 because at the time Texas concealed carry law prohibited CCW permitees from taking their guns into places that served alcohol, even if they were not drinking, and Luby's sold beer.

She has testified under oath that when a deranged killer rammed his truck through the front window and began methodically executing patrons that she had at least three occasions where she could have shot the attacker dead if she had been armed. Instead, she watched the killer execute her mother and her father, although she escaped.

No police there that time either.
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by JimC » Mon Mar 03, 2014 1:27 am

Warren Dew wrote:
JimC wrote:I gather that it is not just an islamic thing, but resentment against the resettlement of large numbers of Han Chinese in the region, somewhat like they have done in Tibet...
Except that Yunnan, unlike the Tarim Basin, has been Han since the Han dynasty, before the birth of Christ, let alone Mohammed.

More likely it is because the area has largely missed out on China's economic gains, and it's possible that islamic kids are feeling the pinch a bit more because they 're from larger families, since the muslims, being a "minority", were exempted from the one child rule.
However, I suspect that the terrorists had come from the islamic region to the west, and were after showing they can strike out of their Uighur heartland...

We'll have to wait and see for more information...
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Hermit » Mon Mar 03, 2014 1:30 am

Seth wrote:
Beatsong wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:A few people were shot by police as well. If more people had guns, more of the murderers would have been shot, and a lot fewer of the innocent victims.
Because you'd have some magical way of making more of the bystanders have guns, without letting any of the attackers have them?

Do let us know what that is then...
It appears the attackers didn't need guns and did just fine with knives precisely because nobody in that crowd of people had any weapons, much less a gun.

Yours is the utopian prohibitionist's fallacy that thinks that defensive firearms are only used against attackers with firearms and that they have no utility in preventing or ending attacks by criminals armed with other types of deadly weapons...like knives.

You might want to note that when the Chinese police finally arrived they didn't throw cumquats at the killers, they shot them dead with guns! It's a great pity one or two or three citizens in that crowd didn't have a gun and the willingness to use it to defend others.

You can ask Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp about the effects of not being armed when some armed nut starts executing people right in front of you. She left her legally-licensed handgun in her truck when she went to eat lunch with her parents at the Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991 because at the time Texas concealed carry law prohibited CCW permitees from taking their guns into places that served alcohol, even if they were not drinking, and Luby's sold beer.

She has testified under oath that when a deranged killer rammed his truck through the front window and began methodically executing patrons that she had at least three occasions where she could have shot the attacker dead if she had been armed. Instead, she watched the killer execute her mother and her father, although she escaped.

No police there that time either.
Basically, Beatsong was asking if you know a way of making more of the bystanders have guns, without letting any of the attackers have them. Thanks for totally evading his question with your "reply".
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Seth » Mon Mar 03, 2014 1:41 am

Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:
Beatsong wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:A few people were shot by police as well. If more people had guns, more of the murderers would have been shot, and a lot fewer of the innocent victims.
Because you'd have some magical way of making more of the bystanders have guns, without letting any of the attackers have them?

Do let us know what that is then...
It appears the attackers didn't need guns and did just fine with knives precisely because nobody in that crowd of people had any weapons, much less a gun.

Yours is the utopian prohibitionist's fallacy that thinks that defensive firearms are only used against attackers with firearms and that they have no utility in preventing or ending attacks by criminals armed with other types of deadly weapons...like knives.

You might want to note that when the Chinese police finally arrived they didn't throw cumquats at the killers, they shot them dead with guns! It's a great pity one or two or three citizens in that crowd didn't have a gun and the willingness to use it to defend others.

You can ask Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp about the effects of not being armed when some armed nut starts executing people right in front of you. She left her legally-licensed handgun in her truck when she went to eat lunch with her parents at the Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991 because at the time Texas concealed carry law prohibited CCW permitees from taking their guns into places that served alcohol, even if they were not drinking, and Luby's sold beer.

She has testified under oath that when a deranged killer rammed his truck through the front window and began methodically executing patrons that she had at least three occasions where she could have shot the attacker dead if she had been armed. Instead, she watched the killer execute her mother and her father, although she escaped.

No police there that time either.
Basically, Beatsong was asking if you know a way of making more of the bystanders have guns, without letting any of the attackers have them. Thanks for totally evading his question with your "reply".
That criminals might get guns if law-abiding citizens carry them is not a rational argument for disarming innocent citizens. That's why it's utopian prohibitionist nonsense to even suggest such a thing. People get killed with all sorts of weapons other than guns and every single one of them has a right to be armed in order to protect themselves and others against deadly attacks, whether the attackers are using hand grenades, knives, guns, rocks, clubs or anything else.

As I said, if those attackers wanted to use guns they would have used guns, because guns are and will always be available to those who are willing to violate the law to obtain them. The only thing gun bans do is disarm the very people who might need them to save their lives.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by JimC » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:45 am

Try to be realistic for a moment, Seth; is there a snowball's chance in hell that the current Chinese government would want to emulate, say, Texas, in terms of the freedom to carry handguns?

It is pointless to even consider the possibility.
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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Seth » Mon Mar 03, 2014 4:42 am

JimC wrote:Try to be realistic for a moment, Seth; is there a snowball's chance in hell that the current Chinese government would want to emulate, say, Texas, in terms of the freedom to carry handguns?

It is pointless to even consider the possibility.
Indeed. But that only makes the tragedy all the more lamentable, knowing that it can happen again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next and the next ad infinitum and none of those people will have a chance to defend themselves either.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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Re: Knife attack kills 27 people, wounds 109

Post by Warren Dew » Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:11 am

JimC wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:
JimC wrote:I gather that it is not just an islamic thing, but resentment against the resettlement of large numbers of Han Chinese in the region, somewhat like they have done in Tibet...
Except that Yunnan, unlike the Tarim Basin, has been Han since the Han dynasty, before the birth of Christ, let alone Mohammed.

More likely it is because the area has largely missed out on China's economic gains, and it's possible that islamic kids are feeling the pinch a bit more because they 're from larger families, since the muslims, being a "minority", were exempted from the one child rule.
However, I suspect that the terrorists had come from the islamic region to the west, and were after showing they can strike out of their Uighur heartland...

We'll have to wait and see for more information...
West of Yunnan is Burma. If the terrorists were Uighurs, that's considerably further away. They may be showing where they can strike, but I doubt it's going to achieve their goals.

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