re gun control was re we re mad as hell at the tv news in article c tshu ew magpie linknet com manes magpie linknet com steve manes writes that s all very well and good but i was refering to all homocides not just ones involving handguns what is this fixation on death by shooting as if it were somehow worse than death by stabbing what relevance are all homicides in this debate the issue is guns not baseball bats no the issue is reducing crime not guns if gun control doesn t lower crime overall then is doesn t address the issue even a simpleton knows that he stands a better chance of surviving an attack with a baseball bat does that matter if assaults with a baseball bat become much more common muggers using a gun rely primarily on the threat of the gun and rarely shoot their victim a mugger using a knife is much more likely to start by stabbing his victim in an effort incapacitate him so while a knif may not be as deadly as a gun criminals are more likely to actually use the knife as opposed to threatening the victim with it it isn t at all clear that replacing the criminal s gun with a knife would reduce murders stabbings might just become more common that s why it is important to look at the overall not the with gun homicide rate it avoids the issue of substitution different criminal techinques of using different weapons etc and measures what we want to prevent murders as for knives see my earlier post i d much rather face a knife than a gun thanks face possibly however facing knife welding attackers isn t too common stabbing without warning and by supprise is the usual tactic very few criminals shoot from cover it attracts to much attention and they don t have a chance to go through your pockets overall i d much rather be threatened with a gun than actually stabbed with a knife fortunately the best defense against a knife isn t another knife anyone trained in unarmed self defense won t have much of a problem disarming a knife assailant untrained in knife assault which probably means of knife assailants actually the exact same statement is true of guns training in unarmed self defence will let you disarm an untrained gunman without much problem you also ignore the criminal s reaction the national crime survey clearly shows that criminals unarmed armed with a knife gun or whatever are unwilling to risk their lives in a confrontation if faced with a serious threat almost all prefer to leave and find an easier target therefore using or threatening to use as is much more commonly the case a weapon is the best defence against an attacker regardless of how he is armed knives however are much less effective than guns criminals don t consider knifes as a serious threat nearly as often as they do guns frank crary cu boulder
