Posted on 12/06/2012 5:00:33 AM PST by servo1969
I grew up deathly afraid of guns. This wasn’t like my fear of snakes and spiders, which seems to be pretty atavistic. Instead, this was a learned fear: Guns kill people. Guns also kill innocent animals that should, instead, die nice clean deaths in factory farms, before being sliced up and packaged in cellophane. I knew the truth: guns are bad, very, very bad.
Then I went to England and learned that guns aren’t the only bad things. My sojourn in England coincided with the explosive rise of soccer hooligans, louts who traveled the length and breadth of England, and periodically spilled over into the rest of Europe, bringing jack-booted violence with them wherever they went. (Among the Thugs
When I returned to America, I still hated guns (I had, after all, been carefully taught to do so), but I began to wonder — Are guns really the only bad thing out there? Will doing away with guns turn America into an Eden that sees that loutish lion and the helpless lamb lie down together? England, which was a less armed country than America, wasn’t necessarily a safer one. People still got victimized; it was just that guns weren’t the weapons doing the victimizing.
Upon my return to the states, Second Amendment supporters to whom I spoke told me that, while bullets have the advantage of distance, in the close quarters of a bar fight, knives or broken bottles are much more dangerous. They made the logical argument, then, that no one ever suggests outlawing knives or bottles. Likewise, the fact that more people die from car accidents than gunshot wounds doesn’t mean we’re about to outlaw cars. (Although, I must say, the climate change people are making a good stab at outlawing cars.)
When I was still in my liberal phase, I always had the right answer at hand when I heard these logical arguments: knives and bottles and cars all have a primary utility separate from their secondary, dangerous uses. Guns, however, exist only to kill.
With age, thankfully, I’ve gained wisdom. I’ve figured out that guns are extremely useful: you can get your own food if you’re nowhere near a market with tidy cellophane packages; you can have the sheer pleasure of target practice; you can discourage looters in the wake of a disaster; if you’re a woman and a large man is threatening you, guns are the great equalizer; if you’re alone and a crazy man is at your door, you don’t have to die like the screaming teen in a slasher movie; and guns are the only defense against the single largest and most deadly entity known to man — a totalitarian government that has turned on its citizens.
As I know from my gun hating years, even though all of the above are good reasons to cheer the Second Amendment, these facts make no headway with the anti-gun crowd. Instead, they just keep pulling out this tired old poster:
Well, I think we’ve finally got a new poster in our Second Amendment arsenal:
Here’s an interesting point about those numbers. In 1997, Britain’s Labour government worked overtime to remove guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens:
After Hungerford [a massacre in 1987], the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 criminalised most semi-automatic long-barrelled weapons; it was generally supported by the Labour opposition although some Labour backbenchers thought it inadequate.After the second incident, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 criminalised private possession of most handguns having a calibre over .22; the Snowdrop Campaign continued to press for a wider ban, and in 1997 the incoming Labour government introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, which extended this to most handguns with a calibre of .22 (there are exceptions for some antique handguns and black-powder revolvers.)
And not coincidentally, since 1997, the year law-abiding Brits were denied arms, violent crime in England has skyrocketed:
The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.
In the decade following the party’s election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million – or more than two every minute.
The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:
- The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
- It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
- The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
- It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.
But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.
In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.
The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.
Britain used to be famed as a polite society. It is no longer. It is also a society that full lives up to the saying that “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
People will kill. They always have, and they always will. Culture matters, in that cultural norms can encourage or discourage violent crime. But only guns will be there when you’re small and alone, and that’s true whether you’re facing a home invader, a street thug, or a modern-day Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin.
Lol. Been shooting pistols for 40 or so years, competition.
Some of my old clubmates are in here: http://www.fastgun.no/Shootabout.htm
Real knife distances gets very much closer than 10-15 feet. At toe to toe you wear your innards for shoelaces faster than you can blink.
I have probably disarmed/and or faced more people with guns or knives empty handed, than the average cop, and I fear the gun more than the knife.
The fear of the knife is similar to the fear of snakes, it isn’t based on logic or experience, but on some vague, primal thing.
During the days that I used to spend a lot of time with knives and sticks, I preferred the stick or thin pipe, over the knife, and when possible, always a blocking agent in my other hand, anything from a light chair, to a lamp, or a small rug, knife attacks are easy to interfere with and disrupt.
The gun trumps all.
I own one of those, an original, and sometimes I place it in the hand of females when discussing women in combat, and I point out the different weaponized features of the knife and how they are used, most of them agree that women do not belong in an environment where such a horrible device is needed and used.
I have, thankfully, a great deal less (as in zero) experience in this area than you.
But what you say makes a great deal of sense. Any weapon that allows one to kill by literally twitching your finger is a great deal more dangerous than one that requires physical strength and dexterity.
The studies I’ve seen indicate that you are likely to survive a serious stab wound by a significant multiple over the equivalent bullet wound. This is, of course, exactly why edged weapons were largely abandoned for firearms some centuries ago.
There have been a lot of claims to the contrary posted, but no evidence that I’ve seen.
Love the title.
Place two average but manly 20 year olds in a typical furnished apartment, and give one a knife, and tell them the killing is on, well, what you have is an athletic competition, and you don’t know what the result will be, or how long it will take to find out who wins, or even if they won’t both survive the contest, with injuries and exhaustion.
Replace that knife with a pistol, and the outcome is more predictable, actually, the one with the pistol can be replaced by just about any person, male, female, old, young, as long as they are manly enough to pull the trigger, and the outcome is still predictable.
Knives scare people, but a fighter knows that when the other guy only has a knife, then he is still a long, long, long, way from killing you.
Tag line material, just to long to fit it all.
In the hands of a novice in close quarter combat, I would rather they have a gun than a knife. There are various reasons.
You can control the gun or the gun hand, you can’t control the knife, just the knife hand. In fact if you grab the muzzle of the gun, you have total control of it and there are various leveraging techniques to disarm and disable your opponent.
Put your Gi on and arm someone with a rubber combat knife, chalk the end with any color you choose that will show up on your Gi and try and disarm your opponent while they are trying to cut you. Do the same with nerf type gun.
The whole idea of the gun is that you don’t let them get that close. 40 years of shooting you should know that distance is your friend. Not to mention that when they show you a knife and you show them a gun its usually pretty much over at that point.
Then there’s the one in a million who sees the gun and charges and then its 2 to the chest 1 to the head.
You have to study knives if you seriously teach self defense with guns.
Having said that, most people who use either guns or knives do not study them or train. If facing an amateur, I would rather face one with a knife.
However, I carry a knife all the time, and I know that I could inflict tremendous damage and death with it. It also does not run out of ammo and is less likely to inflict collateral damage.
Good post. Sticks are very useful things.
And most users are novices. If someone is serious about using the knife, there is a good chance you will never see it until after you are cut or stabbed.
Sticks, long and short are great, as are canes for those who work with them.
When I used to have to go out and accost the alley guys here in California, I would carry a longish club,fighting stick, if he looked normal, but I would carry a 5/16s”, or 1/2”, short piece of pipe if he looked like a for sure, knife guy.
Place two average but manly 20 year olds in a typical furnished apartment, and give one a knife, and tell them the killing is on, well, what you have is an athletic competition, and you don’t know what the result will be, or how long it will take to find out who wins, or even if they won’t both survive the contest, with injuries and exhaustion.
Replace that knife with a pistol, and the outcome is more predictable, actually, the one with the pistol can be replaced by just about any person, male, female, old, young, as long as they are manly enough to pull the trigger, and the outcome is still predictable.
Knives scare people, but a fighter knows that when the other guy only has a knife, then he is still a long, long, long, way from killing you.
Not correct.
There are several videos where the participants are capable shooters.
The attacker stands 21 ft. from the armed person.
The attacker charges the armed person and gets him every single time before he can draw.
And this is in a situation where the armed person KNOWS that he will be charged. No element of surprise.
Now here is the problem for the shooter...his gun is still in the holster or maybe partialy drawn. At that point, he is totally at the mercy of the knife. The attacker does NOT have to be Jim Bowie because he has the total upper hand unless the shooter is a highly experienced hand to hand fighter.
I don’t have the link, but facts are facts and the videos are there.
This is why cops so readily shoot a knife threat.
Mooma may go on TV and talk about how her boy was such a good boy and the cops should have just taken the knife away from him and not shot him, but they know better.
No cop is going to let a knife get within 21 ft. of him.
The idea that knives are not dangerous compared to guns is BS.
Which is of course what everyone has been saying.
Moderate distance is the place for the gun, and one who never uses a handgun stand little chance against a target which is closing the distance in a second or two, or one that is close enough to poke you in the navel.
The gun isn’t magical, and that mozambique doesn’t place itself.
That demonstration video gets dredged up all the time.
You take a knife, and give me a gun, and I will guarantee that you end up dead in a real life situation, there is a heck of a lot more going on than merely crossing 21 feet under ideal situations, and assuming that I am not ready to shoot you. The fight isn’t over when you yell ‘tag’.
We still have to settle the part of which one of us actually kills the other one, closing on me with a knife isn’t enough, if my personal life is any evidence.
I carry a fighting knife and spent years practicing close combat with a knife and other weapons, in California I can carry a full size sheath knife, and I sometimes do in certain bars, I have even carried my Hell’s Belle Bowie, but it draws too much attention, but I much prefer a pistol and so does any other sane person.
A sane person would much rather fight a knife than a gun, when a man pulls a knife on you, then he is engaging you in a fight, an athletic struggle because he still only has a short hand tool to work with, that why a simple pool stick goes so far in equalizing the fight with a knife, even pool balls can chase off a guy with a knife if he isn’t determined.
Your average wino, with a dull, $5.00 pocket knife and in ill health is a lot less dangerous than the same wino with a 38.
Neither is the knife, that is why so few knife attacks result in death, the knife doesn't just magically kill people like in the movies, it is a short, cutting and stabbing tool, and the target has an opinion on where and if you are going to strike blows.
This doesn't even get into the condition of most street knives, again, this isn't a movie where you will be facing a trained knife fighter with a custom made fighting knife.
I think the authorities simply went through a martial arts magazine and started banning anything that looked dangerous. Hence the banning of throwing stars for instance (not as deadly - at all - as they are made out to be in martial arts movies), or the similar banning on nunchaku in some American cities (another weapon that is difficult to use without hurting oneself, and is very difficult to use offensively in an effective manner ...all the twirling you see in martial arts demos are mostly flash and show. A simple stick is far more capable).
A simple kitchen knife is more lethal in the hands of 99.9998% of the human population than any of these exotica are, yet they get banned. A ballpoint pen is more of a 'danger' than these things, yet it is an offense to own one?
I'd like to ask one of the people who drafted such laws when it was that a person was last killed with a kusarigama? This is also why those who stand firm against people who would like to ban certain firearms (e.g. the so called 'aggressive-looking-assault-rifles') need to never let their resolve ebb. Not even for a moment. Because the same forces that ban 'ninja stars' (actually shuriken/shaken were not an exclusive ninja weapon) because they 'look' dangerous (and played a role in a stupid movie from the early 80s) would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to ban firearms if they could. It's that pesky amendment thingii that messes things up for them in the US. However, they will try to ban 'some' weapons, with the premise that they are aggressive or can 'shoot down a plane' (argument used to try and ban 50 caliber rifles), and they will simply continue from there.
Again, look at how certain stuff has been banned in places like the UK. They simply cannot stop themselves, and whatever looks 'dangerous' is put on the list. If any FReeper reading this has firearms in the house, look at them and see how some Liberal lawmaker could easily find them 'dangerous looking.' Maybe it is because of the pistol grip? Maybe it is because it is black in color (as if a pink gun can't shoot)? Maybe it is because the gun furniture is amped in some way? Maybe the attachments make it look like something from a Rambo film the guy hated? If they can ban a weighted chain, they would LOVE to ban any gun you have in your possession right now. However, because they cannot do so, they will try and ban firearms that are at the periphery of usage/caliber/function/etc (e.g. the aforementioned 50 cal weapons), and then from there they will go for certain caliber types (e.g. the FN5.7 pistol rounds), then 'sniper' rifles (and any hunting rifle with a scope that is not used for hunting will be considered as one by these chaps). A lot of people bring up slippery slope arguments that are not based on fact, but this is one slippery slope that is for real.
Just look at the silly stuff they ban in places like the UK. They can't help themselves. They even tried to introduce kitchen knives that do not have a tip (to prevent them from being used as stabbing weapons). Once they get going they simply cannot stop, and thus there is no reason to give up any ground to them. All lost ground is simply used as territory to launch new attacks.
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