Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

LordFluffy t1_iu5gelm wrote

> It takes a lot more to stab someone than it does to wiggle a trigger finger and point.

Yeah, I'm sure your vast combat experience gave you this informed opinion.

All things being equal, a gunshot from most calibers suitable for self defense is going to be more deadly than a knife wound almost always. That said, when it comes to people doing harm to one another, things are never equal. I've seen stories, recent stories, of people killing more people with a knife than another person was able to with a rifle.

But that's just arguing tactics. It also invites the question of how firearms are used in self defense, which I don't think is an insignificant factor.

> Your argument is the defensive, overly-simple one, I hear everywhere.

No, my sarcastic statement is one part of a much larger discussion expressed in the spirit of the comment to which I was responding. Or put another way, you don't know what my argument is.

> An SUV driven by a madman isn't going to drive through classrooms full of kids.

The worst mass shooting in the US killed 60 people and wounded many times that. In Nice, France a guy killed 80 people with a truck. The worst school shooting in the US left 32 people dead. The worst school massacre in the US was carried out with explosives and killed 34, iirc.

You're arguing tactics, not absolutes.

> A knife can't sweep over a crowd of thousands from a hotel window and kill 60 people.

And of course the millionaire with his own plane could not concievably have done anything another way. If he just had knives, he'd have pitched them from the same window. Or not.

> But they're one of our biggest problems.

And again, I disagree with you. If anything, it's a symptom of the problem not the problem itself.

>A gun can't do much of anything useful other than harm other living things and people.

Yes. It's a purpose built weapon. However, sometimes that is called for. Because you can't change a tire with one does not mean that it is useless, just rarely needed.

−6