America's gun craziness continues - 13 year old girl killed by classmate...

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Are you asking if Anders Breivik killed more people because he was well armed? obviously, he was armed with a very nice rifle, vastly better killing weapon at range than a handgun or a knife. On top of this he was very well trained so the comparison between him and a 13 year old kid is kinda pointless no? The topic is this case and if the kid having a gun somehow allowed this crime to happen, the answer is no, the kid could just of easily killed the girl with a knife.

And very few people would try and stop someone with a gun or a knife, might think you will but in that situation it is incredibly unlikely anyone outside trained professionals will intercede.

You spoke of guns in general being 'in no way 'more dangerous' than knifes.' Not specifically handguns. And even if we are discussing handguns, the latter case that I mentioned involved a scrawny kid with no previous weapon experience. And AGAIN, even if we are very specifically talking about a 13 year old kid - then no, most adults/older students would most likely try to stop him if he had a knife seeing as he's probably only about five feet tall. You can't kill someone standing twenty feet away with a knife.

Reply 21

Tycho

Original post by Darth Stewie

Getting shot is not like it is in the movies, unless you are unlucky enough to be hit in a particularly vital area (head or heart being the main ones) you have a pretty high chance of survival and according to this US doctor that chance is as high as 95% and in total the estimated chance of survival in NC is a little over 80%. A Knife wound particularly multiple stab wounds are just as lethal.

Multiple stab wounds may well be just as lethal. But the effort required to inflict multiple stab wounds is significantly higher than the effort required to squeeze the trigger of a gun. It takes a different type of person to shoot someone in a random moment of rage than it does to launch a frenzied attack with a knife. So sure if you look at it in terms of the likelihood of someone dying if they have been shot compared with if they have been stabbed may not show significantly different mortality rates. But having a gun makes it more likely that someone will die because the attacker is more likely to make a lethal shot than they would be to make a lethal stab with a knife.

Original post by Darth Stewie

The "safe" distance from someone wielding a knife is over 21ft, most people would probably miss the target with a handgun at that range never mind have the know how to hit a vital organ. If you have a knife that isn't a problem.

Are you suggesting that a knife has a better range of attack than a gun? That's clearly nonsense. Most people would actually easily hit a target at a range of 21ft with a gun, particularly if they took more than one shot. You clearly don't know much about firing a handgun (no offence), but you don't aim for a "vital organ". You aim for the chest. If you hit the chest then there is an extremely high chance that you will do a lot of damage to an internal organ. How much damage depends on the weapon used. Even a standard calibre handgun on sale in America these days will easily kill you with a single shot to the chest.

Original post by Darth Stewie

The point of all this is guns are in no way "more dangerous" than knifes, if i had the choice between someone standing 15ft away from me with a handgun or a knife i would pick the handgun every single time. If this kid had a knife that girl would have been killed just the same, it wouldn't of been considerably more difficult and the girls chance of survival would not have been any higher.

Well you will be in the minority. An attacker with a knife must first catch you before they can inflict a lethal stab wound. On top of that their relative proximity to you gives you a far greater chance of being able to resist their attempt to make the stab. You can't, however, dodge bullets. If someone is standing 21ft away from you with a handgun and is absolutely determined to kill you then you are as good as dead. It doesn't matter whether it's a 12-year-old boy or an 80-year-old granny, you're dead. With a knife there are many more variables which work in favour of the victim.

And if knives were more dangerous than guns then why would we be sending soldiers to war carrying guns? Why would Americans even opt to have guns in the first place for home protection? Why not just get a big knife? The answer is simple: guns are far more dangerous. Look at all the mass killings in recent memory. From Norway to the USA all involved firearms.

So yes the girl might still have died if the boy chose to stab her. But she did die because he shot her...

America's gun craziness continues - 13 year old girl killed by classmate...

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