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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongsberg_attack

Wikipedia gives me the Kongsberg Attack, which was only 5 people killed + 3 injured. This is much much smaller than the 18 people killed in this elementary school, + the grandmother of the suspect (who was probably shot before the whole event started).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting

Las Vegas shooting was 50+ people killed.

Orlando Nightclub: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub_shooting

49 people killed.

It seems like dropping down to knife/sword fights would cut deaths significantly, unless you can show me some mass-stabbing numbers close to these 50-ish sized crowds.

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If you look in countries where guns are banned but are with comparable size to USA you will see mass murders by other methods, even if they are more infrequent than in USA (for example mass stabbings, bombings, arson, or more than once in Brazillian schools: mass murder using axes, and at one time, a crossbow)

Then there are mass murders using vehicles, like it happened in Europe several times in the past 15 years, or mass destruction with vehicle, like the "Killdozer" in USA itself.

I'm not arguing against that fact.

I'm arguing that in the USA, mass-murder events have 15 to 50 deaths involved. In other countries, the number is just 5 to 20.

Weapons of choice matter. Guns kill more people more reliably than a knife, or even a car.

You cherrypicked the two most deadly mass shootings in US history, and compared them to one randomly selected attack in Europe...

If we're playing argument by anecdote though, the perpetrator of the Nice attack killed 86 people and wounded 458 with a truck: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack

The deadliest mass killings in America did not involve firearms. Or in Europe for that matter.

Yes, 5 people were killed and 3 injured by a psychopath with a knife.

Violent dangerous people find a way.

The scale is irrelevant to the actual problem.

18 dead school kids say otherwise. 5 dead kids is a strictly superior result.

I agree. Mass killers will find a way. But if the way they find is a gun, we are looking at 20 to 50 deaths.

If they find a knife or sword instead, it will probably be less than 10 deaths.

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Now we have video camera showing that the guy shot the police officer at the school before going on a rampage. Do you think the guy would have been able to attack the police officer (who almost certainly had a handgun) with just a knife?

I think the argument is if they dont have a gun, they will ram a truck or have a bomb - will find ways.

The real question is that of motive - why innocent children in the first place? USA has more than an epidemic of mass shootings, it has an epidemic of school shootings. Where does the urge to do such an evil thing come from?

> I think the argument is if they dont have a gun, they will ram a truck or have a bomb - will find ways.

The literal argument, from 3 posts ago, was that they'd find a knife.

Now that I've destroyed the "knife" argument, people are making newer arguments... unironically moving goalposts back. In any case, cars and truck attacks can't kill people inside of elementary schools. The school would block the bulk of the damage. Or you put concrete barriers to protect the school from the road (which is needed for accidents / vehicles that lost control anyway)

> Were does the urge to do such an evil thing come from?

Why are you changing the argument? The evil is innate to us and worldwide.

Why should that evil be equipped with a gun in this country? Other countries, they're forced to make due with weaker weapons, such as cars, trucks, or knives.

If we cannot stop the evil, then we mitigate it.

My overall point: "They'll find a knife" is a bad counterargument. "They'll find a knife" is the very point of gun-restrictions, we cut back upon the worst damage they these mass killers can do.

It is OK to "destroy arguments" if that is what you wish to do, my goal is that of intellectual investigation.

> The evil is innate to us and worldwide.

Prevailance of school shootings in US show that this kind of evil is indeed not innate worldwide. It is strongly rooted in United States. Nowehere else in the world people with access to firearams choose to end innocent children's lives at such scale. This is what troubles me.

Availability of guns is not unique to USA but using those guns to kill innocent children at super-unproportional scale is. Why?

> Availability of guns is not unique to USA but using those guns to kill innocent children at super-unproportional scale is. Why?

If you don't have the answer to that question, the obvious solution is to remove the gun from the equation until you can answer the question.

Ramming a truck into a school isn't terribly effective. Competent bomb-making is quite rare, especially without taking the care to test and refine one's skill; such tests are rather attention-getting. Compare to a gun; a few hundred bucks and you get a point&click kill device that doesn't require any training.

Motive is an interesting question, but I think it's worthwhile to consider means as well.

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