The Brady People, probably reminiscent of Johnson who once said “If I lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America,” in regards to Vietnam, are upset at Jon Stewart for being willing to take a middle ground on the gun issue, and suggesting that the problem isn’t the guns, it’s the crazy, and that if you took away the guns, you’d have school bludgeonings. The Brady’s obviously don’t like this:
When, really, was the last time somebody in America was able to terrorize a college campus, kill 32 people, and wound 17 others in less than 12 minutes with a blunt instrument?
There’s plenty of examples that run along the lines they are asking about, if one cares to look. For instance, over in gun free Japan, in a culture more known for suicide than murder suicide, you did have some guy go ape shit with a truck and a dagger. This isn’t the only incident in Japan that involved someone going nuts with a weapon that was not a gun. Let’s also not forget the Osaka school massacre:
At 10:15 that morning, 37-year-old former janitor Mamoru Takuma entered the school armed with a kitchen knife and began stabbing numerous school children and teachers. He killed eight children, mostly between the ages of seven and eight, and seriously wounded thirteen other children and two teachers.
But let’s not also forget about the Childers Palace Fire in Australia, after they instituted strict gun control after the Port Arthur massacre. Set by an unstable drifter, this fire killed fifteen people, and the man responsible was charged with murder.
Also from Australia, with the perpetrator currently imprisoned in Perth, is the case of a man who murdered five people when, enraged after being kicked out of a pub, he drove his truck into the pub, killing five people and seriously injuring sixteen.
Over to China, which has strict gun control, where earlier this year there were several attacks in schools using edge weapons and bludgeons. Here’s a report on just one of them. But there were more than a dozen, with dozens of children either killed or injured:
Some sociologists believe some of these attacks may due to the government’s failure to diagnose and treat mental illness
So I think Jon Stewart is exactly right in his assessment of the real problem, and it’s not just confined to the United States. Not by any means. The Brady folks would like to pretend this is a gun problem, but Stewart is exactly right. Crazy people who fail to get treatment, and who are out on the street, are ticking time bombs, and it matters little what kind of weapon controls are in place. Where there’s a will to maim and kill, there is a way. SayUncle notes:
And that, Paul, is why you’re losing. You can’t even shore up the strident defenders of liberal policy who run fake news. Just like the real world.
It amazes me with all the other left wing causes out there that can get traction, like running future generations into debt beyond their wildest dreams, these guys are still wasting their time with what is increasingly looking like a dead issue.
There’s also the case of Nicholas Shelley who managed to kill 8 people with blunt trauma.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/02/national/main4229262.shtml
And I’m sure there were no mass murders before guns were invented
More:
Timothy McVeigh killed 186 with a rented truck, diesel fuel, and fertilizer.
Julio González killed 87 with a gallon of gasoline.
Gary Ridgeway killed 90+ by strangulation, one at a time over decades.
Eric Harris and Dylan Kleybold used guns as their Plan B when homemade bombs failed to detonate; more than 12 would have died.
“9/11” was perpetrated using box cutters and airline tickets, killing 3000+.
Ted Kazynski used pipe bombs.
There are more, some planned (9/11), some impromptu (Happy Land).
So yeah, it’s not the guns, it’s the crazy.
If you make an attack in a crowded area with a firearm, the report warns others to run or hide. Go in with a knife, and you can, with judicious tactics, take them out without raising much fuss.
The wort school massacre in the US didn’t involve firearms either.
Bath, MI, 1927.