My mate was about to take his 4 and 6 year old there for a haircut today

Now we wait for the idiocracy to say ban knives, or what we needed was a good guy with a knife

This is terrible news. I’m glad your buddy and his family are ok.

No you take a gun to a knife fight, worked for the local police.

A good guy with a gun took care of the situation.

I am so very sorry.

You realise it was de escalated with fewer casualties because the bad guy didn’t have a gun.

I’m so sorry. That sounds so horrific and I’m so thankful the guy didn’t have a gun at the mall. It would have been so much worse, in terms of both the shoppers and for the police who responded.

Don’t confuse him.

I agree with you that a knife presents a very different danger than a gun. However there have been more than enough mass stabbing with double digit deaths and significantly more injuries, with many severe.

There are many variables to take into account. Or hypotheticals which we have no answer to.

Would eh have stabbed more if a good guy with a gun (police) hadn’t arrived?

Would a good guy with a knife or gun closer have been able to intervene and prevent as many deaths/injuries that did occur?

Will bad guys with knives and guns stop on their own or do they only wait for a good guy with a knife/gun to intervene?

We have no clue what these answers are: we can only make risk assessments and decide whether we want to hedge our bets.

Because the given premise is that bad guys/mentally unstable individuals/individuals intent on harm exist and these things will happen have to decide what risk is acceptable for those uncertain times.

That is my preferred state. Police have guns, bad guys don't.

Though in this case "worked" isn't quite the term I'd use given 6 people died.

"We are becoming as bad as the US..."


Not all of our exports are great.

I had to shake my head when reading those comments in the linked article. The notion of “how could this happen in Australia” and “we expect this in America not Australia” seem like either very short-sightedness, naivety, biased journalism looking for pot shots, or some combination of the above.

Sure, the reality is that America has more incidents like this but to pretend like it doesn’t happen elsewhere or that it’s so hard to imagine is counterproductive especially considering Australia has had mass murders and stabbings with cars, guns, knives, etc in modern times. Not to the extent of America, but it’s not like the violent history page is blank for Australia.

As I stated in the other thread people need to start accepting reality that this world is not a utopia and more people increase the potential risk of danger. And this shit will happen. Murder, mass murder, gun, knife, sledgehammer, fire, car, etc. are all realistic dangers and we need acknowledge realities to find acceptable risk and solutions.

I disagree a bit...sure stuff happens everywhere, but the angry young male school/mall/concert/church mass murder is an American trope.

This was a knifing, but at least superficially carried a lot of the hallmarks of some mass shootings. Granted the angry male knifing is also an Islamist terrorist trope, and it could be that instead.





But the U.S. is a leader. Not a lot of "all sidesian" going on in this graph. And yes, most of the shootings in the graph aren't the lone-angry-male-in-densely-populated area type, gangs, domestic violence, etc. But we do have a deep gun violence problem that transcends all the types....and I do worry about exporting it. Just like we're exporting MAGA-style "election integrity concerns."







That's a bit more blase and passive a turn of phrase than I'd like. It's also OK to be an activist against violence. For those who want to be. Don't just have to "accept this fact of life."

I disagree.

We have had decades of bombings; IRA and then Islamists in the UK but even then these sorts of mass incidents are rare, London bridge and ariane grande being the most recent but still rare

In France we lived in Nice when the guy drove down the promenade des anglais. Still super rare but whilst school shootings and others are still relatively rare in US the likely good of experiencing one is a magnitude greater than in Oz or Europe.

I’m thinking I didn’t make my points clearly, especially since I’m out with the fam and may have rushed my thoughts.

First, the notion of “this shit will happen” was not meant to be blasé or dismissive of the severity. Quite the opposite. I meant it in the sense that we need to be prepared for it, not that “meh shit happens.”

The initial message in my post was that the comments seemed naive to reality seeing how surprised they were. Australia has seen double digit mass casualty incidents (gun, knife, car, fire etc) since 2000. And almost 100 people killed in those incidents.

I also saw a statistic recently that knives/stabbings account for almost 25% of all worldwide murders.

Again, I’m admittedly a bit distracted and rushing these posts at the moment so apologies if the message is coming across poorly.

gal

Interesting. I'm guessing you found that from another source. The linked article didn't do a very good job explaining how it played out.

https://www.bbc.com/...d-australia-68806806

Sounds like they need to ban knives.

Thanks, that's a much better article.

Wow, that article. :(
These attacks seem like terrorism to me. They are so traumatizing and each successive one is re-traumatizing. I was thinking earlier today about how fear interferes with good decision-making. These attacks cause fear. I think they are designed / planned to cause fear and undermine a sense of safety/ community. Fuck.

That's fucking hysterical, literally won the internet given the second post in the thread

I did it just for you.

I've often wondered if calling these incidents for what they are - terrorism - and the perpetrators for what they are - terrorists - would that help in any way in deterring others from copying it?

I honestly don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did nothing, but it is something I ponder.
- Jeff

I'm not sure what it would accomplish if it's not terrorism but rather someone having a psychotic break or just the mad at the world types looking to exact revenge on humanity for not treating them better.