Are the Brits capable of embarrassment these days?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm pretty certain the cases where people are able to murder because they have a gun far outnumbers the cases where people are able to protect themselves because they have a gun.

You're pretty certain about that because you do not know the facts. You are wrong. Happens all the time in Europe.

[Risifrutti]

As a curious brit, what would your answer to the increasing knife crime be?

Immidiate action should be to resume stop and search underpinned by profiling. Stop and search statistics has plummeted over the last 10 odd years and the stabbings are largely young male black on black.

Probably little chance of that happening as police is parnoid about again being labelled or seen as racist. That we then get stuff like Rotherham is not surprising. It has just gone too far.

[UberBabs]

Statistics for our friend in Norway to consider: Gun Facts | Gun Control and Crime

[JFord]

I'd rather be murdered by Shakira via Coitus...nonetheless, I'd rather have a Knife pulled me than a Gun and Yes, I have been around both.

You deflected my question twice in one compound sentence.

1) I never posed the question of whether you would like to be murdered “by Shakira via coitus”. However, it does sound lovely if not unlikely.

2) I never asked which you’d prefer to have pulled on you, a gun or a knife. As an aside, that is always a matter that’s open to discussion. I would argue however that at close range, your assertion might be more I’ll-advised than you think.

My question was rather, of the two (coitus not being one of them) which would you prefer to be murdered by. You seem to prefer a “knife problem” over a “gun problem” and in response, I offered up evidence (inconclusive though it might be) that a knife problem doesn’t appear less lethal and may even be MORE lethal.

[JohnStrangeway]

that a knife problem doesn’t appear less lethal and may even be MORE lethal.

I agree and as with anything it depends. Range, skill of the attacker with the weapon, how far they are willing to go, your skill, your alertness etc etc.
At close range a knife is worse; it is "live" at all times, if it moves, it cuts. With a knife attack the goal is not to be cut or stabbed anywhere important because you will be cut. A gun can only fire one direction so there is a "chance" for defending successfully with no injury during a scuffle if you can gain control. From a distance the gun is more lethal, run in a zigzag pattern lol

I found this old police training video pretty interesting
YouTube

[JFord]

I agree and as with anything it depends. Range, skill of the attacker with the weapon, how far they are willing to go, your skill, your alertness etc etc.
At close range a knife is worse; it is "live" at all times, if it moves, it cuts.

Here's a video demonstrating a very useful knife defense that I've actually employed in the past.

Effective Knife Defense

[Espen Lund]

Statistics for our friend in Norway to consider: Gun Facts | Gun Control and Crime

Thank you, uberbabs. The problem with these fact sites that cite papers left and right, is that for every site, there's another site which presents opposite facts that also cite papers left and right.

The first fact on the webpage says:

Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year or 6,849 every day [8]. Most often, the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.

When a site that claims to be 100% unbiased presents a statement like this as fact, it kinda loses it credability. At the very least, I was expecting to see some facts supporting both sides, but it's kinda pro gun ownership all over the place.

I had to google reference 8 to check where this statement could come from. It doesnt take much reading to realize that his studies are far from agreed upon as a fact, and after reading both sites, I kinda lean towards his critics. Defensive Gun Use Is Not a Myth - POLITICO Magazine

The word fact has been used so frequently and loosely that it has lost it real meaning.

The bottom line is that I have a hard time in believing that ordinary citizen Garry (53) is able to make a good judgement call on when it's justified to fire and kill. I actually believe that such an important, and literary life altering decision, requires training (read: police).

[Mark Rippetoe]

And if the police happen to be there, we'll leave it to them.

[skid]

The bottom line is that I have a hard time in believing that ordinary citizen Garry (53) is able to make a good judgement call on when it's justified to fire and kill. I actually believe that such an important, and literary life altering decision, requires training (read: police).

LOL - you must be joking right? Cops pretty much have immunity from all but the most blatant bad shoots.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Here's a video demonstrating a very useful knife defense that I've actually employed in the past.

Effective Knife Defense

That's the first line of recommended defense the dojo I came up in taught. In turn, I teach it to my students.

The bottom line is that I have a hard time in believing that ordinary citizen Garry (53) is able to make a good judgement call on when it's justified to fire and kill. I actually believe that such an important, and literary life altering decision, requires training (read: police).

And I believe you. But Shakespeare pretty well defined your purposefully blinkered view of reality with that Horatio guy in Hamlet. As in, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Come to think of it, Horatio was Scandahoovian too. So it must be a problem of long standing.