CompuServe Messages

Don, the original intent of any knife is the slicing of some form of flesh, be it animal or plant. The applicability of such for both licit and illicit activities is exactly the same, they cleave said flesh. Now to the fundamental question. How many people have been killed by knives, i.e. the illicit application of the knife to other persons, in relation to the illicit application of guns. I know for a fact that there is a far higher rate of illicit use of knives in said appliction per unit item than for guns, and especially in relation to assault or automatic weapons. Indeed, there is a far higher rate for the illicit use of body parts and other similiarly available weapons (such as household goods) than for either of the two cited items (assault weapons and automatic weapons). Why have we not passed baseball-bat, cast-iron pan, and fist bans first? I'm welcome to contrary statistical evidence, but I don't think you will find it anywhere. Indeed, in societies that do exercise 'gun control' tend to have higher rates of violence committed by other means. It isn't a question of controlling the means of violence, but of controlling violence by whatever means. That is the problem. Blaming the mechanism of committing the violence is symptomatic of our blaming the victim society. 'I' didn't commit the violence on my wife/girlfriend/ husband/wife/friend. The gun did it, or the knife, baseball bat, or even chair. Not the person that committed the violence. He was incited by some particular societal/work/personal injustice. The gun/knife/etc. was convienent, so 'I' used it. <looking for a barf bag>