Bringing a Knife to a School Shooting

There was, apparently, another violent rampage at a school in Texas. Fourteen people, at least, were injured. So far, none have died, including the perpetrator. Now, the report says several are in critical condition at local hospitals, so that may change, and, you know, the only thing stopping me from praying that it doesn't is that I'm an atheist. I sure as hell am hoping. But, here's the thing about this dreadful incident, which makes it serve as an actually-kind-of-neat illustration of a pretty important point: the assailant used a knife. This was a school stabbing, not a school shooting. And so far, no one has died.

Conservatives always like to say that guns don't kill people, people kill people, with the sometimes-stated implication being that if you take away a murderer's guns they'll just find some other way to kill people. Fox News once went on a really hilarious, though, you know, sick little discussion about all the clever and inventive ways a man who wanted to kill his girlfriend but didn't have a gun could manage it. The events of today demonstrate, however, that it's an awful lot harder to kill someone if you don't have a gun. Even with a knife, more or less the second-best killing-people tool, it's a lot harder. One person, armed with a gun, against a large mass of people is at a considerable advantage, and should rather routinely be able to kill many of those people. One person, armed with a knife, against a large mass of people is not at that much of an advantage. He's incredibly dangerous, of course, and could do a lot of damage, but it is both true that it's conceivably possible for the mob of potential victims to gang up on and overpower him and that even when he does succeed in getting his knife in contact with a victim's body he's not all that likely to deal a mortal wound.

Now, none of that is to suggest that a man with a knife attacking a crowd of people is a pleasant summer day's entertainment. It's an extremely dangerous situation with the potential for pain, lasting trauma, or death. But it's a whole frickin' lot better than the same man with a gun, even just an ordinary pistol, attacking the same crowd of people. If we got rid of all the guns, yeah, murderers would still try to murder people. Would-be mass-murderers would still try to mass-murder people, or would still want to, one imagines. But they'd succeed an awful lot less, and that might even mean that they would try an awful lot less. Today in Texas there was a school stabbing, and no one has yet died. If only every violent attack at a school went that way.