China's top judge vows severe punishment for knife attack that left 29 dead

[robertlouis]

If an American military vet had been present, armed, then those boys would have been stopped. In cases like this, guns can save lives.

Sheesh. And if they had had assault rifles they would have killed three or four times as many people.

There is no problem for which more guns is the answer.

[Tapatio]

If an American military vet had been present, armed, then those boys would have been stopped. In cases like this, guns can save lives.

If ANY large, organized, trained, and armed force was present it might have been stopped. What's with the 'muhrica?

Unless they were imported ninjas, in which case the armed forces would have to die first.

Knife work is usually more personal- does this seem ritualistic?

[Niccolo]

There is no problem for which more guns is the answer. - robertlouis.

So if you had been on holiday in China and were being attacked by those maniacs & about to die - if someone beside you had a handgun and was about to defend you - you'd tell them to put that nasty gun away, you'd rather die?

How strange.

[broncofan]

We held some members of this Uighur minority at Guantanamo years ago. Pronounced "Weeger" by some people who I discussed it with. They were released on habeas petitions from Guantanamo I think but we did not want to grant them asylum. It was a strange case because we took them into our custody, but then when we granted their petitions did not want them to enter U.S proper. They did not want to go back to China. I have no clue where they ended up or whether they continued to be held in detention while they looked for asylum.

But there seems to be some sort of political pretext for the attack. Perhaps someone can fill us in on what their ideology is and why they feel the need to go around slaying people with knives to try to get their way.

[broncofan]

There is no problem for which more guns is the answer. - robertlouis.

So if you had been on holiday in China and were being attacked by those maniacs & about to die - if someone beside you had a handgun and was about to defend you - you'd tell them to put that nasty gun away, you'd rather die?

How strange.

One can always think of specific situations where having a gun would be more useful than not. It does not mean it's socially more useful for everyone to be armed because you can think of rare situations where you might encounter someone bent on killing you.

Such situations may not seem rare because globally they happen every day, but the odds of an individual having such a pressing need for a gun is de minimis compared with the odds of such a person hurting an innocent party with that same weapon. So, I think you're engaging in a bit of sophistry.

Also, let's not make the op upset since he wanted to talk about terrorist attacks in China. If you want to discuss guns and make your argument there are plenty of threads to do that on.

[GroobySteven]

I'll answer Dino's question.

These are terrorist attacks from a Muslim minority. If it was anywhere but China, N.Korean, Russia then the Western media would report it as such. On of the reasons they may be knife attacks is that they're allowed to carry knives as part of their traditional ethnic dress, therefore symbolic.

The Western media prefers to call it blame these on people rebelling from the Chinese state as it lends itself to more anti-Chinese rhetoric. It's a good case of bad media reporting on how it wants to.

Anybody who thinks that anyone but armed police could have made a difference (ie; armed civilians would have saved lives) shows their pure idiocy and low intelligence.

[Dino Velvet]

We held some members of this Uighur minority at Guantanamo years ago. Pronounced "Weeger" by some people who I discussed it with. They were released on habeas petitions from Guantanamo I think but we did not want to grant them asylum. It was a strange case because we took them into our custody, but then when we granted their petitions did not want them to enter U.S proper. They did not want to go back to China. I have no clue where they ended up or whether they continued to be held in detention while they looked for asylum.

But there seems to be some sort of political pretext for the attack. Perhaps someone can fill us in on what their ideology is and why they feel the need to go around slaying people with knives to try to get their way.

I'll answer Dino's question.

These are terrorist attacks from a Muslim minority. If it was anywhere but China, N.Korean, Russia then the Western media would report it as such. On of the reasons they may be knife attacks is that they're allowed to carry knives as part of their traditional ethnic dress, therefore symbolic.

The Western media prefers to call it blame these on people rebelling from the Chinese state as it lends itself to more anti-Chinese rhetoric. It's a good case of bad media reporting on how it wants to.

Anybody who thinks that anyone but armed police could have made a difference (ie; armed civilians would have saved lives) shows their pure idiocy and low intelligence.

Thanks to you both for the information. I became aware of these killings when they started happening in schools even if those knife attacks were separate from the train station attacks. So brutal.