Over the last month, I’ve discussed 2 of the several mass-stabbings which have happened in China (where guns are strictly banned). To recap, the first stabbing I mentioned involved a medical student who is alleged to have murdered 8 children and injured at least 5 others, using a knife. In the second knife attack, 29 children and 3 adults were stabbed at a kindergarten, allegedly by a man armed with an 8″ knife. This last weekend, a man identified as Zhou Yezhong allegedly stabbed to death his mother, wife, daughter, four neighbours and a migrant worker in eastern China’s Jiangxi province:
Police said that Zhou Yezhong killed his mother, wife, daughter, four neighbours and a migrant worker in eastern China’s Jiangxi province. He was arrested on Saturday evening, less than two hours after the attacks took place, Xinhua news agency said. China has been on alert after a number of recent knife attacks on children.
As this and the numerous other mass stabbings show, there are members of society who will go on killing sprees. Whether they use a gun, a knife, a car, or some other tool, chances are they will succeed at harming many innocent people – unless there is an armed citizen nearby to quickly put a stop to their rampage. Laws that ban gun (or ban knives) don’t stop these sort of crimes, for the simple reason that a person who willing to commit mass murder will not think twice about breaking a law that tells them not to carry a weapon. The result is that such weapons control laws only disarm the law abiding people who weren’t going to commit a crime in the first place, ensuring that those citizens are defenseless when the still-armed criminal attacks.
How would I benefit society as a whole?