We’re all familiar with the old gun control argument these days. The United States has all of the mass shootings. Foreign countries allegedly have basically none. If only we’d act like those other countries and pass strict “common sense” gun laws, give up on rugged individualism, and embrace the power of the collective (and the state), we too could enjoy real peace and egalitarian prosperity. Instead of being self-indulgent wieners, we could be sophisticated connoisseurs. Champagne would fall from the heavens, doors would open, and the velvet ropes would drop.
But before we embrace this magical story and let the thieves into the warehouse of our liberty, we should at least make sure we know the truth about those other countries. Sure, shootings are relatively rare in stable European countries, but other far less stable countries with the same or even more strict gun control laws have insane levels of violence. Mexico, among others, is a great example.
The obvious rebuttal to this is that we need to do both things: embrace socialism and enact strict gun control. Unfortunately for that counter-argument, a recent news story out of China (a country with more socialism than just about anywhere and strict anti-gun laws) shows us that even that can’t stop people from committing mass murder.
On Monday night, a driver plowed his car into a crowd in Zhuhai, a smaller city of 2.5 million people in southern China. A full 24 hours later, Chinese authorities officially disclosed the incident, but prior to that, videos and photos from the scene were already leaking out onto the internet, showing dozens of people knocked to the ground including dead bodies. These social media posts, as usual, were swiftly scrubbed, along with criticism of the government choosing to pretend that the car attack didn’t happen.
Thirty-five people were killed after a man drove a vehicle into a crowd at a sports center in Zhuhai, China, the police said on Tuesday, in a rare case of deadly violence in a country where police surveillance is ubiquitous. https://t.co/fi1Gif9Did pic.twitter.com/P9OIEBKgLp
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 12, 2024
After plowing through the crowd and killing at least 35 people (so far), the driver stabbed himself in the neck in an attempted suicide. Other than the weapon that was used in the Zhuhai attack, this is basically the same profile of many mass killings in the United States. Until mass killers started encountering serious armed opposition, they usually kill as many as they can and then commit suicide once they’ve done their worst.
This is far from the only mass killings China has seen, and that’s not counting government massacres. On a number of occasions, mass killers have entered schools in China to kill students with knives, hammers, and other weapons. Outside of schools, mentally disturbed murderers have been known to take to the streets, killing indiscriminately in high-density urban areas (something China has a lot of). Whether the attacks occur in schools or elsewhere, these are usually high casualty incidents.
Neither the United States or China have solved the root causes that lead to these mass killings. China’s foreign ministry and their state-run media, however, never pass up on the opportunity to mock the US after a mass shooting.
Chinese citizens have virtually no access to firearms. Yet they seem to have no difficulty carrying out horrific mass killings on a scale equal to those here in the US. It’s clear that gun control isn’t the answer. When we fail to address the real problems and try to slap the band-aid of gun control on the sucking wound, we find that killers will always find other ways to kill.
Good thing they were only run over with a car. They would be really dead if a firearm had been used.
There was a knife attack in China today at least 7 killed and 17 wounded. Evil will always find a way.
The U.S. feral government types would do well to heed this information because they’ll see even worse when they attempt to walk in my home to determine if I have guns or if they are stored properly. Nope, you will meet my outgoing bullets before they find my dead cold body.
Automobiles kill more people than guns in the USA every year. And this is what happens when a society doesn’t lock up dangerous mentally ill people.
It’s a communist country. They knew this guy was crazy.
He went crazy once his wife got a judge to certify their divorce and took all his money away. An all-too familiar story for too many men.
Human beings are relatively fragile and vulnerable. That being the case, there are numerous methods that do not involve firearms (and which are readily available/attainable to the masses) to go on a highly effective killing spree.