(Untitled)

[lalouve]

When reading the preface of a science fiction book, I came across the statement that, had everyone on the flights on 11 September 2001 had a six-inch hunting knife, things would have ended differently. This kind of statement annoys me, due to the armchair quarterbacking, and I will proceed to wax verbal, or even verbose, on this.

Comments

[forthwritten]

It's rather like the argument used by pro-gun people that if everyone had guns, there'd be no gun crime. I am not entirely sure what they want - pitched gun battles in the streets?

[lalouve]

I think they a) see themselves as Dirty Harry and b)figure there are so many more 'good' people in the world that all the 'bad' ones will be promptly killed off - because there is no problem at all with defining people that way, of course.

[forthwritten]

There were some people in Portsmouth (I think) taking vigilante action against paedophiles. They promptly attacked a paediatrician's house. It's not even as problematic as 'good' vs 'bad'...

[lalouve]

Oh how particularly stupid. Learning to read the long words before you decide to become a vigilante might be a good idea...

[maweisse]

Amen to that!

And, to prove your point, the 9/11 plane that crashed in Pennsylvania without hitting a strategic point, Unitetd 93 (?), was taken down by the passengers once they had received text messages from family and friends telling them of the other planes: they knew there could be more at stake than an unpleasant stopover in Cuba. Also, they did not have six inch hunting knives, but nevertheless took the flight out of commission, possibly saving the White House, as has been speculated.

Plus, killing someone with a knife takes a lot more force than we realize. Most people haven't, or don't think of what it is like to, lunge a knife through the flesh of a raw turkey, sheep or pig, or moose. Flesh and bone are not the consistency of apple pie, unlike the movies tell us. Plus poultry and other food-animals tend to not be flailing around trying to kill us or have armed accomplices either...

[lalouve]

Yes - the last flight going down makes a good argument. I doubt it'll soon be possible to high-jack a plane without getting torn to pieces by the passengers, now that we know.

I'm told that human skin and orange peel is similar in resistance - and that's just the skin...

[graylion]

skin is the only line of defence. once you're ine you more or less get sucked in.

[lalouve]

There is bone, dear. That tends to be the major problem in the chest.

[green_knight]

Perhaps, to those of us who would be protectors/predators, a world where that ensures power looks like a good option - especially if violence is the only skill you have.

Sounds good on paper, from the comfort of one's home. And yet, even in areas where violence is rife, other than the occasional bystander, the majority of victims of knife and gun violence are not the people who go about unarmed, but people who themselves bear knives and guns, because this a) marks you as someone who engages in 'social violence,' and b) it will override your instincts to seek cover and call for help or run away - but while you may _feel_ invincible, you're not.

I do know (thankfully only online) someone who conforms to all the stereotypes of breast-beating maleness, and he scares me enough that I emphatically do *not* wish to meet him in person, because he does not appear to have the restraints that most civilised adults posess. He thinks violence *is* an answer, and that it's his right to bear a gun.

[lalouve]

Yes - one thing I noticed about working in security was that you become a lightning rod for all the violence around. I was fine with this, as it meant the violence got directed at me and not Auntie Em, 86, who would have been much more defenseless. But indeed, violence ends up being mostly directed at violent people. I am sometimes tempted to quote Father Willibald, in a book by Frans G. Bengtsson (think it was translated as The Long Ships): let the wolves kill the wolves and God's lambs will have relief. Still, I must concede that the clergyman in question should have been concerned for the wolves, too, who after all are God's lambs in wolves' clothing.

Oddly enough, the only person I know who is truly good at violence keeps asking me, plaintively, why other men keep seeing the world as one giant pissing contest...