They have gun control; now it seems they need axe control...

[MLeake]

This article just goes to show that people who want to harm others can always find the means to do so.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-germany-school-attack,0,4607587.story

Fortunately, all but one of the victims seems to have escaped with what the police call "minor" injuries. One has severe skull injuries. From the anti side, the casualty count is lower than it likely would have been if firearms had been used.

OTOH, the casualty count is much lower than it would have been if IED's had been used (I don't count the kid's molotovs as IEDs, just incendiaries). For that matter, he probably could have killed many more people had he just run over them with a car.

As always, the only people affected by weapons control laws are the ones who wouldn't do this sort of thing.

[Sefner]

Response to anti: Wounded count would have been a lot lower had one of the teachers had a firearm.

Tactics: Everything is a weapon (ask someone who has been in a bar fight). Here are some good moves:

As the mayhem erupted on the third floor, roughly 700 other students fled the building, including some who barricaded a classroom door before running down an emergency staircase. Many took shelter in a nearby office building... Jakob Breitzke, a 10th-grader, told n-tv private television that students in his class heard screaming coming from the third floor and locked and barricaded their classroom door. He said someone rattled the door before moving on.

Sounds like this was to prevent movement of the attacker, good move. Possibly risky depending on circumstances, but still smart.

Amazing (or horrible depending on how you want to look at it) shooting work by the police, opened fire on him, had enough control to stop firing while he was down and arrested him. Kid survived.

I've always wondered how you would counter a planned attack like this. It would be a hard thing, with the attacker having a plan and the element of surprise. (Although this kid in particular didn't seem to have a very good plan, but regardless)...


"As horrible as an incident such as this is, it has shown that the school and police were well prepared for such a situation," Herrmann said.

The preceding statement makes me disagree totally with this. There is NO WAY to plan against an attacker like this (the attacker would merely plan around it. Remember Columbine where the attackers planted bombs at the exits because they knew kids would be leaving those exits). The only kind of "plan" would be training students and teacher do to things like barricading doors, but even that could backfire if the attacker is smart enough.

[Skans]

You can expect the Antis to spin this and say something like "if they had guns, it would have been much worse..." So, just because not one firearm was involved, don't think the Antis will take this the same way we do. They don't work or think that way.

Most Antis are ill informed, dellusional chickensh*ts. If you've ever had an in depth one-on-one conversation with these folks, you'd see that the majority of the time, there are big gaping holes in their logic process. You can point out these holes until you are blue in the face, but it won't matter. They don't think, they just react.

[peetzakilla]

There is currently a call in Britian to ban kitchen knives for all but registered chefs. (Not kidding). The antis aren't really anti-gun, they're just ignorant enough to believe that human nature can be over come by restricting the choice of weapons. When guns are banned then the antis will just move on to whatever becomes the next weapon of choice.

[markj]

A few have been axed around here. Villisca Iowa has one unsolved for 100 years. The molotovs sure could have done a bit of damage too.

School isnt what it used to be.

Should teachers be armed after training to handle weapons? Would this lead to a higher level of home schooled kids?

[Jim March]

http://www.geocities.com/philnietzschean/lotr/gimli.jpg

[TexasGunSlinger]

lol nice pic jim. theres always gonna be someone doing somthing crazy. and they cant ban everything thats gonna be used as a weapon. people are rediculous. what are we gonna do take every rock and launch it into space?

[Ohio Rusty]

Actually the Axe and Tomahawk were some of the finest offensive and defensive weapons ever created. Thruout history, They were very effective at cleaving open skulls and killing opponents. Today, numerous killing axes are being manufactured from modern steels for the military. I would not feel I had an inadequate weapon if I had to confront another with with a fighting tomahawk. This is a much better weapon than a knife.......
Of course .... never bring an axe to a gunfight ..........
Ohio Rusty ><>

[Capt Charlie]

Of course .... never bring an axe to a gunfight ..........

Nor to a gun forum ;).

Guys, I'd hoped that this one would at least lean toward tactics or training against "exotic" edged weapons.

Except for sefner's post, it didn't happen.

Closed, but if anyone wants to take a crack at a discussion on how to defend against such things, have at it.