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Date:      Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:36:06 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        noslenj@swbell.net (Jay Nelson)
Cc:        cjclark@home.com, blk@skynet.be (Brad Knowles), mark@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org (Mark Ovens), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Guns and freedom [Was: Re: On "intelligent people" and
Message-ID:  <200003291936.MAA23741@usr05.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10003281802460.541-100000@acp.swbell.net> from "Jay Nelson" at Mar 28, 2000 06:22:46 PM

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> [snip]
> >
> >But rarely, see we all agree. And wouldn't it be nice if in most of
> >those cases, neither one of the people in the situation had a gun?
> 
> The preferred weapon on the street is a knife and knives are
> consistently more lethal than firearms. I stand a better chance of
> surviving a gunshot than a knife wound. You should worry more about the
> knives than guns.

There are two rules for an unarmed martial artist, when someone comes
at them with a knife, and they can't avoid the situation:

1)	Expect to be cut.
2)	Expect to kill the other person.

I definitely agree that knives are more dangerous that guns; I
have seen a Tai Chi Chu'an swordsman at work.  Even with a
practice sword, he was able to defeat 6 well trained unarmed
combatants.  With a real sword, I suspect he could hold off 12,
until all 12 were dead.

This is a heavily trained person, but the people he was fighting
were also heavily trained.

In a street situation, most knife-fighters are not so heavily
trained, and an unarmed marital artist could defeat them; but
they would have to go in expecting to be cut, even by an amatuer
who was intent on harming them.  A knife is far less restricted
in its ability to do damage than a gun is; a gun can only do
damage where it is pointed, but a knife can do damage in a
plane, starting from in front of the business end of the knife.

Consider the difference between kicking a gun and kicking a knife,
given a two seconds window in which the kickee is unable to react
because their neurons are still processing the fact that a kick
has occurred.  You are much more likely to cut yourself on a knife
through its inertia than you are to cause a gun to fire while it
is still being pointed at you.


> When you handle a weapon, there is no excuse for _any_ unplanned
> event. Period, end of discussion. If you spent any time at all around
> people who use firearms, you would realize that there is _zero_
> tolerance for "unfortunate events." The weapon is under control at all
> times, under any circumstance. Ask some of your police friends about
> that.

Returning to the kick, it is the momentum imparted to the gun
relative to the inertia of the hand holding it that results in
the trigger being pulled and causing an unintended-by-the-wielder
gun discharge.  For this to occur, the gun has to be significantly
displaced, generally so much so that it can not possibly be pointed
at the originally threatened person when it discharges.

The knife, if firmly held, cuts the hell out of your foot, which
has the aditional negative effect of making it harder to run
away, even if you succeed in kicking it out of the assailents
hands.


> The few times I have been in that situation, here in the States, it
> was a knife they pulled. I would have preferred they pulled a gun; they
> would have been easier to disarm with less risk. But, they don't show
> that in the movies, either.

Agreed.

It's also a fact that most handgun echanges take place at close
range, without anyone getting hit for an insanely large number
of rounds fired.  That's isn't very exciting to watch in a
theater, either, since you are really waiting for Mel Gibson
to shoot the thugs in a subplot, and then get back onto the
main story line...


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.


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