From "What Are the Odds of Dying?": http://www.purewatergazette.net/oddso... Lifetime odds: Firearms discharge, 4,317 Need I mention that Britain's murder rate is kept artificially very low by defendants pleading obvious murder cases down to manslaughter for easy convictions? Meanwhile crime has risen in the gun free Utopia, again proving that you don't need guns to murder people: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/po... 'According to a recent UN study, England and Wales have the highest crime rate and worst record for "very serious" offences of the 18 industrial countries surveyed.' This is ironic since: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gc... "Prior to having any gun controls, England already had a homicide rate much lower than the United States... The U.S. has a higher non-gun murder rate than many European country's total murder rates." As to your statement that when threatened with a knife "give up your purse"; in the real world it often doesn't work that way. Many times when people are threatened with weapons and completely give in to their attacker, the "mugging" turns out to be a rape or a torture/murder. Especially if the victim allows him/herself to be transported to a second location. However, when we look beyond muggings to rape attempts: http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~tellner/sd/R... "Women who used knives or guns in self-defense were raped less than 1% of the time. Defensive use of edged or projectile weapons reduced the rate of injury to statistical insignificance (Kleck and Sayles, 1990)." Lastly, these suicide shootings. Have you noticed that they only happen in "gun free zones", are usually committed by people on medication, and are fueled by sensationalistic media coverage? These shooters even write their own manifestos now and star in home videos that are seen by thousands of YouTubers, who of course cut up the videos to make the killers sound like sodomistic rape victims.

Well. Since you mentioned statistics, I shall quote the independent (see: http://atlanticreview.org/archives/43...: "In the US, there are roughly 17,000 murders a year, of which about 15,000 are committed with firearms. By contrast, Britain, Australia and Canada combined see fewer than 350 gun-related murders each year. And it's not just about murder. The non-gun-related suicide rate in the US is consistent with the rest of the developed world. Factor in firearms, and the rate is suddenly twice as high as the rest of the developed world. Children are affected particularly hard. An American youth is murdered with a firearm every four and a half hours on average. And an American youth commits suicide with a firearm every eight hours. It's worth remembering that many of the most spectacular mass murders of recent years were really suicides, with the perpetrators choosing to take a few other people with them while they were at it." Indeed in Germany guns are not banned - only heavily regulated. In this context it may be interesting to note that the few school amok runs with guns of the last few years were carried out by teenage boys who were both: members of gun clubs AND fanatic ego-shooter gamers. Interestingly boys who were not all disenfrenchised but came from so called "good families". Anyway: Germany has 82 Milion citizens and we have 700 something murders a year in the country. Most knive attacks are really merely threats. Give em your purse, I say. All in all hardly anyone is ever murdered with a knive, and if so, it usually happens as part of a street fight in a gang or "bar-fight" context, not as a regular open attack. Nobody rund amok with a knive, and rarely is astore being robbed with knives. I shall not comment on your "decayed hellhole" hypothesis. See statistics above.

Guns are statistically more successful in self defense than any unarmed resistance, or fleeing, no matter what the training of the defender is. Most robberies, rapes, etc, involve threats and are easy to spot beforehand by alert citizens. Of the 20 or so knife attack videos I've seen, almost all could have been solved by pulling a gun or running back and pulling a gun. Most traditional martial arts knife defense moves don't work even with years and years of training, as the knifer and slash your arms and tendons to bits if you make a move for his knife hand. However, it's multiple stabs that actually kill people in knife attacks, and stabs are not instantly disabling, unlike a bullet top the face or chest from someone who had so much as 5 hours of firearms training. CCW(conceal carry weapon permit) holders also commit very few accidental homicides, unlike police and the average driver on our highways Firearms are not banned in Germany, they only require a license. Finland, which is part of Scandinavia, has lots of guns, and Switzerland requires its citizens to own guns by law. Would a newspaper publish a letter by me claiming England, South Africa, California and Chicago have no gun laws and that's why they have so much crime, or would they laugh at me and throw out my letter? Then again, maybe they'd wonder if those places banned or tightly regulated guns because they were decayed hellholes of multicultural ethnic and class conflict who banned guns as a feel good measure knowing it wouldn't prevent any crimes?