[enahs]

You can outrun someone with knife - you can't outrun the bullet. It is much easier to pull the trigger then to strike with a knife - that's psychology, guns are distant weapons, knives are close combat. And there is the skill thing that you have already mentioned. I am not telling that knfie is not an efficient killing tool for someone trained - but most killers are not trained. I stand by what I said - many lifes will be saved if the attacker has knife and not gun.

Well, you can not always outrun somebody with a knife, they could be faster!

And yes, it is clearly easier to kill somebody with a gun, as I said. And the circumstances for a gun to be less deadly then a knife are extreme. But you specifically said "But I prefer to stand barehanded against someone with knife". Given the same circumstance, and no innoncent by-standards around, I would chose to stand mano-eh-mano with a guy with a gun, not a knife. Standing barehanded against someone with a knife implies close hand-to-hand combat range. I know in the situation (from experience unfortunately) that I would much prefer going against a gun, because it has a VERY limited deadly range, where as a knife is deadly anywhere, in any direction. Again, very specific circumstances though.

I would prefer, of course, to not have to go against anybody with any weapon!

I don't think anyone ever wrote gun-control will solve everything, you are naive thinking we are that naive

I  get that there is quite a few implying that guns and gun control are the only issue and how to solve the problem. I think they are a circumstance of the larger problem. That is not saying that addressing the issue is not one way to help the problem, but, with specific regards to after this incident that started the topic, people and the media go crazy for/against gun control and not look much (if at all) at all the other problems.


Also, I think now after looking up all that information for that post I am going to move to Vermont, it sure does seem like a nice place to live!

[hmx9123]

I, too, construed from most of the posted that people were thinking that getting rid of the firearms would solve the problem.

As for the gun vs. knife, the major advantage a firearm has is that it is a ranged weapon.  If it came down to me standing to to to with someone using a gun or using a knife, I'd choose the gun, but that implies that: a. I'm not going to be able to run and b. I have no choice but to stand and fight it out.  However, that gets reversed at even 10 feet (3m) away.  At that distance, the gun becomes more effective because it is ranged, though at distance, it requires skill and training to hit anything, especially a moving target.  You know what's even worse than a gun?  A bow and arrow.  I'd much rather face a guy with a hangun than a guy with a bow and arrow.  Partly because if you're using a bow and arrow the chance is that you're trained with it, and partly because if you get hit with an arrow, the wound is much more likely to be fatal.  Broadhead hunting arrows leave horrible wound channels--much worse than the crushing of a bullet. 

All that being said, this debate is kind of silly since it is a hypothetical situation.  It does bring up an interesting point, however, and that is our misconceptions about firearms.  Hollywood brings us many misconceptions about firearms:
1. Recoil and reloading don't exist
2. Someone is knocked down when shot
3. If you shoot someone once, they die
4. Handguns are more dangerous than long guns
All of these are bogus.  The middle 2 most specifically.  The only firearm that I know of that has a chance of knocking you down with one shot would be a shotgun at close range.  None of the others will do it.  As for the killing in one shot, unless you get hit in the head (which is also the case for many other weapons, like knives, bludgeoning weapons, etc.), you won't die instantly.  Matter of fact, you may not die at all.  The other big misconception is that a rifle or shotgun is less deadly or dangerous than the handgun.  This has taken a little bit of a backseat in recent years with all the sniper movies out there, but besides increased accuracy with a rifle, you've also usually got hydrostatic shock that takes effect after a round travels over 2700 fps.  A shotgun, well, you don't even have to take careful aim--you just eyeball it and shoot.

Anyway, that's probably somewhat OT and more than anyone wanted to hear. 

[enahs]

Hollywood brings us many misconceptions about firearms:
.
3. If you shoot someone once, they die

Unless they are the hero, then they can get shot all they want and not die.

[Borek]

The only firearm that I know of that has a chance of knocking you down with one shot would be a shotgun at close range.  None of the others will do it.

Not even Python or Anaconda/Magnum combination? IIRC correctly it is at least powerfull enough to knock down the shooter

[DrCMS]

I would ask DrCMS to figure out how many firearms are owned in the UK, since he's better at finding UK statistics, and I shall look into the US number.

I claim no greater expertise at this than anyone else with access to Google but I did find some interesting numbers.

For England and Wales on 31st March 2005 there were 126,400 Firearms Certificates, which allow an individual to keep a rifle or shotgun at home in a gun safe. In 2005/2006 there were 766 homicides in England and Wales, 50 of which were due to guns. The population at the time was ~53million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom


For the USA the numbers are obviously harder to get for legal gun ownership but are estimated at ~ 200million guns, with ~16000 gun murders per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_States

Per legal gun these equate to
UK ~40 gun murders per 100000 legal guns.
USA ~8 gun murders per 100000 legal guns.

Per head of population
UK ~ 1 gun murder per 1million people
USA ~53 guns murders per 1million people.

I did also see a hole in the gun death figures
Total gun deaths ~30000 per year, suicides with guns 16500 per year, homicides with guns about 10500 per year.  So does that leave 3000 accidental deaths per year with guns?


The numbers for knife crimes are not what I expected as there are more knife murders in the USA per head of population than in the UK.  As a percentage of all homicides knife murders are more common in the UK than USA but there are more murders per head of population in the USA.

In the UK for 2004/05 – 236 homicides – were committed using a sharp instrument, 28.78 per cent of the total.
http://www.crimeinfo.org.uk/servlet/factsheetservlet?command=viewfactsheet&factsheetid=108&category=factsheets

for the USA in 2004 there were 2132 knife murders in the USA ~13% of the total.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

These work per head of population as:
UK ~4.5 knife murders per million of population
USA ~ 7 knife murders per million of population


In terms of suicides rate we Brits kill ourselves at twice the rate of the USA.

~20 per 100000 population in the UK
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=13618

compared with ~10 per 100000 population in the USA http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm

I guess that means you are less likely to die young in the USA but if you do there's more chance someone else did it?

[hmx9123]

DrCMS--that post had me cracking up at the end with your comment about dying young.  Statistics can make some interesting statements.

Borek--while some of the powerful handguns out there may have enough recoil to knock down the shooter (), there is a kind of mystique surrounding things like the .44 Magnum that if you shoot someone with it, they'll be knocked down, which simply isn't the case.  With a .44 Magnum, you actually have so much velocity behind the round, the bullet will most likely pass through the body without doing much of anything in the way of knocking someone down.  Kinda weird.  Speaking of knocking down the shooter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0LcizHaLMc

Hope they only loaded one round in that rifle, because he sure didn't have good control of the weapon!  This is some oddball sort of high-powered round that I haven't heard of before (a .577 ?).  Amusing, though.

And no, this video has NOTHING to do with the shooter's nationalities, it was just funny.

[Borek]

I think I recall some opinion that Colt Pacemaker (in a way similar to Python/Anaconda, even if not that powerfull) was liked just because it was powerfull enough to incapacitate opponent, as opposed to small calibre weapons. However it could be anectodal and simply incorrect.

[hmx9123]

Borek, first, let me congratulate you in making medical history by crediting Colt with making the pacemaker.   Sorry, I know it's a small typo, but it's funny still!

The wepons you mention, the Peacemaker (Single action army, .45 Long Colt), the Python (Colt .357 Magnum), and the Anaconda (Colt .44 Magnum), are all very famous, either through advertisement, oral tradition or perhaps hollywood.  The general consensus among the uninitiated is that these are the 'best' weapons because they're feared and of a large caliber.  That's not particularly correct, as some of the very powerful weapons are actually less deadly than their weaker counterparts, for reasons mentioned before.

In reality, the incapacitation of the firearm depends on how much energy can get transferred to the target in one shot.  Much of it depends on the type of bullet used, such as hollowpoint vs. full metal jacket ball ammo.  The 1873 Peacemaker actually fires a better round for transferring kinetic energy to a target than the python or anaconda, as it moves much slower.  Despite this, it's still not a 'one shot' weapon.  The only true 'one shot' weapons are artillery or anti-tank weaponry--i.e., something large enough to physically dismember you in one shot.  Perhaps that rifle in the video or something like a .50 BMG would put you down in one shot, but these are pretty close to anti-tank weaponry and certainly too ungainly to wield even walking down the road, much less in close combat.

Also, the 1873 Peacemaker is a terrible weapon for 'spree shooting' or in a combat situation because: a. you have to manually cock the hammer each time and b. you have to unload and reload one bullet at a time.  This is also one of the least common handguns for crime, for that very reason.  When under timed pressure, I was able to reload one in just under 30 seconds.  Not particularly fast.

[Borek]

Borek, first, let me congratulate you in making medical history by crediting Colt with making the pacemaker.   Sorry, I know it's a small typo, but it's funny still!

At your Service and your Family's

I was referring only to the 'kinetic energy transferred' part, not to the 'shooting practicalities'. At least you have indirectly confirmed that Peacemaker is pretty good here

Besides, as is often the case - we should probably start with defining what we mean by 'incapacitated'. Dismembered/pulverized will work, but that's most likely classical 'overkill'

[hmx9123]

I would think that incapacitated means that the target is so badly wounded that they are unable to continue attacking/chasing you/whatever.  It doesn't mean that they are knocked to the ground necessarily.  That being said, there are some statistics out there, quoted in a lot of gun books, that talk about the 'one shot stop'.  They claim that the Winchester Silvertip (hollowpoint) .357 Magnum round has the greatest 'one shot stop' record.  That being said:
a. These statistics are based on a collection of police reports/autopsies of homicides
b. They were done a number of years ago in the US, when the most common duty weapon of police was the .357 Magnum.

They are questionable at best, but for this kind of data, you can hardly go out and do rigorous scientific testing.  The old 1873 Peacemaker may indeed be better than the .357 Magnum, but there aren't an abundance of hollowpoints for it, and since it's such an uncommon weapon now, it would be difficult to find statistics on it.  The .45 ACP was meant to be the .45 LC in automatic, and it does reproduce the ballistics of the .45 LC pretty well.  The .45 ACP is a much more common weapon, but it didn't come in first on the 'one shot stop' list, thereby questioning the efficiency of the 1873.  I find that argument very flimsy, though.

There's an interesting, if long, read on criminals and handguns here:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/guic.txt

This kind of gives an idea of the types of firearms used in crime here in the US and how they've changed over the decades, using Philadelphia as an example.

In Philadelphia, handguns most often used:         
       
In 1985, of 91 homicides         
44%  .38 caliber revolver     
19%  .25 caliber pistol       
14%  .22 caliber revolver     
14%  .32 caliber revolver     
 3%   9 mm pistol               
 2%  .357 caliber revolver     

In 1990, of 204 homicides 
23%    9 mm pistol
18%   .38 caliber revolver
16%   .357 caliber revolver
16%   .22 caliber revolver
10%   .32 caliber revolver