Are people more afraid of a Gun or a Knife?

PhilL

PhilL

Joined
Oct 1, 1999
Messages
6,490
I'm talkimg about the General Public, not the well informed members of the Forums, who know what each can do. It seems to me that people seem to give guns more respect, but fear knives more. The reasons, people have more first hand experience with knives, and everyone knows that it hurts to get cut. Most people don't know what it's like to be shot, or have first hand knowledge of the damage a bullet can do. Of course they see it in movies and on T.V., but how accurate is that? How often in movies is the deranged killer flashing a knife, to scare the viewer?

My concern is for a more positive image of knives, for the general public. Why? Because the more people that share the same view of knives as the people on the Forums, the better it is for all of us.
 
Phil,
After pondering this question for about 2 minutes (the maximum limit of my attention span) I've come to the conclusion that it's not really a fair question.

I think it totally depends on the situation.
For example, nobody bats an eye at an LEO that has a hi capacity automatic on his/her belt as well as a 12 guage in his/her car, yet imaging that same LEO walking around with a big old bowie, a sword or machete on his/her belt!

Wait a minute, I just pondered some more!

Now I'm assuming that you're asking what wound people fear the most. A stab/slash or a gunshot.
If I'm right, I'd have to say that people would be more scared of being cut, since, as you stated, people know what it feels like to be cut.

Hmmmmm.... now I'm REALLY pondering!!
(This is a new record for me!!)
smile.gif


We'd have to establish if the person feared being killed with these weapons or wounded.
If there was a choice, folks'd opt for a quick bullet in the head rather than slow and painful exanguination.

If it were a situation where an unarmed person had to defend themselves against a knife or gun, they'd opt for the knife of course. You might get cut, yeah, but your chances of surviving would be a lot better than a gunshot, especially if you were physically stronger than the attacker.

MAN!!!
I really rambled away on that one, didn't I!

ANyways, those are my convoluted thoughts on the matter..... hopefully you'll be able to filter out the madness and see my take on the subject.
If not, join the club!
wink.gif


Dabbing my dog's lace hanky to my bleeding ears, I remain,
VG
 
Vamp,
I was looking for pondering, you certainly opened up avenues I didn't consider when I opened the topic. Let's ponder some more.

"Sometimes I just sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits!"
 
I think that you hit the bullseye when you mentioned movies/TV, Phil. To put it briefly, we live in a movie & TV culture. People generally are more informed about the latest movie or sitcom than they are world events and philisophical truth IMHO. It doesn't matter so much what the facts are when it comes to guns and knives to many people. What matters is their perception of the tools of our trades. The perception that the receive comes mainly from media: TV shows, movies, and yes, the socialistic TV news programs.

From the source of thier perceptions, they tend to view guns as bad to large extent, and knives as sinister/evil. Rather than looking at the use of a tool, they catagorize the tool as being able to posses intrinsic evil. The truth is, inannimate objects are neither good, nor evil. The sinister nature of the knife is in the minds of the general public, whenever knives are used for anything other than carving a turkey. This belief system goes back to its religious roots in "Animism". Object have inherent good or evil. People don't conciously relize it, but they are swayed by the religiously pagon and occultic philosophies common in media today. Biblical truth states that objects are neither good nor evil. The thinking and intentions of the heart of man are where these traits lie...not the objects.

People fear knives because of sin and their view of them from the world system that they expose themselves to for the soaking up of animistic philosophies like a sponge. Knives can be used, of course, for good OR evil purposes.

Legally, I've read, knives are not good weapons to use for defense unless you have no other weapons available in a lethal encounter. The juries are more likely to look at a knife, as oppossed to a gun, as a sinister weapon used by thugs to commit crimes. From what I've read, it would be harder to for them to see your resonably justified defensive intent when you are being prosecuted.

I think that automatic knives are great tools, but I'd hate to have to use one to defend my life against a BG, even though I've received training in bladed weaponry. Too much legal problems. It is tough enough when it comes to firearms. I know it stinks. I think this thinking is outrageous, but its the way people in America normally, (or abnormally), think these days.

Robert

------------------
"But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one." --Jesus Christ (Luke 22:36) See John 3:15- 18


 
I think people freak out a LOT more at the idea of gun carry than packing, say, a Sifu. A *whole* lot more.

Jim
 
Killers are so often depicted as slashers in horror movies, prolonging the agony of the victims. I's "up close and personal" rather than quick and distant in their minds. Heroes always use guns, rarely use knives. Villans almost always have knives, or sharp teeth. Some one who could sneak up close and get blood all over themselves while they spill the innards of another, must be an absolute monster in the eyes of the public...

~B.
 
Now, that's what I call pondering!
What can we do to change the perception of the General Public? I'm not out to change the world, just the what can I do to help.

Maybe my real question is what's the biggest problem in the world today, Ignorance or Apathy?
 
Some good comments I've never thought of.especially the one concerning LEOs.We don't bat an eye over semi-auto,shotgun,even rifles and carbines but if a LEO was carrying a saber we'd assume he was nuts and just lost his marbles.So a lot does depend on situation and context.
Aside from the above most are more afraid of guns.I know,I have heard all the explanations about fear of being cut and we're knife lovers here so I don't mean to step on toes.
If you ever pull a knife on a thug or hood bent on robbing or hurting you he must be convinced you will use it and it is not a bluff.This applies to ASP batons and other non-firearm weapons.In addition there is a pride factor in which he thinks he can "take you" if you have a knife or stick.Guns negate this and a bad guy can back down from a gun even with his peers around with no loss of pride.
If you've ever been in a crowd-bar,club,disco,subway,store,etc. in which a gun is pulled out or worse someone starts firing there is absolute panic.People literally trip over,run over each other to get out of dodge.I know in theory that a group can jump the gunman but this does not happen in real life.Everyone wants to get away.The exception is highly trained people like US Secret Service who will jump a gunman or very-very brave people.

------------------
Tim



[This message has been edited by timdennis (edited 24 November 1999).]
 
Of course it depends on how far away the weapon is but in close proximity I am much more afraid of a knife. I have taught weapon removal tactics over the years and I can take a gun away much faster and safer than a knife.

There is alot more to this than I have time to write but that is my quick short answer
smile.gif


------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!

Support BladeForums! Check out the BFC Store!
www.bladeforums.com/store
 
Good points Tim. Just the sound of a gun going off in a confined space is enough to make anyone hit the deck, or run for cover. If I were to ask you to think of an "image" of an object that would instil fear, what would come to mind? Would it be a small knife or a small gun, and how would an average (non-knife nut) person percieve it?

 
Phil-They never look small in real life.
Mike-We're not disagreeing.The fact you are skilled enough to teach this indicates to me you are in the "highly trained class".

Another point-we all are familar with the Goetz subway shooting.Each of the thugs individually was more then a match for him most likely in a hand to hand encounter.If you have a bladed weapon and your facing four with something similar(knife,sharpened screwdriver,etc.) you are still at a disadvantage.When he started shooting they did not as a group smother his attack,pin his arms,jump him,etc. even though it was a close proximity situation and IN THEORY this would have worked.They all tried to haul a*s out of there-and got shot.

------------------
Tim

 
This is a good question. In my experience- and it's there- people tend to fear them both the same ammount, but it is a different type of fear. When a gun is pointed at you, people tend to go beyond irrational fear, strait to the stage where you have accepted the fact that you are about to die, so why make a big fuss(this is a general statement
wink.gif
). Whereas a knife doesn't mean certain death, so people tend to stay in the irrational, screaming, writhing oh my god he's got a chainsaw.... well you get the point.
Also, people have a LONG association with knives. On one scale we deal with them from the day we are born (basically), but on another knives have been around almost as long as man, they were our first tool, and their effectiveness has been well established. Modern guns (cartridge capable) have only been around for about 200 years (and look how far we've come in the last thirty!).
Personally I prefer a knife to a gun (circumstances notwithholding) for several reasons. Not the least of which is AMMUNITION- as in, a gun HAS to have it. And I think that people see being stabbed to death as a more personal thing than a gun shot. This is almost right, it is more intimate. Any moron can point and squeeze, it takes something more to look into the eyes of another human being as his/her life fountains out over your hand in a spray of red, the light behind those eyes slowly fading as they stare in utter shock at..... oop, sorry, off on a rant again.
I guess on a whole people are just afraid differently of knives and guns. Which is good, as long as they can master their fear and turn it into respect. Personally, the only weapon I FEAR is the one in the hand of a moron that has no training with said weapon, as they are dangerous to everyone, not only to those whom they are intent on being dangerous to.

But maybe that's just me
wink.gif
.

Joe
 
The weird thing is, if you ask most people, they will emphatically state that they are more afraid of a gun. But people in general seem to have more of a horror of knives. They think of all the blood and the "meaty" sound effects of stabbing in the horror movies, and the horrible dead facial expressions of the corpses/victims in said movies.

BUT... people also highly underestimate the dangers of knives to the same way they overestimate the evilness of knives. One time somehow the subject of a knife-wielding attacker came up (had to do with a police case that happened here). A group of women argued that the cop shot the charging man to death were wrong and they should have talked to him or only wounded him. I told them that it's been proven that a determined person armed with a knife can cover 7 yards in a blink, a lot faster than most people can pull out and accurately fire a gun, much less a one-shot kill. They told me I was making it up, and they refused to believe the facts.

Somehow people need to develop a healthy balance of awareness of the beneficial usefulness of knives, and yet a respect for how dangerous a murder-bent knife-wielding attacker is.
Jim
 
The only thing I'm afraid of is a moron getting a hold of these things.
 
"Somehow people need to develop a healthy balance of awareness of the beneficial usefulness of knives..."
Jim

How do we do that? Why the fear of a common everyday object? For all of us here, should this be a major priority? Educating the Genral Public. I think the person with the best opportunity to do that is Mike Turber, but as a knife lover I feel the responsibility also. How can we change the image, remove the fear, enlighten the public?
 
Here, Here SB. Given an idiot/moron with a gun or knife...I'd fear the gun, it is much harder to outrun. I've looked down the barrel of a gun twice, once a very nervous trooper and once a mugger, and those 38/100's of an inch look like a water main! Then there was the mugger that pulled a blade on me and I was gone before he could finish saying "Give me your money"

Thanx to the Vampire Gerbil for yet another addition to my vocabulary..."exanguination"
GO GERBIL! GO GERBIL! :-)

------------------
Can it core a apple?


[This message has been edited by Ebbtide (edited 24 November 1999).]
 
Next time you go to rent a movie, take a walk down the "Action/Adventure" isle and notice that at least half of the cover photos feature the star holding a gun (often vertically right next to his face with his finger on the trigger such that if it were to discharge the sound would deafen him, the flash and power spray would blind him, and the bullet would go up, turn around, and come right down on him).

Now, walk on over to the "Horror" section and notice how many of those covers feature the anti-hero holding a knife (usually over head in a reverse grip perfectly set up for a return-to-sender counter), and often dripping with blood.

Action/Adventure = gun.

Horror = knife.




------------------
Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.4cs.net/~gollnick
 
All I know is, in an office environment I can gradually and gently let co-workers know I carry big folders. Not right away and not until they get used to me.

Even with a CCW, do you really think I'd be able to gently break the news I had a .38snubbie on me?

HELL no. Forget it. I can get away with the cutlery making brief cameos for box-opening, clearing copier jams or whatever. Let a gun butt show for even a second and it's bye-bye job.

Jim
 
i think they are two different fears, as Brian alluded to above. i think fear-of-guns is not as primal, not as visceral, as fear-of-knives. fear-of-knives is fear of the wild, the savage, the untameable tooth-ed snarling beast in all of us. fear-of-guns is more...fear of overwhelming power, technological superiority, sheer supremacy of force. our knife-fear is deeper in our brains than our more intellectual, logical gun-fear.

the media shows us bloodless gunshot deaths every day (can someone please tell me how a head wound can NOT bleed?); the same media shows us Knife-Fingered-Freddy making bloody pate out of nearby coeds. gun deaths are deaths by distant metal force, knife deaths are hot-blooded up-close stab-fests. gun killers seem cold, dispassionate; knife killers have that evil, insane, maniacal satanic laughter as their background music. one is technology; the other is psychopathology--or maybe even zoology. everyone knows that civilized beings use guns to kill; only animals stoop to using sharp pointy things...

and since someone else mentioned their experiences with violence: i've been wondering how a certain event in my own life would have turned out differently if the Bad Guy had been wielding a knife rather than a gun. . .when faced with a gun, well, let's just say my choices were limited, as that gun basically put him in charge of the situation. would there have been other possible outcomes if he'd had "just" a knife? i don't know, but my gut says: if it had been just a knife, i might have had a chance to run and scream like hell. i say might have, because it's impossible to second guess myself. but it's interesting that, when thinking of the weapon as a knife, i suddenly imagine the possibility of escape, however foolish and unrealistic that imagining might be.

and yet...facing the gun, i knew escape was impossible. facing the imaginary knife, i imagine a different past for myself: suddenly the monster isn't unstoppable metal and force, he's flesh and blood with teeth and claws, just like me. and those claws of his are useless unless he can get close enough to use them. and by god, i was a fast runner back then
wink.gif


i don't know that the above is very logical, but it is somehow strangely comforting.

silverwing
 
I've noticed that most of the people I meet are more comfortable with knives than guns. I don't know if this is hate or fear.

I know a gun tends to get someone's attention better than a knife.

Personaly, both knives and guns are just weapons like any other with their own strengths and weaknesses. Learn them so you can use or defend against them, but don't *fear* either.

To be fair there is good fear that keeps you from getting hurt, and bad fear that gets you hurt. I'm talking about avoiding bad fear. Good fear can be beneficial. Not always, reason beats out fear any day, but fear has its place none the less.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top