School "mass knifing" in Sweden

[Nap]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/world/europe/western-sweden-school-attack.html?_r=0

Details are still sparse, but as of my posting this it's being reported that a man went on a rampage with a "sword or large knife," killing two (so far) and wounding several others before being shot by police.

As news media are quick to point out, Sweden very rarely experiences such events, so the rational thing to do would be for everyone to go about their lives as usual. Right?

I guess it's time for Sweden to ban swords. They already ban the carriage of knives without a legitimate purpose; clearly, that worked exactly as well as one should expect.

 

[glistam]

Mass killing with edged weapons has been happening for hundreds of years in China and Malaysia. Know the expression "running amok?" We English speakers have corrupted the meaning, but "Amok" is a Malay term for this exact thing: Go to public place, pull out sword/knife/box-cutter/broken glass, kill lots of people, then suicide/suicide-by-cop/faint-and-come-to with amnesia. Body counts are actually very high, comparable to shootings.

Violence is a complex, difficult to understand problem. The mere availability of a weapon is but one small, relatively minor variable.