Gun shot wounds vs. Stab Wounds - Chance of surviving an attack
One particular argument made is that because knives are less deadly than guns, if criminals switched over to guns, there would be less deaths. There is an inherent folly in this argument, as the criminal may actually switch to more lethal guns other than a gun. Examples include an explosive, a car, arson or poison, or a weapon on par with a gun, such as an axe, a sword, a bow and arrow, crossbow or other type of weapon. This is in the context of 67 people being killed in the worst mass shooting in the world, compared to just one example of 87 with a truck, 168 from an explosive, 173 with arson, and 900 with poison. The deadliest single attack in the world was 9/11, with 3,000 dead, and the next deadliest was an arson-bombing, where a bomb was used to light the surrounding environment on fire. It's a false dichotomy to merely assume that all criminals would switch over to knives, as there are simply other weapons in the world that do exist. And it's another fallacy to merely assume that knives are deadlier than guns.
Before we get in to the statistics themselves, it's important to note a few things. First, the statistics vary wildly in results, and this may be because of a number of factors that weren't considered such as the suicide prevalence or accidental injuries being separate from assault injuries. Secondly, the results of medical statistics often times reveal that guns are used far more often in certain scenarios which are more likely to lead to death, compared to knives. The most common form of knife injury is accidental, that is cutting oneself while chopping vegetables or opening a package, where as the most common form of gun death is suicide. Because self inflicted injuries to the head carry a much higher death rate (95%) compared to accidental injuries from knives (less than 2%), lumping these two statistics together will invariably lead to gunshot wounds appearing to be more lethal, even though the circumstances of how the wounds were inflicted is what determines the lethality rather than the object itself. It's also worth nothing that most statistics count all "stab wounds" as the same, even though they could be done with a variety of different weapons or objects (I.E. poking yourself with a needle would be a "stab wound", which would be lumped in to the same statistics as being stabbed repeatedly with a butcher's knife). While just 2% of suicides are committed using knives, approximately 65% of suicides are from guns. In fact, out of the approximately 30,000 gun deaths, 2/3rds or, 20,000, were from suicides, while only around 10,000 were from homicides. Looking at 2016 statistics for example, There is also the fact that if used for murder, a knife could be coated in poison, infectious materials, anticoagulants, acid, or used to stab someone multiple times, thus increasing the deadliness of the attack even if the knife by itself was not more deadly. Like guns, not all knives are the same, and a small pocket knife will have a lower mortality rate than a large butcher's knife, in the same way that a .22 rifle will be less deadly than a .50 caliber machine gun.
The studies which have founds guns to be more deadly may be scientifically correct, however if the argument is based on your chance of dying from assault, the results may be misleading if presented in the wrong light. It's worth noting as well that your chance of dying per stab wound isn't the same as dying per attack; if stabbed 50 times you're probably more likely to die from a murderer with a knife than a murder who only shoots you once, for example, or vice versa. As for guns being more likely to cause suicides, this has been disputed in another article of mine, and many studies have shown how banning guns did not result in less suicides, such as in Australia where hangings went up an equivalent amount by which gun suicides dropped. It's more or less the case that guns are not a cause of suicide, evidenced by many countries with low gun ownership and high suicide rates (such as Japan). Suicide methods tend to be more cultural, with some places favoring asphyxiation or poison, and some places favoring jumpings or knife wounds, and some places favoring guns. It's less so the chance of death, and more so the cultural elements of that society. A knife culture, such as the Philippines or Japan, tends to have most murders and suicides be by knives where as in America, they are by guns. The reality is that weapon choice is often more so a factor of culture and not legal availability, and that deadliness itself rarely factors in to the choice by the criminals. Rat poison is comparatively cheap and easy to obtain compared to a gun, and a bullet coated in poison could have a nearly 100% fatality rate and yet such actions are essentially very rare. Availability of poison and it's deadliness have rarely factored in to it's use. Acid attacks in the UK for example have only recently come on the rise, where as the chemicals to obtain the acid have been around for decades or even centuries.
Doing my own math
There are a number of different factors for determining how likely a gun or knife is in it's chance to kill you. The first is the type of weapon, with a butcher's knife or ice pick being more likely to kill you than a pocket knife, and a shotgun more likely to kill someone than a handgun. Even from sources which suggest that gunshot wounds are deadlier than knife wounds, these discrepancies are generally shown, as they typically tend to hold true in all cases. The second is how the weapon is used, as self inflicted injuries are substantially more likely to result in death than injuries inflicted by accident or by an assailant. While Suicide by firearms in the U.S. had an approximately 95% chance of death, assaults by guns only had about a 15% chance of death, and accidental injuries by guns only had a 2.5% chance of death. This can be derived largely by looking at the total number of injuries from the firearm's attempted use, and comparing it to the number of deaths, with x out x etc. The same is largely true with knives, Knives however are rarely used in suicides however, only approximately 2% of the times, compared to 65% with guns, with the vast majority of knife injuries being from accidents or x percent, and only x being from deliberate assaults. With nearly two-thirds of firearms deaths being from suicide, and the vast majority of wounds from knives being from accidental injuries, this is largely where the disparity between a statistical chance of dying from a type of wound comes from. With these two figures removed, that is suicides and accidental deaths, the parity between knife and firearm assault statistics becomes clear. x asdfsdf
While statistics suggesting that gunshot wounds are more deadly than knife wounds are often technically accurate, they rely on a correlation of how guns are more often used. It is correct to assert that medical records often show that gunshot wounds result in deaths more frequently than knife wounds, however it is incorrect to assert that a knife assault attack is significantly more or less deadly than a knife attack based on this data. When in the context of a murder, or a mass murder, a knife would theoretically kill nearly the same amount of people as a gun, that is in an assault. In other words, it's incorrect to say that if a mass shooter had a knife instead of a gun, he would kill less people, as it would be roughly around the same. Mass murders are different slightly in that medical personnel are often overwhelmed by the raw number of injuries or delayed by the attacker themselves, reducing their ability to treat wounds. This might make knives slightly more deadly in some circumstances than guns as they are more likely to cause excessive bleed-out, but this depends heavily on the knife and the type of gun used. This would be true with swords or butcher's knives in comparison to smaller pocket knives, or true with larger diameter bullets compared to smaller diameter bullets which create larger wound channels.
Various other people's math - Showing they are not equal
An interesting element of many statistics showing that gunshot wounds are more lethal than stab wounds, is that they often don't take in to account the other potential factors in the cases. For instance, a self inflicted gunshot wound from an attempted suicide has approximately a 95% chance of death, where as accidentally cutting a finger while preparing food or chopping vegetables has under a 1% chance of death. The type of injury and not just the method matters greatly, and more importantly reveals more about the essential question of the deadliness when used by murderers. The real question is not whether or not knives or guns are more or less deadly as a whole, as either are deadly in their respective scenarios, but if they are more deadly when used in similar ways. An accidental cut from a pair of scissors is not going to be the same as a deliberate, self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The real question is, if a murderer had a knife, instead of a gun, would they kill less people?
The simple way to resolve this is to remove injuries and deaths from all accidents and suicides, and only look at the remaining injuries. From a reductionist stand point, the remaining injuries would have to be an intentional decision to harm someone with a knife or gun, and statistics about this do exist by itself. Self defense shootings and stabbings will be included as the intent was to harm others (even if for a good cause), and the data for self defense might reveal which weapons are better or worse for incapacitating your opponent.
For instance, a study often cited by gun control proponents was about the survival rates for individuals after they were put in to an ambulance. [1] This was not about measuring gun murders vs. knife murders, but rather about their chance of surviving based on which form of medical transportation they received which, automatically shows how circumstances and medical treatment is more important to survival than the weapon itself, but I digress. It should be noted that more stab wound victims than gunshot wounds are found DOA (Dead on Arrival), due to guns making a louder noise and a bright flash, and this alerting nearby individuals who are more inclined to call the police than the sound a knife wound makes. A third of patients with gunshot wounds (33.0 percent) died compared with 7.7 percent of patients with stab wounds. At first glance, this would make guns approximately 4 times more deadly than knives, or 4.28. However, this is for all injuries, and not for assault-style attacks. If we do the math, 2/3rds of the gunshot wounds were self inflicted suicides compare to just 2% by knives, which reduces the figure to 11% compared to 7.7%. And if accidents are accounted for on both sides and removed and only assaults are analyzed, the death rate increases for knives and guns, and puts them at roughly on par levels.
This is not the fault of the study or the scientists, but rather the fault of political advocates who have misinterpreted the results of the study. It's important to understand what a study means rather than making blanket assumptions based on a more vague concept. Another similar study which overtly made the claim that gunshot wounds were 8 times more deadly than knife wounds made similar mistakes (which is the fault of those who made the study). The immediate flaw was in excluding causes of deaths from knives that were, such as bleed out or infection, which automatically halved the difference between the two. When suicides and accidents are accounted for and only intentional assaults are analyzed, we find a similar plurality between the
