Dylan Quick Stabbing: Will Liberals Now Demand Knife Control?

Impact

There was a tragic stabbing at Lone Star College yesterday.  Fourteen people were hurt, with two critically injured. The Los Angeles Times reported that "the campus was put on lockdown and then closed for the day after the late morning attack. Twelve of the victims were hospitalized with laceration injuries, including four who were taken to the hospital by helicopter. Two declined treatment at the scene. Officials have not identified what type of weapon was used, whether it was "a knife or other type of instrument," Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said during a news conference.

Now, there's one thing that will be interesting regarding this story. How much media attention will it receive? Will news media outlets flock to Texas, document the victims, their families, and have PBS specials about the attacker? Granted, this story follows the "if it bleeds, it leads" model used by the media, but it's not good enough.  Don't expect liberals to care either. It's not emotionally charged enough for them to act. No one died, and no guns were involved. Hence, calls for knife control won't be echoing throughout the nation.

Now, I would be against knife control with the same tenacity as I have with gun control. Yet, this incident should be a prime example of how liberals focus on the method of killing, rather than the cause. In China, where guns are heavily regulated, violent attackers have resorted to knife attacks. While not as deadly, they're frequent, and follow the same roots. As Melinda Liu wrote for the Daily Beast last December, "although they [knife attacks] usually garner less media coverage, other incidents of violence appear to have similar roots: the attackers are usually Chinese men who are either mentally disturbed or distressed by personal disputes, economic pressures, or unhappy love affairs — or a combination of the three."

We know nothing about this attacker, or his mental state, but the latter is something Americans are scared to discuss around the dinner table. What is clear is that our mental health system is in shambles, and that should be the focus regarding how to prevent future violent attacks. 

Yes, I know a knife isn't as deadly as a gun, but are we going by body count now? So, if a gun kills 26 people, that's awful, and needs federal action to prevent future massacres. Yet, if a knife kills three people, that's acceptable. In both cases, families are shattered. The body count doesn't matter in a violent attack. It's still tragic. However, given the numbers game liberals seem to be playing by comparing the butcher's bill between these two methods that could lead to people getting killed, it's no wonder why liberal morality is an oxymoron.