Mass knife killings in public in China

South China Morning Post, August 26, 2013:

A brutal stabbing incident occurred in Chengdu over the weekend, leaving 11 people injured and four dead. 

The incident occurred on Sunday evening along Chengdu’s Caojia Alley,Sichuan Daily reported. According to surveillance videos and police investigations, the stabber, a 41-year-old man identified only by his last named Li, was on a bus when he suddenly withdrew a knife and began hacking away at fellow passengers. 

The bus driver promptly hit the emergency brake to let passengers exit the vehicle as quickly as possible. Li fled and ran down Caojia Alley, stabbing any bystanders that were in his way. . . .

South China Morning Post, August 22, 2013:

Two Anhui police officers - called in to save a hostage from a knife-wielding man in a Bengbu city supermarket - watched him stab a 17-year-old female cashier to death on Sunday, according to security footage released by the store. 

Families of the victim, identified only by their surname Hu, were infuriated that two police officers, who were standing only three metres away from Hu, did nothing when the girl was being stabbed. 

It was only after Hu fell down to the ground, lifeless, that the officers approached and arrested the suspect who was slashing himself with a knife, according to the People's Daily. 

“She would not have died if the two of them had stepped up and stopped him,” a family member of Hu's said. Hu’s parents were migrant workers. She had been living with her grandmother in Bangbu, the reports said. . . .

South China Morning Post, July 19, 2013 

A knife-wielding man killed two people, including a woman from the United States, in an attack in China’s capital, state media said on Thursday. 

The stabbing happened outside a shopping mall in downtown Beijing on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported, citing local police. 

Police detained a 27-year-old man surnamed Xiao from eastern China following the attack, which was witnessed by hundreds of bystanders, the report said. 

The suspect is unemployed and has claimed he is mentally ill, the report said. It did not give the names of the dead but said the other victim was a Chinese male. . . .

Thanks to Victor Mair for these links.

"TEENAGER KILLS 8 , WOUNDS 5 IN CHINA KNIFE ATTACK"

From the Associated Press:

A teenager killed eight people with a knife and wounded five more in northeast China after falling out with his girlfriend, state media said Thursday.
The teen killed two of her family members and six more people before fleeing, the state-run Legal Daily newspaper said. It reported he was caught but did not describe the circumstances.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the attack took place Wednesday night in Liaoning province. Media said the 17-year-old suspect is from Fushun city and his surname is Li. The attack happened in Yongling town. . . .  There was a string of knife attacks against schoolchildren across the country in early 2010 that killed nearly 20 and wounded more than 50.

20 wounded, 4 severely wounded, in multiple victim stabbing at Pennsylvania high school

Let's assume that they can get rid of guns (which I don't concede), China can attest to the multiple victim knife attacks that they have suffered.  Fortunately, the life of one of those wounded in the knife attack in Pennsylvania was spared by some fast thinking "by applying pressure to the person’s wound."  From Fox News:

Twenty people, including 19 students, were wounded — four seriously — during a stabbing spree early Wednesday at a high school near Pittsburgh and a 16-year-old male student is in custody, authorities say. 

As word of the incident spread and children streamed out of the school, parents told FoxNews.com they were shocked by the attack — and one district official expressed relief that it was carried out with a knife rather than a gun. 

“Nobody’s ever prepared for something like that as a parent,” Matt Provenzo, who had dropped his son, Mark, off at Franklin Regional High School moments after the stabbings, told FoxNews.com. "As he got out of the car, you could see students exiting the building and that the fire alarm was pulled … There were a few students who were visibly upset." . . . 

"Everyone was screaming and people were being trampled over," she told FoxNews.com. "It was a very bad scene. I was very scared. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought it was a drill." . . . .

UPDATE:  The number of injuries is now listed as "at least 24."  From the local CBS station in Pittsburgh:

Westmoreland County updated the victim count late Wednesday evening, saying 24-people had been injured. (21-students stabbed, 1-security guard stabbed, and 2-others injured)
At least five students were critically wounded, including a boy who was on a ventilator after a knife pierced his liver, missing his heart and aorta by only millimeters, doctors said. An injured school officer was discharged. . . .
Witnesses said the boy with the knives at first tackled a freshman and stabbed him in the belly, then got up and ran wildly down the hall, slashing other students. . . .

17-year-old kills nine and wounds four with knife in China

From Liaoning province in China:

The 17-year-old, who was identified only by his surname Li, barged into the home of his girlfriend armed with a knife following an argument and killed two relatives of the girl, the Legal Daily said. 

As he left his girlfriend's home in Liaoning province's Xinbin county, he stabbed six more people to death and wounded five, it said. 

One of the injured died Thursday in hospital, the paper said. 

Li was arrested near the scene of the attack, late on Wednesday night, and was taken into custody, the official Xinhua news agency reported. 

Police had nabbed him as he was preparing to jump from a building in an apparent suicide attempt, it added. . . .

Knife-wielding men attack train station in southwest China; at least 27 dead, 162 injured

The UK Daily Mail:

At least 27 people have been killed and 162 injured after a group of knife-wielding men attacked people at one of China's busiest railway stations. 

Distressing photos circulating online showed bodies, pools of blood and abandoned luggage scattered across the terminal floor at Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province. 

Authorities described the incident at about 9pm local time (1pm GMT) as an 'organised, premeditated, violent terrorist attack.' . . .

"Worst murder - mass murder - in Calgary's history" committed with a knife

Of course, mass stabbings aren't just limited to China and the US.  Here is a case were five people were killed in Canada, none wounded.   From CBS News:

A University of Calgary student was charged in the fatal stabbing of five people at a house party Tuesday that the police chief called the worst mass slaying in the western Canadian city's history. 

Matthew Douglas de Grood, the son of a 33-year veteran of the Calgary police force, picked up a large knife shortly after arriving at the party and stabbed the victims one by one, said police Chief Rick Hanson.  

De Grood, 22, was charged with five counts of murder late Tuesday. 

"This is the worst murder - mass murder - in Calgary's history," Hanson said at a news conference Tuesday. "We have never seen five people killed by an individual at one scene. The scene was horrific." . . .

I thought that gun bans would stop this

Oops. Apparently people have figured out how to make weapons themselves. In any case, the problem that I have with this article is one of causation. Guns fuel crime, but may be there is some desire to commit crime that creates the desire to get the weapons and that there are a lot of different weapons to pick from.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The illegal manufacture and sale of weapons is fuelling a crime wave in poorer parts of China, police said on Tuesday.

Knife attacks have become a particular problem in a country where crime has boomed along with the economy for the past two-and-a-half decades, threatening government control and stability.

"Some evil forces and crooks always carry around illegal blades, using them for fights and resisting the law, whipping them out at the drop of a hat," Xu Hu, deputy director of the police's public order division, told a news conference.

The number of incidents using explosives has fallen every year for the last four in the country that invented gunpowder.

But police spokesman Wu Heping voiced concern at the news conference about their continued availability thanks to a huge market for fertilisers and a thriving mining industry.

"At present, the security management situation of explosives, guns and ammunition is still not optimistic," Wu said. "...In some parts of the country incidents continue to happen, seriously threatening people's lives and property." . . . . .

I thank RGriff for sending me this.