In spite of the death penalty for possession of firearms and ammunition and massive efforts by government officials to teach people to attack armed aggressors to stop such attacks, a 17-year-old name Li managed to kill eight people and wound another five victims with a knife in the town of Yongling.
This latest in a series of knife attacks brings the total number of people killed in targeted acts of violence in the People’s Republic of China to 28 people with nearly 60 wounded in the past twenty four months. Many other victims have been killed and wounded in a series of firearms and knife attacks as well as in attacks without weapons in Chinese schools over the past decade. Though these figures are alarming, it is important to keep in mind how large the nation’s population is when attempting to contrast these terrible incidents with other countries like the United States which has a much smaller population.
These incidents along with multiple victim stabbings and shootings in countries like Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Australia, Canada, England, France, Norway, Scotland and many other diverse countries do help to debunk the popular misperception that mass casualty weapons assaults are a uniquely American phenomenon.