Sydney Aust knife attack

[BarbTherese]

A young man with serious mental health issues has killed one woman and slashed another in a rampage in the busy Sydney CBD - I thank The Lord he did not have a gun as he ran through the busy streets brandishing a bloody knife.  The 21 year old was brought down by civil arrest until police arrived.

Police are not classifying it as an act of terrorism, rather an issue of serious mental illness.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/multiple-people-stabbed-in-sydney-cbd-reports/news-story/e8f22690f2a6f5e0fd1e7e958764ed59

 

[Lilllabettt]

8 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

A young man with serious mental health issues has killed one woman and slashed another in a rampage in the busy Sydney CBD - I thank The Lord he did not have a gun as he ran through the busy streets brandishing a bloody knife.  The 21 year old was brought down by civil arrest until police arrived.

Police are not classifying it as an act of terrorism, rather an issue of serious mental illness.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/multiple-people-stabbed-in-sydney-cbd-reports/news-story/e8f22690f2a6f5e0fd1e7e958764ed59

 

Idk. I get that with a gun he would probably have more victims. But there is something so bad about knife killings. It's more horrifying and traumatic imo. It's like when they would tell soldiers to "fix bayonets." War is hell but war with bayonets is the very darkest hell imaginable. 

[Guest]

I agree that there is something very personal and horrifying about knife attacks.  However in the busy central business district where his rampage began and ended with so many people around, with a gun he would have killed more as well as injured more some seriously even critically.

There was apparently a lot of confusion with shouting and trying to get people out of his path.  The woman that was slashed was slashed down her back because she had her back to the attacker.  In all the confusion and shouting, people were unsure from where the violence was coming and panic ensued.  If civilians did not intervene to bring the man down, it probably would have been worse as well.

Chairs and milk crates with other readily available methods of stopping the man, they were prepared to approach his bloody knife wealing - if he had had a gun, I don't think the brave men citizens at the scene would have been able to get close enough to stop him without putting themselves in mortal danger, which with a gun would have most definitely put them in mortal danger, perhaps even unable to approach him at all.

The knife, though very frightening I am sure, meant civilians could get close enough to bring him down until police arrived.  I don't think that would have happened if he had had a gun and was shooting wildly and randomly.

It is not easy to get hold of a gun here in Australia.  There are underground supplies, but one needs to know how to find a source of underground guns and serious weaponry.

Once subdued, I heard him shout "The government has let me down".  I dont know what motivated his comment.  I do know that the plight of including serious mentally ill persons can be dire - one has to be very seriously ill indeed to be admitted to a psychiatric ward or hospital.  This is due to the fact that our big mental hospitals have been turned into land for housing.

The 21 year old attacker had apparently escaped from a mental ward and not at all difficult to do.  I have plenty of past experience in state mental hospitals and wards and the security measures and administration of security measures.