On December 14, 2012, a crazed
knife wielding man stood outside Chenpeng Village Primary School in Henan
Province, China, and stabbed 24 people before the police
overpowered him.
All of the victims, 23 children and 1 elderly woman (from whom the
attacker originally stole the knives) eventually
recovered. Does any of that sound
familiar? The Sandy Hook tragedy
occurred on the same date, hours later.
The disparity of death toll (0 in Henan versus 20 in Connecticut) has
already been remarked upon in the past four years. It shows that policy can mitigate the
effects of violent outbursts. China is
not the only Asian state to have knife-rampages. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other
countries experience them too. The
attacker in Chenpeng did not have access to a firearm, so he used knives. It is difficult-to-impossible to prevent
these rampages, but with different policy choices, they can be mitigated.