3 Days, 3 Attacks

[elfismiles]

3 Days, 3 Attacks by Loren Coleman
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2010/ ... tacks.html

I have pointed out that in China (and Japan), due to their strict firearms laws, such countries tend to manifest their "copycat school violence" in terms of "stabbing" series. Will this current stabbing spree spread to Japan or other Asian nations?

April 2010 appears to be turning into a prime example. The media has referred to these, very openly, as "copycats." Of course, the underlying theme of these events ending in suicides or parasuicidal incidents is no surprise for readers here.

Here's is a summary of the latest news:

Five incidents in a little over a month and three attacks in three days have left at least 9 children dead in China, all by knife-wielding older males.

1) Wang Yonglai

Friday, April 30, 2010

This attack occurred in the small village of Shangzhuang, near the city of Weifang in the northern province of Shandong. Just before eight o'clock in the morning, April 30, 2010, a man named as Wang Yonglai, a local farmer, age unknown, broke through the side door of the local pre-school, according to Xinhua, the government news agency.

Armed with a hammer and carrying a can of petrol, he struck a teacher and then lashed out at five children before he picked two up, doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire. Teachers at the school managed to grab the children from him, but Wang was reported to have died. The five victims are said to be in stable condition in the local hospital and none have life-threatening injuries.

2) Xu Yuyuan, 47

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Another attack involved a knife-wielding man stabbed 29 children at a kindergarten on Thursday in Taixing of East China's Jiangsu province. Five of the children are in critical condition and the rest are stable. No deaths had been reported as of Thursday night, said Sun Yun, deputy mayor of Taixing. Two teachers and one security guard were also injured after the 9:40 am attack. Witnesses report that he taunted onlookers, daring them to stop him as he carried out his rampage.

An initial police investigation said the suspect, 47-year-old Xu Yuyuan, was an unemployed local resident who had been fired from a local insurance company in 2001.

3) Chen Kangbing, 33

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

A mentally ill teacher on sick leave for the past four years broke into a school and wounded 18 students and a teacher in southern China’s Leizhou city in Guangdong province on April 28. The man in Wednesday's attack managed to slip into the school with a group of visiting teachers, Xinhua reported. Chen Kangbing,33, had been a teacher himself. Xinhua said he suffered from mental illness and had been on sick leave since February 2006.

4) Yang Jiaqin, 40

Monday, April 12, 2010

An attack occurred on April 12, 2010, when a man hacked to death a second grader and an elderly woman with a meat cleaver, near a school in southern Guangxi, and wounded five other people, including students. Yang Jiaqin, 40, chased his victims through Xizhen village of the southern Guangxi region not long after classes ended Monday afternoon. A 7-year-old girl and the 81-year-old woman later died.

5) Zheng Minsheng, 42

Tuesday, March 23, 2010; executed, Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Chen Kangbing attack came the same day a man was executed for stabbing eight children to death outside their elementary school last month in the southeastern city of Nanping. The attack on March 23, 2010, at around 7:20 am local time, shocked China because eight children died and the assailant had no known history of mental illness. At his trial, Zheng Minsheng, 42, said he killed because he had been upset after being jilted by a woman and treated badly by her wealthy family. He was executed by firing squad on Wednesday, April 28, just a little over a month after his crime.

2004 Attacks

These attacks have officials looking into a similar wave of knife-related violence on children that occurred in 2004. After the 2004 attack at a school in Beijing that left nine students dead, the central government ordered tighter school security nationwide. Regulations that took effect in 2006 require schools to register or inspect visitors and keep out people who have no reason to come inside.

The list of 2004 stabbings in China (which eventually spread to Japan) may be found by clicking here.
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2008/ ... bings.html

There were also stabbings in 2008, associated with the Autumn Festivals in China and Japan (see here).
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2008/ ... ave-3.html

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2010/ ... tacks.html

[Nordic]

Yeah, see, that's how gun control could completely eliminate psychotic violence. Not. If someone wants to get violent, they'll figure out a way.

These are awful occurrences. Just read about the newest one over on rawstory.com.

[Iamwhomiam]

So why is it then that none have shot any of of their victims?

Could it be because China has an effective Gun Control policy?

Let's not turn this thread about these tragedies into a debate on gun control's pros & cons, k Nordic? No one has ever suggested gun control will stop violence from occurring, but that an effective policy will reduce the occurrence of unstable people from obtaining guns.

China, except in rare situations, prohibits their citizens from owning guns. That's why we don't hear of people killing people with guns in China. Only through actions by the government or soldiers acting on its behalf, do we hear of gun deaths in China. If you would like to discuss this issue further, please pm me or start a new thread.

[Canadian_watcher]

So why is it then that none have shot any of of their victims?

Could it be because China has an effective Gun Control policy?

Let's not turn this thread about these tragedies into a debate on gun control's pros & cons, k Nordic? No one has ever suggested gun control will stop violence from occurring, but that an effective policy will reduce the occurrence of unstable people from obtaining guns.

China, except in rare situations, prohibits their citizens from owning guns. That's why we don't hear of people killing people with guns in China. Only through actions by the government or soldiers acting on its behalf, do we hear of gun deaths in China. If you would like to discuss this issue further, please pm me or start a new thread.

I honestly can not tell if you are joking or not.

[Iamwhomiam]

Not Joking, Canadian_watcher. Not in a string about murdered children. Humor would be misplaced here, in my opinion.

[elfismiles]

New Knife Attack
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ttack.html

[norton ash]

Has Moloch been whispering in Chinese ears?

[elfismiles]

Has Moloch been whispering in Chinese ears?

[elfismiles]

China school killer erupted after lease row
David Gray and Jimmy Jian
NANZHENG, China
Thu May 13, 2010 6:37am EDT



(Reuters) - A Chinese man who hacked to death seven young children and two adults in the latest in a series of deadly assaults on schools lashed out after an argument over a kindergarten lease, neighbors and state media said.

World

The succession of bloody assaults on schools has prompted officials to demand a show of force to deter such attacks, which have angered the Chinese public and stoked criticism of the government. State media reported on Thursday that some schools were being guarded by police wielding submachine guns.

Triggers for the attacks have included pent-up grievances over lost jobs, business failures, broken relationships, and a new home that officials had ordered torn down.

Villagers in northwest China's Shaanxi province watched on Wednesday as an argument erupted between the attacker, Wu Huanming, 48, and Wu Hongying, a 50-year-old woman who ran the kindergarten where the attack occurred.

Wu Huanming, the owner of the two-storey building with a walled, concrete courtyard, wanted the kindergarten to vacate the property when the lease ran out in April, Xinhua news agency said. Wu Hongying wanted to keep the school running until the summer.

In rural China, villagers often have the same surname, but may not be closely related.

Wu Huanming ran back into his home to grab a cleaver and onlookers were too afraid to stop him, said one villager.

"I saw him holding a cleaver up in his right hand. I ran out, there was shouting everywhere," Li Yufen, a resident of rural Nanzheng county, told Reuters.

"Then a few women came out, but we were not enough, so I went back into the house. The killer walked straight past me. He glanced at me but walked on and I closed the door and stayed inside."

Wu Huanming hacked five boys and two girls to death with the cleaver, and also killed Wu Hongying and her 80-year-old mother. He returned home and committed suicide, Xinhua news agency said.

The attacker showed signs of mental disturbance, said one of his relatives. "He's been ill, he has been talking nonsense, not making sense, like he was unbalanced," said the relative, 58-year-old Wu Huangcheng.

This was the sixth attack on schoolchildren in China since March -- a succession of attacks that had already prompted calls for more security at schools and worries about the social malaise that some see underneath China's rapid economic growth.

Coming soon after the government vowed to protect schools, the latest attack was a blow for the ruling Communist Party, which has long made a tough stance on law and order a part of its claim to authority.

China's Ministry of Public Security vowed urgent protection at schools and a "strike hard" campaign against threats.

In Changsha, capital of Hunan province in southern China, police have begun guarding schools and kindergartens with submachine guns, a frightening sight for some children, local media reported.

(Writing by Lucy Hornby and Chris Buckley; Editing by Ken Wills and Nick Macfie)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64B3M520100513

[Sepka]

China has about 20% of the world's population, too. Does this really represent an unusual amount of violence in a population of that size, or are we just seeing an unusual amount of coverage? I tend to believe the former, but it would be interesting to know how many such incidents occur worldwide in a month. I'm sure there are some in obscure third world places that we never hear about.

[Nordic]

No one has ever suggested gun control will stop violence from occurring

Oh really?