Okay so this seems a little bit like those conversations you used to have as a kid - who'd win in a fight between Godzilla and King Kong etc etc but it was raised on another thread that some folks teach that attacks with bats (I assume of the wooden and metal kind as opposed to the flying kind) are more likely to result in fatal injury than attacks with knives. My view for what it's worth is entirely opposite, so I thought it might make an interesting thread to see what people's views and experiences are. Obvioulsy either weapon has the potential to cause massive amounts of damage both fatal and otherwise and neither should be taken lightly but given the way in which the weapons are used, the areas of the body targetted, the nature of the injuries inflicted and the ease / difficulty of detecting the threat and dealing with it. Which do folks feel is more likely to result in fatal injury, a knife attack or an attack with a bat?
Right. Being the person who made the claim that a baseball bat attack is more potentially a lethal attack in the first place, I think it might be pertinent to explain what that was in reference to, as it wasn't to the amount of damage that each weapon could potentially cause. It was more to do with the more commonly encountered tactics that you might come up against.
When it comes to a knife, the most common usage is to threaten/intimidate, commonly in order to extort compliance or money out of someone. The next is a "defensive offence", in which the knife is used to create a barrier by slashing back and forth. The idea is that the person doesn't really want to do much damage, or kill you, but is using the knife to maintain a sense of power. Finally you have the dedicated attempt on your life, which is far more commonly a stabbing action than a slashing one. While common in prisons (where a lot of people seem to get their ideas on knife combat/assault from), it's not as common as a "street" assault, to the point where it makes up the minority of knife attacks.
With a baseball bat, it again can be used to intimidate, either by showing it and waving it around, or by hitting other objects (think road rage incidents, where the car becomes the "victim" of the attack). Once it becomes a case of actually attacking the other person, whether it's the "defensively offensive" actions, or an actually intended lethal assault, the common targeting is the same: the head. That's due to a range of reasons, including the psychological aspects of attacking the "face" (which represents the person, psychologically speaking), as well as it being perceived (accurately) as a powerful action. In other words, as soon as the baseball bat-attacker moves past intimidating, the most common attack is going to be potentially lethal, whereas with a knife it might not be.
So the reasoning behind saying that a baseball bat attack is more likely to be potentially a lethal attack is based on the type of attack more prevalent with a baseball bat, not on the amount of damage that could be done, or the type of attack that could be made.
I'm going to assume that you're not asking for specific situations/scenarios in which each may be used, but instead simply our opinion. So, IMHO, while both have the potential for death, I'm going to go with the knife. I would say that with the bat, the most obvious target is going to be the head. Sure, if you took a full power swing at the arms or legs, you will most likely get a break, unless you're repeatedly hitting the head, or perhaps the chest, the end result probably won't result in death.
The knife...well, IMO, I think we've seen those pretty graphic pics that've been posted on this forum, of knife wounds. While a slash may not have the immediate effect as a stab, I'd say the accumulation of slashes, again going back to those pics, will add up.
The thing is that aiming at the head is the more common method for a baseball bat, not the arms. And as for the effects of the slashes, as seen in the well-worn photos, well... they didn't die. Most of those wounds are nasty looking, but realistically superficial. A baseball bat to the skull is not really such a superficial injury.
