Spread of 'knockout' game highlights people's need for 'high capacity' magazines

Reports from CBS News indicate that the sick and sometimes fatal “game” of “knockout” seems to be growing in popularity and ubiquity:

A terrifying new ‘game’ that’s already caused deaths in Syracuse, St. Louis and New Jersey is sweeping the nation, and it preys upon unsuspecting people walking the streets, anywhere.

A recent report from New York-based CBS 2 shed light on the growing trend, displaying unsettling footage of teens participating in this game – which goes by the name ‘Knockout’ – and involves randomly targeting passersby, with the ultimate goal being to knock them out with one punch as they walk by.

This column has covered this abomination before, describing not only the fatal beating in St. Louis of a 72-year-old Vietnamese immigrant–just for “fun,” but also the failure to bring to justice the perpetrators (a pack of teenage predators estimated to number about 18 or more) of another instance of this sick “game” in St. Louis, because the star witness (a 13-year-old girl) failed to appear in court to testify. The very strong suspicion is that her refusal was motivated by threats from the perpetrators. A bit of good news on that score, though–a suspected perpetrator of that brutal assault managed to bring a very final form of justice down on his own head early this year.

Going back to the CBS article, it becomes difficult to decide what is the most appalling–the unbridled savagery of the attacks: “One victim shown in the footage is a 46-year-old man from Hoboken, N.J., who was found dead with his neck broken and head lodged between iron fence posts, according to NJ.com,” or the chilling callousness of the descriptions of the “game”:

And what’s the point?

“For the fun of it,” one teen said in the video.

Meanwhile, as peaceable citizens face a growing need to defend themselves against mobs of feral young savages, many legislators hope to make self-defense against large hordes of brutal assailants vastly more difficult, by outlawing so-called “high capacity” magazines.

Granted, the sorts of young thugs whose cowardice tends to dictate that they choose lone victims, while themselves numbering sometimes in the dozens, would seem unlikely to continue to press an attack as their would-be victim fires 10 shots into their fellow predators, it would be a mistake to expect any rationality from the kind of creature who finds entertainment in brutalizing innocent people.

The only prudent course is to be equipped stop all of them. And at some point those public officials who have chosen to stand with the thugs, rather than their would-be victims, will need to be dealt with.