In a nation that long ago outlawed the right to bear arms, a terrorist attack with knives left a train station flowing with blood:

At least 28 people have been killed and 113 injured after a group of knife-wielding men hacked their way through innocent people at one of China’s busiest railway stations.

Distressing photos circulating online showed bodies, pools of blood and abandoned luggage scattered across the terminal floor at Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province.

Authorities described the incident at about 9.20pm local time (1.20pm GMT) as an ‘organised, premeditated, violent terrorist attack’ in which at least 10 people stabbed commuters outside the station terminal before moving inside.

The attack only ended as police—armed with the guns that China denies its citizens—shot dead five of the attackers including the man in the photo above. Five more attackers fled the scene, and are the subject of a manhunt.

One has to wonder if even one civilian had been armed with a concealed weapon if lives might have been saved.

Knife attacks with horrendous body counts are nothing new in China’s recent history.

27 people were killed in a knife attack against a police station in the Xinjiang region last year, and there was a knife attack against an elementary school in the city of Chenpeng that injured 23 the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.

In a nation where the inalienable right to armed self defense is not recognized, a weapon a simple as a kitchen knife can kill and injure dozens.

Maybe a group of ignorant souls there should start a group demanding “knife sense.”