Quote Originally Posted by InsaneApache View Post
Let's have a quick look at some of the current 'rules'.

It's OK to bayonet, shoot, stab, nuke, blow up, strangle people.

It's not OK to use landmines, gas, lasers(to blind), starve people.

Either way you're dead. Why does it matter if you get bayonetted (good) but not blinded by a laser (bad)?

Thats why it's ridiculous.
All of the second list that you have there have far larger civilian repercussions. The first list (Baring Nuclear Weapons, which IMO should be in the second list seeing as there are treaties which have attempted to remove them and public opinion is almost entirely against thie ruse in warfare) almost always only kill a single person - mostly a soldier.

To take Landmines as an example of why we need treaties to stop the use of inhumane weapons. My grandmother and grandfather do a lot of charity work in south-east Asia. They brought back video footage of them in a camp where many civilians who had had limbs blown off by landmines lived in a colony. There were children there with only 1 leg, or 1 arm. This is wrong and there is no way that people can continue to justify the use of weapons with potential civilian effects after seeing stuff like that. I watched the video and I could not help but think just how unjust the use of such weapons are. THAT is why they need to be banned.

However, if that isn't enough then just look at the statistics:
  • In 2006 a total 5,751 casualties from mines, ERW and victim-activated IEDs were recorded in 68 countries and areas, including 1,367 people killed and 4,296 injured (88 were unknown).
  • The actual total number of mine/ERW/victim-activated IED casualties is unknown but certainly higher than 5,751, as data collection is inadequate or non-existent in 64 of 68 countries with recorded casualties.
  • As in previous years, in 2006 civilians accounted for three-quarters of recorded casualties and children were 34 percent of civilian casualties, nearly all boys.
  • Some 24 percent of casualties were military; this increase from 2005 (19 percent) is due to one country, Colombia, which accounts for 57 percent of all military casualties. Excluding Colombia, 12 percent of casualties would be military.