Outlaw Guns and Machetes And Violence Will Persist
September 1, 2004

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

It’s been over 3,000 years since Moses came down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments tablets, one of the most important of which was “Thou Shall Not Murder.”

The Judeo-Christian religions are not the only ones that condemn violence against friends, relatives or strangers. Murder is almost universally condemned by every religion and philosophy.

But evil people still murder other people after thousands of years of condemnation, and if a rock is not the murder weapon as it was in the Cain and Abel case, it might be guns, knives, machetes, baseball bats—as in the recent slayings of six people in one Florida household—and even fists and feet. As a matter of fact, one is more likely to be punched or kicked to death than to be shot with semi-automatic firearms that some like to call “assault weapons.”

Unfortunately, social engineers, politicians and hand-wringers like to blame the tool rather than the evil in the hearts and minds of the murderers. Blaming the weapon is not just a waste of time; it deflects society from any possible real solution to the sub-cultures of violence.

Massachusetts, for example, has had some of the strictest gun laws in the United States for several decades. The state requires the licensing of all gunowners and mandates a year in prison for anyone caught with an unlicensed firearm. In addition, cities like Boston have initiated several programs designed specifically to address violence prone youth.

Machetes
But that hasn’t stopped the murders and mayhem committed by Boston youth.

The Boston Globe reported in mid-August that city police are seeing a surge in gang attacks using machetes. Having made it difficult for youth gangs or anyone else to acquire firearms legally, Boston—where there is underworld rental commerce in untraceable “crime” guns—still has a problem with youth violence. Now the police report a surge in the number of gang-related attacks involving machetes, the huge knives that are a ubiquitous tool in rural Latin America, some with blades as thick as an axe and nearly as long as a sword.

The troubling trend has led some departments to crack down on machetes, and not just in urban areas. Some suburban communities have also enacted new laws to ban the big blades, The Globe reported.

In July, during a sweep of gang members in the Massachusetts cities of Boston, Lynn, Revere, Chelsea, Everett and Somerville, police seized not just machetes, but more exotic weapons, including Chinese throwing stars and a Japanese metal chain whip.

But machetes, which can be easily obtained at garden or camping stores, are by far the most popular of the alternative weapons.

The surge in machete attacks has gained less attention than recent gun-related homicides in Boston parks, despite a spate of attacks that have left at least four Massachusetts men hospitalized this Spring and Summer from machete wounds.

“It seems to be that machetes are the weapon of choice,” Detective Brian Kyes, a spokesman for the Chelsea Police, told The Globe. “In the past couple of years, we’ve confiscated at least 50 machetes that have been used in crimes in the city.”

Needless to say, some Hispanic community leaders say the use of machetes in crime has tarnished the image of a useful tool used to cut sugarcane or clear underbrush.

“For people in El Salvador, the machete is not looked at as a weapon,” said Luis Morales, who grew up there. He is now the pastor at the Vida Real Evangelical Center in Somerville. Members of Boston’s Hispanic community often hang machetes on living room walls as a reminder of home, farming or gardening.

Some say they are dismayed that the machete is increasingly being seen as a weapon.

“What about baseball bats? They are also used in gang-related attacks. Even a shoe can be considered a weapon if someone uses it to hit someone else,” Morales, told The Globe. He demonstrates a better understanding of a larger problem than many in politics and the media have forgotten, including the recent genocide in Rwanda where machetes accounted for almost half the slayings.

Japan
But, some might say, the Bay State’s struggle to control crime by controlling easily obtained tools which can be converted to weapons by those with evil intent is a relatively new strategy to deal with the problem. They advise giving it more time.

But if more time worked, a nation like Japan, which has controlled swords and guns for centuries and still can’t solve the problem, it’s time to change tactics and find a new way to address the issue.

The Washington Post highlighted the failure of tool control with an Aug. 9 story from Sasebo, Japan.

On a cloudless afternoon in this sleepy port city, The Post story began, an 11-year-old girl drenched in blood and clutching a box cutter walked into the lunchroom at her elementary school. Teachers and students froze, assuming the sixth-grader known for her lighthearted nature had gravely hurt herself—but she quickly dispelled that impression, witnesses said, by uttering a few chilling words: “This is not my blood.”

Minutes later, teachers found Satomi Mitarai, a 12-year-old girl, lying in a pool of gore in an empty classroom overlooking the sandy playground at Okubo Elementary School. The 11-year-old killer, according to her own admissions as recounted in interviews with school officials and counselors, had led Satomi, remembered for her toothy grin, into the room. The attacker drew the curtains before slitting her victim’s throat and brutally kicking the dying girl’s head and sides, according to those interviewed, The Post reported.

That killing in June marked the latest and one of the most extreme in an extraordinary series of youth crimes in Japan—including a number perpetrated by children who did not show unusual behavior beforehand. In many of the cases, the children involved seemed to snap without warning, in fits of kireru—“sudden acts of rage.”

The surge in youth violence has sparked calls for a reassessment of the increasingly violent and sexually charged youth culture in Japan, now exported worldwide through animation, comic strips and video games.

The young killer in Sasebo, whose name is being withheld under Japanese law, was an avid fan of “Battle Royale,” a popular teen movie turned Internet game in which students kill one another through blood sport. Although the girl is still undergoing psychological evaluation, she is believed to have been set off by a seemingly minor offense: the victim, one of the girl’s closest friends, once called her “overweight” and “prissy” on a website.

Familiar Comments
In what is typical following seemingly senseless and incomprehensible acts of violence, one of the first things reported was that the killer “seemed so normal” or quiet.

“What is so scary is that she seemed normal to us in every way,” said Masashi Watanabe, head of the Sasebo Children’s Counseling Center, whose staff interviewed the girl after the killing, according to The Post. “She did not seem like a troubled girl; there were no warning signs picked up by her teachers or parents. She could have been any of our children.”

In recent years—particularly since 1997, when a 14-year-old boy cut off the head of an 11-year-old and left it at the entrance gate of his school—Japan has experienced a rising tide of serious youth crimes, including arson, assault, rape, manslaughter and premeditated murder. Incidents of violence on school grounds have increased fivefold in Japan over the past decade to 29,300 in 2002, leading the national Mainichi newspaper to warn of Japanese schoolyards descending “into battlefields.” Violence by younger children in particular has risen rapidly, with the number of minors under 14 processed for violent crime increasing 47% in 2003 from a year earlier.

But all of this will not convince leaders to look for solutions dealing with convicted or prospective criminals other than controlling guns, machetes, swords or violent videos.