Guns, Knives, Machetes, People

ANOTHER incident in the news of someone attacking others with a machete. On top of kids knifing each other and shooting teachers at school and people driving their vehicles into crowds, speeding off after they’ve hit someone crossing the street, or using that tonnage of metal to crash into storefronts to steal whatever they can get their hands on.

This is not a gun problem, a machete problem, or a knife problem. Nor, as statistics show, is it a mental health problem. It boils down to being a SOCIETY problem.

It has become acceptable to disagree with others not through discussion and dialog but through violence, name-calling, fact-twisting half truths, downright lies. It’s righteous to pervert our religion to allow us to violate people’s rights and humanity. It’s somehow okay for people to turn a peaceful demonstration into a riot that destroys property of people who aren’t even related to the issue. The “us vs. them” attitude has isolated us into political, ethnic, religious, ideological, and emotional groups, each ready to commit any violence that gets back at “them” just for existing.

No, it’s not the weapons that are tearing our country apart, or even the people using those weapons. It’s US, OURSELVES condoning attitudes that allow the self-destructive violence.

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