Humans have fashioned weapons from anything to everything in the quest to kill or wound another since the beginning of time. From early civilization using a rock or sharp stick to the sophisticated killing machines of today. It is possible to kill someone with your bare hands if you are bigger and stronger.
What is that emotion that wells up inside a person that would enrage them enough to snuff out a life? Retribution for a crime committed is one reason someone could use. Why, after all… I wanted to kill my father-in-law when I found out what he had done to my small girls years ago after they had confided the truth to me as adults. I could not carry my rage to a physical realty because he already died by the time I found out. A blessing for me in many ways, obviously.
Serial killers, mass shooters, rapists, so many ways one can inflict pain upon another.
How do we stop these things?
The decades old and continuing dialogue have done nothing to prevent these crimes which seem to be getting more frequent and deadly. Mental health is rarely addressed in society and the sheer number of suffering people defies understanding. Is the spiritual component missing from our lives? I believe that is what we all yearn for…something real that touches ones heart.
The nurturing of “spirit” in our lives begins in infancy. We all are broken and we all need that connection to the “Divine”. Not just tradition and habits, but daily acknowledgement and gratitude for life. If every person woke up to that…maybe weapons and using them for harm to another will become a scene we view less often.