And the Gurkhas of the Indian/ British armies knows to use one well.
Posted on 03/08/2006 7:52:54 AM PST by Travis McGee
They have the heft of an ax, a blade nearly as long as a sword, and the intimidation power to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
Cheap and easily bought, machetes in America have commonly been reserved for underbrush and sugar-cane cutting. But now, in a spreading trend that so far has drawn little national attention, criminals are using machetes as weapons, striking fear in cities and towns across the country.
Witness these recent incidents:
In the heartland Indiana city of Evansville in February, a robber pulled a machete on a convenience-store cashier, who put up no fight when the bad guy demanded the cash box.
In Corpus Christi, Texas, a 22-year-old gang member pleaded guilty in January to the machete slaying of an 82-year-old man in a drug-addled attack.
And in Greenville, N.J., during a Jan. 20 argument over a borrowed drill, a suspect known as "Shy" slashed an apartment resident so severely with a machete that the victim's shinbone broke.
Although machete-related crimes are occurring from Florida to Washington state and Maine to California, they have only recently begun to reach the radar screens of law-enforcement and government officials nationwide. No official count of the incidence of such crimes exists.
While they are more common in places with sizable Latin American and Caribbean immigrant populations, machete offenses also are cropping up elsewhere. In February alone, crimes involving machetes were reported in San Jose, Calif.; Atlantic City, N.J.; Republic, Wash.; Tampa, Fla.; and Mount Pleasant, Mich. While some of the suspects and victims in those cases had Hispanic or "Island" surnames, others did not. Abetting the spread is the wide availability and low cost of the tool. A machete with a 21-inch-long blade can be bought at most home-improvement stores for $10, sometimes less.
One jurisdiction that is wrestling with machete problem is Fairfax County, Va., a sprawling suburb of Washington. Police there have tallied more than 110 machete cases in recent years. Most were linked to gangs, particularly the notorious and fast-expanding Latino gang Mara Salvatrucha, whose members have been identified in more than two-dozen states. Also known as MS-13, the ga ng has adopted machetes as the weapon of choice, at least partly because of the fear the blades engender with their implied threat of gruesome wounds or even death.
"In the last 10 years, we've seen an increasing number of horrific attacks with machetes," Fairfax County Police Maj. Frank Wernlein told a state legislative committee last month.
One of the worst was the 2005 assault on a 24-year-old man who was jumped by several MS-13 members when leaving a movie theater. An attacker, who was since convicted, sliced off three of the victim's fingers. "They're vicious attacks that cause a great deal of fear," said Virginia House of Delegates member Vivian Watts, one of the few legislators in the country to push for new laws to combat machete-related crime. Watts, who is sponsoring a bill to make it unlawful to brandish a machete with the intent to intimidate, said the machete menace quickly took root in her area, and she warned that the same could happen in other parts of the country.
"In a very short period of time, the use of machetes has become a very serious problem," she said this week. That was the case as well in the Boston area, where a rise in gang violence involving machetes occurred in the past several years. The surrounding towns of Revere, Everett, Lynn and Chelsea have banned machetes, and there is now a bill before the Massachusetts Senate that would prohibit the carrying, sale and manufacture of the tool-turned-weapon.
Law-enforcement experts say that localities with large numbers of immigrants from Latin and Caribbean countries _ where machetes are ubiquitous and commonly imbued with symbolism _ are likely to witness more machete-related offenses.
Bill Johnson, a former prosecutor in Miami in the late 1980s, said that was the case in that city after a mass influx of Haitians occurred when he was there. "My observation was that it was a cultural thing," said Johnson, now executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations.
Alex del Carmen, a criminology professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, agreed. Long a part of daily life in Latin America, where they are considered the tool _ and weapon _ of the poor, machetes became the symbol of the power of the peasantry after their use in revolts against Spanish rule and in the 1959 communist revolution in Cuba. Del Carmen said that romantic history might also add to the allure of the weapon and its spread. But he said it is the machete's inherent menace that is its greatest draw.
"It's very intimidating, particularly in places where you haven't seen them very much before," del Carmen said.
When it becomes harder for law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms for their personal protection, criminals don't even need to go to the trouble of obtaining their own guns to terrorize citizens. A $10-$20 machete is sufficient when you're reasonably sure that no one you're threatening is carrying. You can thank the gun grabbers for this new development. If all guns were outlawed, then criminals would use machetes and knives. If sharp objects were outlawed then criminals would use rocks and clubs.
On Grand Caymen Gangs of machete wielding thugs separated people from their belongings after Hurricane Ivan. There is strict gun control on Grand Cayman.
And the Gurkhas of the Indian/ British armies knows to use one well.
You have a much better chance of winning Powerball than of being attacked by a machete-weilding gang-banger.
This is too much. Instead of focusing on the very real problem posed by MS 13 and its young affiliates, they want to focus on --get ready for it--
A TOOL.
Don't blame me when they come for Black & Decker.
A machete is easier to make then a STEN Submachinegun. Will be hard to ban.
Non-sequitur. Law-abiding citizens have little trouble obtaining firearms for their personal protection in Virginia ... even in the Peoples' Republic of Fairfax. Illegal aliens won't be able to get them from normal channels, though ...
I wonder if Glock, or someone else, will develop a non-metallic machete that will elude metal detectors. Perhaps one made out of whatever B-2 bombers are made out of. Or fiberglass....Hey, 1-800-invention, listen to this....
parsy, who tries to think a step ahead.
An armed citizen with a .357 or a 9mm can out-intimidate a machete carrying thug anyday.
This smells of a new push by the 'progressives' for new weapons laws in attempt to regulate and ban knives by the tried and true incremental method.
Mr. Machete---meet Mr. 357 Mag
bump
Media hype. Media creates news.
I hate the media.
LOL!!! beat me to the punch line! Haven't been without a machete in 30 years! We don't have a problem with machete's...we have a problem with thugs.
Have a look at Cold Steel's "Nightshade" series of knife replicas. They're basically super sharp pieces of fiberglass:
http://www.coldsteel.com/nise.html
A better solution would be to make mere membership in MS-13 a crime punishable under RICO laws. But that would be 'racist', wouldn't it, because their members are not white males ...
Political correctness is going to destroy this nation if we don't end it NOW.
I hate flying ... can't carry my blade with me. At least I can put it in checked, and get dressed again at my detination.
Yep, let the MS13 thugs keep wandering around freely; just take away their machetes. That'll fix the problem. < /s>
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.