Garth Rattray | World’s deadliest weapons

Sticks and stones may indeed break our bones; they were our first weapons. They were sometimes used to pummel people to death. Then they evolved into sharpened sticks and stones that were thrown or propelled from a sling. The ‘sticks’ morphed into sharpened metallic objects (swords, spears and metal-tipped arrows) and the ‘stones’ morphed into missiles (metal bullets and heavy artillery).

But our propensity for killing one another didn’t end there; we improved on our delivery systems. Our guns became more powerful and more efficient, and our quest for killing went on to invent bombs, deadly chemicals and deadly biological weapons. From poison gases in the trenches during the First World War, simple rifles, machine guns and flame throwers, mortars, tanks, war planes, war ships and submarines, to thermonuclear devices designed to detonate in the air and wipe out hundreds of thousands, and even millions, in milliseconds. Their destruction is meant to be generational.

Deadly weapons have become super-efficient, some even employ modern technology to kill from miles away. Satellites can observe, locate and acquire targets from orbit and guide missiles into windows to kill at the press of a button or click of a mouse. The legal and illegal arms trade nets hundreds of billions of US dollars annually.

However, in spite of our advancement in lethal weaponry, the world’s deadliest weapons are not knives, guns, chemicals, missiles or bombs of any kind; the world’s deadliest weapons are people…troubled children in particular. As utopic as it may appear, if children were nurtured properly, only unforeseen psychotic issues would cause violence and killings.

Researcher/neuroscientist Professor James Fallon discovered that he shared many personality traits with psychopaths and serial murderers. He credits his normal and very productive life to the love and respect that he received during his childhood.

We know that the aggression, selfishness, corruption, indiscipline, violence and murders in our country have roots within the troubled, abused and stressed-out minds of society’s youths; yet we are not doing enough to remedy the situation. Instead, we focus on law enforcement and penal penalties (with little or no success) to treat the manifestations of a societal disease while doing relatively little to prevent the disease itself.

That outburst by the Pembroke Hall High School teacher is only the tip of a very expansive and dangerous iceberg. I know teachers who have to deal with disrespectful children spewing foul language and vile insults at them, smoking weed openly in the classroom, disruptive behaviour, being hit by chalk and dusters, and frequent threats of violence.

WE CREATE THEM

We need a driver’s licence to operate (potentially deadly) motor vehicles and we need to make certain that they are fit for the road. Those interested in owning a (lethal) firearm have to go through extensive investigations, interviews, constant re-certification and proficiency testing. Yet, although people are the world’s deadliest weapons, parents produce children willy-nilly and are allowed to raise them without any structure or oversight. They often marinate them in a stew of indifference, aggression, hate, fear and abuse.

It was an excellent innovation to issue Child Health and Development Passports, but we need to observe, monitor, document and (if necessary) improve the physical and social circumstances of our nation’s children. Every child should be visited unannounced and intermittently to observe how they are being raised.

Children are being weaponised when subjected to a fragmented family structure, rank poverty, a lack of proper social amenities, abuse, aggression, violence all around them, fear, explosive anger and endless hate.

People often wonder how criminals commit horrific crimes/murders and if they get high on drugs to maim and kill mercilessly – we created these blood-thirsty murderers and they are high on hate. Hosea 8:7 – “For they sow the wind…and they reap the whirlwind”.

- Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com