Time to Bury the Hatchet Machete?

Councilwoman Diana Reyna of Brooklyn is considering a bill to ban the sale of machetes, The NY Times reports. For those familiar with the recent gang activity in Brooklyn, the Williamsburg area especially, Reyna's desire to ban the weapon should come as no surprise. This year there have been a number of machete attacks, allegedly all gang-related.

For at least one gang, the Trinitarios, the machete is their weapon of choice — practically an identifying trademark — even showing them off on their YouTube videos. The Times reports that the local gang "has adopted the name — and evidently, the preferred weapon — of a revolutionary group that fought against Haiti during the Dominican Republic’s struggle for independence in 1844."

Currently machetes can be found at hardware stores, which stock them for gardening purposes — but New Yorkers can probably find another way to tend to their patches of green. As for the bigger problem, the rise of gang violence (with or without this particular weapon), Luis Garden Acosta, president of El Puente Williamsburg community development group, tells the paper that gangs are a growing concern amongst the organization, and they're currently discussing the problem with the 90th Precinct. He notes that the lure for kids to join gangs likely has to do with the "abrupt gentrification," saying, “From the perspective of a young person, this is a community that does not care for him or her. Out of that milieu, you have some young people who rebel.”

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By Jen Carlson in News on November 2, 2008 11:08 AM

Comments [rss]

kchu

Well something needs to be done...I got attacked by a group of YOUNG kids in South Williamsburg on Halloween.

Where are their parents? Who lets their 12 year old out until 1 am?

NannyState

There's always guns. Guns will always be there for them.

Snoopy

If you outlaw machetes, only outlaws will have machetes.

Have you ever seen the New York Parks department average worker? I would check them out for possibly smuggling machetes into the city and selling them on the black market.

r1b2

This is stupid. Who needs a machete in Brooklyn? Who's cutting a path through the cane fields in Flatlands? Stop selling them. End of line.

Spirit of 76

I really don't think there is any jungle in the five boroughs.

Sure, there are. Go to Jamaica Bay. Or darkest Staten Island. Plenty of vegetation to hack through. Although the park rangers might get a little peeved if you did it at Jamaica. Bronx Botanical Garden isn't bad, either, although they frown upon that there, too.

Snoopy

Japanese crosscut saws are mean mothers, thin and razor sharp.

All metal objects should be banned, including cars and trains.

Wza

Won't change a thing. Box cutters were banned years ago and people still get attacked.

Scout1

Hey, it's working for guns. Why not give it a chance? I mean, since they've been outlawed it's like you never even hear about them anymore.

longacre

#14. I hope they don't ban sickles and piss off Brighton Beach.

babyhitler

#13- they would have to file down the handle of a small hand saw or they could use serrated bread knives. those suckers look deadly.

Toby von Meistersinger

Machetes for gardening purposes?

I really don't think there is any jungle in the five boroughs.

emilydickinson

I'm much more afraid of gangs attacking me with The Garden Weasel, that has 5 stainless steel rotating blades. We need to ban those immediately. Think of the children.

leepresson

Just a more up-to-date version of "Die Yuppie Scum" isn't it?

thefacts

Los Macheteros, an indigenous nationalist group in Puerto Rico, supports the Independence of P.R. from the USA. Here, their counterpart was the FALN, which did bombings in the 70s. Puerto Rican Weathermen. Whatever.

Ms. Reyna might wind up getting a lot of Bourinquen nationalists and Indpendistas here and in PR really upset with her if she goes ahead with this, demonizing the machete. It is like banning the shillelagh, another peasant's weapon against colonialism. The Irish wouldn't like that.

What's next? My Solingen kitchen knife?

Spirit of 76

[7] Saws? Really? That would be interesting. I've never heard of an attack with a saw. Although a chainsaw might work, even if they're a little hard to conceal. The New York Chainsaw Massacre?

I'm waiting for the power hedge-trimmer assaults. Or weedwackers.

jchez

#9 Supernova already pointed out what was my first thought; the outrage of these idiots taking the name of a patriotic movement, which is revered in its country of origin as a way to make themselves feel more important instead of the lowlifes they really are.

Re #5 Snoopy, machetes are very good at clearing thick overgrowth and thick vines and they can easily be obtained in Yonkers, New Jersey and Long Island.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

A machete should be used on Reyna for her vote to extend term limits. She is a joke. This is what the city council does? waste our money on all these useless bill?

mrnosuch

I am sure a state-wide ban of a widely available gardening implement will stop gang activity. No one would ever think of looking elsewhere for it. And I doubt there's access to other sharp edged items.

Also, perhaps a ban on criminal activity while they are it. That would most assuredly stop crime too.

At least stupid people can find work as a legislator. That's comforting.

SeasTooFarToReach

Just to comment on the barbarity of their name:

Los Trinitarios was the name of the ideological group that plotted the independence movement in the Dominican Republic.

As one could imagine, not only minds and ideas work into a revolutionary fight, so they employed "work force", meaning peasants all throughout the land, whose precarious economic condition did not allowed them to buy actual weapon so they'd use what was at their disposal, most commonly machetes - use to work in the land up until this day and age.

They were not barbarians going out into the street to hack people to death, like these bunch of assholes.

Makes me incredibly mad, as a dominican, that they'd use this name for a non-purpose gang bang activity.

Also the name, trinitaria, referred to Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Banning machetes does absolutely nothing to solve this problem. Do you think these people care about obtaining them illegally? My guess is no.