A harrowing incident in the Japanese city of Sagamihara is a reminder that violence occurs in manifold ways. In Japan — a nation that experiences very few gun-related homicides because there are virtually no guns — its residents are mourning a mass stabbing spree that occurred in the early hours of Tuesday, leaving 19 dead and 26 others with lacerations. The attack, which happened inside a caregiving facility for the mentally handicapped, was orchestrated by a former employee who afterward said, “It’s better that disabled people disappear.”

While the motives differ, it’s worth considering that the number of fatalities this morning in Japan is higher than the San Bernardino, Chattanooga, Fort Hood and Boston terrorist attacks. It’s also higher than the Charleston, Dallas and Baton Rouge killings. None of this is to exploit or downplay any particular incident but simply to point out that the degree of tragedy is not dependent on the use of firearms. Just look at what recently happened in Nice, France, where an Islamist used a vehicle to take 84 innocent lives. Nor are knife attacks unprecedented. Not far from Japan, it’s borderline routine.

In China, 10 children were knifed earlier this year. But it gets worse. In October, also in China, 50 were killed after being stabbed. And in 2014, 29 people were slashed to death in China’s Kunming Railway Station, and another 130 sustained wounds. A Google search will reveal numerous other examples. When guns aren’t readily available, other equally lethal instruments are. The question is: Why does the media not consider knife-related fatalities worthy of the same coverage as gun-related ones?

To dig a bitter deeper into the core issue, consider the problem of evil.

“We didn’t know the darkness of his heart,” said one man when he found out that his neighbor Satoshi Uematsu was the one responsible for the stabbing spree in Japan. It was later reported that Uematsu’s motive was to advance his agenda of “a world in which the severely disabled can be euthanized, with their guardians’ consent, if they are unable to live at home and be active in society.” Darkness indeed.

When mass murders happen, especially like those recently experienced in the United States and Europe, the Left rushes to assign blame for the crimes onto some external considerations — the weapon used if it’s a firearm, or matters of social injustice or racial prejudice. For the Left, individuals are never the primary culprit of the crime. Somehow or other the evil must be blamed primarily on society and it’s lack of “progress.”

Why is this the position that liberals take when it comes to crime? Why always find ways to blame objects or circumstances rather than those individuals and their expressed motives? While there may be many reasons given, the one constant is that of an unyielding belief in the ability of the government to solve these ills if only given greater power to do so. Leftists do not want to admit that the root cause of evil in the world resides primarily in the hearts and minds of people; that everyone on the planet is born with this evil disposition toward selfishness rather than selflessness.

So, as we see yet another tragic example of unchecked evil displayed in the terrible acts of murder in Japan, let us be reminded that no matter how good and powerful a government may be, it will never be able to transform the core disposition of people — only God can do that.