On July 14, a truck loaded with explosives and other arms drove into a large crowd in Nice, France during celebrations for Bastille Day. While the specific reason behind the terrorist attack is still unknown, at least 84 individuals—including children—were killed, and many more were left injured.

Along with this horrific event, there have been a few other major attacks that have occurred in 2016 alone. Surrounded by all these killings, it's hard not to think that the world is becoming more and more violent. According to the news, and in the face of all these horrible attacks, people are becoming more hateful and less tolerant of those they believe are different from themselves.

So what can we do to make the world safer, to make it less terrifying and harmful?

One obvious solution to this problem is to bring justice to those who have been wronged. Of course, the French and other assisting governments are doing everything they can to tie up the loose ends in this case and punish those responsible for such devastation. People that chose to commit a hate crime need to be properly held accountable, and the families affected by that crime need to be give any amount of closure possible for their losses. As stated before, those actions are expected and already underway.

But what else is there to be done? How can we stop terrorist attacks before they happen, or stop them from happening again?

Now, the likelihood of ending all terrorism ever is practically nonexistent, but that doesn't mean that people can't work toward that goal nonetheless. Terrorism is a hate crime, and hate crimes are roused by one major emotion: hate.

Children are taught at a young age to believe certain inaccurate stereotypes about others around them. People learn to see the world as separated into "us" (those that look, act and think alike) and "them" (anyone who even slightly deviates from those imagined standards). This grouping mentality leads to an unwarranted sense of fear toward those who are different (whether that difference applies to coloration, race, religion, sexual orientation, political views, or social class). This can then grow into an unjustified feeling of hatred, which is where we get racism, sexism and especially terrorism.

So, yes, we need to continue finding those certain individuals who purposefully harm others because of wrongful hatred. Of course we need to stop those who feel the need to perform terrorist attacks. But if we don't also stop passing down centuries' worth of hatred for the hypothetical "them" and begin to see all humans as an equalized "us," then we will never grow, and terrorism will continue destroying innocent lives.