However, Detective X said police sometimes misuse their weapons: “A few years ago, an officer on duty used his gun to kill himself — clearly non-designated usage, so that’s a crime.” He was charged posthumously to publicly show that even the dead can’t get away with breaking the firearms laws, and to shame his family. It may seem like overkill but it drives home the point.
Source: Even gangsters live in fear of Japan’s gun laws | The Japan Times
Go read the article. You may need anti-acid after you are done.
Even understanding that Japan has nothing that looks like a tenth generation xerocopy of our Bill Or Rights, the lengths that the government goes to control guns is simply mind-blowing. If it does not confirm once and for all that gun control is about control and not about the guns, I don’t know what else could be.
“Japan is basically a place where only yakuza and cops have guns,”
Never heard a version of that one, Have we?
It’s a different culture there. A lot of our ways of viewing the world do not apply – especially the concept of “rights being infringed”.
Your thesis would have been better applied to the gun control of Mexico or Brazil or just about any sub-Saharan country where the general population suffers the consequences of living with no means to defend against those who both have guns and are willing to use them if for no other reason than to prove they posses more power than you.
stay safe.
I’m somewhat suspicious of all the “yakuzas are ditching their guns” spiel.
I assume they’re just getting much better at hiding them and using them sparingly.
Even for huge organisations like these you need to show some teeth from time to time to keep the coercion going.
Japan has some of the oldest gun laws on the books. Dating back to when the gun was introduced to Japan. And yes, it has everything to do with control.
Japan was known for its swords. The sword is an expert’s weapon, taking years to master. That is why, throughout history conscript soldiers were issued spears or pole arms, they are easy to train formations to use.
The ruling class of Japan (the Shogun) used the swordsmen class (Samurai) as enforcers. Most people don’t realize the Samurai were tax collectors and bullies to the Japanese peasants. The Samurai were able to maintain control for the Shogun because as part of the aristocracy, they could dedicate their lives to swordsmanship instead of farming, so an unskilled farmer was unlikely to be bale to defeat a Samurai in combat. Still, the right to own or carry a sword was limited to the Samurai and Shogun class. Peasants were not allowed to poses swords, on pain of death.
When the gun reached Japan, it was learned very quickly that a peasant with a gun could kill even the best Samurai at a distance with little training. So the Japanese cracked down on guns. All guns became property of the Shogun and all gunsmiths operated with Shogun permission with the manufacture of guns (we’re talking about 15th century matchlocks here) tightly regulated. The gun, like the sword, became a weapon of the Samurai class.
The Japanese understood that weapon control was the key to maintaining control of the peasantry. Which is why the Japanese held on to feudalism until 1868, several centuries after it had disappeared through the rest of the world.
Could we send them a shipment of Bloomberg, Watts and Everett? Sound like their kind of place.
Kathy Shaidle has a post up today that references the Japanese and gun control:
Dear mayor of Hamilton: Japan’s murder rate is low because it’s full of Japanese people…
Not because it doesn’t have a lot of guns.
http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/#JIaXwMA44wWpbaO2.99
I didn’t realize when I copied the header for that, that the link would be included. Oh well I’ll leave it since the post is a video of John Lott being interviewed by Brian Lilley of Rebel Media.
But they do have the highest suicide rate in the world.
But they don’t commit suicide with guns, so in the eyes of the anti-rights crowd those suicides don’t matter.
It was a classy touch to put the dead officer on trial, to shame the family.
I’ll call BS on the Yaks not having guns… They have them, and swords too… The Japanese may downplay it, but crime is there. Just like hiring ‘models’ from America and Europe, taking their passports and forcing them into prostitution… or the JN only clubs where anything goes.
Japanese culture is intense in some circumstances. Being frantic about a shell-count coming up short has less to do with an exaggerated fear of a stray bullet getting into the wrong hands, then it does with the Japanese penchant for perfection in all things relating to one’s profession. If a team of gardeners came up one rake short at the end of the day, they wouldn’t rest till they found their weapon of choice either.