Hello everyone, tonight I have two articles to talk about. Reuters’ article is over police wanting to be able to dictate over open carry laws. Washington Post’s article is over U.S.A. citizens living in Japan, which feels allegedly “like a haven” in comparison over gun crime.
Reuters’ reporter remained neutral and reported over how some police want to have the ability to regulate open carry of firearms, such as the desire of some to restrict it for Cleveland during the Republican National Convention right now. Open-carry advocates were included throughout and how being able to open carry is a right. (I do have things to say about this article, but it wouldn’t be anything all that impressive.)
The Washington Post article is comparing apples and oranges by comparing Japan’s gun homicide number to the United States of America’s number. According to them, the numbers were 1 to 13,000. “Japan has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the developed world, while the United States has the highest.” Now this is gold. Compare a country were owning a gun is a crime with apparently harsh penalties to a country were owning a gun is a right. Of course the U.S.A. has a higher rate, we simply have more guns in the population. The article continues on to use emotions of past events and false impressions.
The reporter decided to relay some people’s personal stories. Now, I do believe personal stories are good to know. It gives the vibe of how some people feel about an event. It does not always consider the whole picture of something. The article is solely focused on American citizens who are not sure about moving back to their home country after fear of mass shootings. The first story is over Sibyl Kane, who was about to fly to Newark. She allegedly has to drive past Sandy Hook Elementary, which is “a reminder that “no place is immune.” She also said, “If Americans are okay with that, that says something about us as a society that is so profoundly disturbing, it’s hard for me to parse out where I fit into it.”
From this logic, I suppose that if something happens, then people are okay with it? Who has ever said that a mass shooting was okay? There is no “If Americans are okay with that”- we aren’t. We can’t all agree on how to deter these acts in the future, but none of us are okay with it.
Emotional one-liners follow. Things like, “I’d rather explain a natural disaster than a shooter lockdown” and “I know shootings are rare, but why play Russian roulette?”
Apparently the Japanese government released a travel warning after the Orlando shooting and shootings in Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, and Dallas.
One man was covered who said he wanted to return home because he felt helpless by being so far away.
So, Abigail Leonard, the Washington Post reporter, went all out on making Japan sound so much better than the U.S.A. based off of gun crime- which is extremely hard to compare when talking about culture, population size, geographic, history, and gun ownership differences. I didn’t see a comparison over suicide rates? Or mention of ethnic or other diversity, poverty, or any other factors of violence.
My final thoughts are: try to see a bigger picture of what you are looking at, and don’t give false impressions about other perspectives.
On that note, I leave you tonight and will be back tomorrow to pick up on it. It is late, and I need some sleep.
Update: I originally forgot sources!
So, the “no place is immune” reporter, if she travels to Japan, could drive by Hiroshima & Nagasaki…to quote her…”is she ok with that?”…and, her japanese gun-free utopia also doesn’t allow the koran, doesn’t allow its importation and has very strict rules on muslim immigration…is she ok with that or is she just another gun-hater?
JD, I’m afraid your information about the ban of the koran in Japan is based on misinformation: If you search for “japan ban quran” you’ll find a lot of sources coutering that. Japan does not ban the qu’ran and does not limit the immigration based on religion.
It is, however, one of the most culturally homogenous countries in the world, which makes for a weak comparison with the US.
Besides that, the comparison between Sandy Hook and Nagasaki/Hiroshima is interesting. Having visited Hiroshima, it seems to,me that the Japanese actually felt so very “not okay” with what happened that they went to great lengths to do something about its causes. The majors of Hiroshima for example make a point to protest every single atomic test world-wide, which is quite a collection. The ground zero exhibitions are fascinating and the famous origami crane/Sadako Sasaki thing is kinda heartbreaking.
The thing I always find funny is you have these countries and societies that have existed in some way for centuries with very violent pasts comparing themselves to the USA a fledgling nation by comparison. When you take that into context the USA still has lots of catch-up to ay before it get close to meeting the level of bloodshed in Europe throughout the course of history.
Hmmm, that is a weird take on it:
If “nation” is a political construct, the US is the world’s oldest working democracy, not a fledgling nation.
If “nation” is a historical construct, it flows straight from all those old European countries, sharing their history of bloodshed. The only questions would be when exactly they separated (1492? 1776?) and whether there was more bloodshed or less after they separated (relative? absolute?) – something that is not easily decided.
You make a good point, I was not precise enough with my terms/wording.
My general idea is that Japan for example has been a mostly isolated society/country that operated under generally the same norms and culture and in that sense you can loosely consider it under the guise of a single entity. While not always unified, the various clans/warlords/shoguns/samurai etc have spent lots of time killing each other and fighting internally as well as killing other people on the Asian mainland.
I have a similar take for Europe. While all European countries haven’t always existed the same or been unified as a single entity throughout history, England for example has existed for some time in a recognizable fashion and for a good deal of its history been embroiled in internal and external conflict on the continent and elsewhere. I’d say similar comparisons can be made for other areas; the Romans or Greeks would probably be another good example.
Basically my overall point is that all of these societies that are claimed to be progressive, peaceful, and great have literally thousands of years of history of nearly constant conflict and bloodshed. Sometimes they fight a lot, sometimes a little. By comparison, the USA, which at the longest measure has existed since the first colonization, we do not have a history that matches up so equally. We have bloodshed and fighting but not on the order that places that have been populated by disparate and homogeneous groups for forever have.
That’s the gist of it anyways, hopefully it makes sense to someone else lol.
Confirmation Bias Porn for the Oikophobic.
SJW’s love to pretend that they are the Light of Truth gleaming in Savage Flyover Republican Darkness, and this type of article lets them feel good about it.
Since the anti gun crowd have been saying we have more suicides because of guns shouldn’t they stay away from comparisons to Japan? Does that not completely debunk all of the rhetoric about guns and suicide?
Was there any mention of historical data in the articles? Or only recent years?
Curious how a country which ALWAYS had a much lower incident/rate of gun related violence is used to compare to the US, and somehow that single year comparison is significant to the author.
Compare gun related death rates from 1900 to present day, and the picture is generally a lot different.
On the Japan comparison: Being that anti’s always like including suicide to pad their “gun violence” statistics, next time they bring up Japan here is an interesting little stat to drop;
Japan Suicide rate per 100k (2012): 18.5
US Suicide & Homicide rate per 100k (2013): 12.6 & 3.9 (16.5 combined)
Conclusion: Different societies hold different cultural values. Also, Japanese are still very successful in suicide attempts without the availability of firearms.