Why Japanese Gun Control Works And Why It Probably Won't For America

[zer0ed]

http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html

Very insightful article for those of you interested in the second amendment debate. I'm Canadian so I only have the pleasure of viewing it across the non-walled (yet) border. I think it makes some pretty solid points and analysis.

"Guns are the price of freedom" I read from somewhere, and it sums everything up pretty nicely.


So if you want safety over freedom, Japan is the place to be.

 

[User#16452]

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[zer0ed]

I skimmed over this but I'm not sure I see the relation to freedom. Can we get a tl;dr?

Basically, the draconian gun laws of Japan only work because the Japanese people openly accept the paternalistic relationship between the them and their government. The Japanese do not have many of the civil liberties as Amercians enjoy such as freedom from search and seizure. Their legal system is far from ideal when compared to developed countries.

 

[RandomTokyoGuy]

Their legal system is far from ideal when compared to developed countries.

Now I wonder how you rate the American legal system.

 

[zer0ed]

Now I wonder how you rate the American legal system.

7/10 too much focus on incarceration and combating the drug supply issue (hint: try addressing the causes) But at least you have basic human rights before you are charged with a crime unlike Japan, where you are guilty until proven otherwise.

May repeat, recommendation withheld

 

[RandomTokyoGuy]

I have read the whole text and some parts are surely interesting. However I have to wonder if I read a quote like
And Japan, with its severe gun control, suffers no less murder than Switzerland, one of the most gun-intensive societies on earth.
The reference only states the relative number of homicides to be similar, but has no backup for Switzerland being one of the most gun-intensive societies. The later really strikes me odd.

 

[zer0ed]

I have read the whole text and some parts are surely interesting. However I have to wonder if I read a quote like
And Japan, with its severe gun control, suffers no less murder than Switzerland, one of the most gun-intensive societies on earth.
The reference only states the relative number of homicides to be similar, but has no backup for Switzerland being one of the most gun-intensive societies. The later really strikes me odd.

I think it's referring to the tradition where all Swedish Swiss households must have a serviceable weapon and ammunition ready. So pretty intensive if you take it into context.

 

[roots reggae]

I think it's referring to the tradition where all Swedish households must have a serviceable weapon and ammunition ready. So pretty intensive if you take it into context.

You meant Switzerland didn't you?

 

[zer0ed]

You meant Switzerland didn't you?

You're absolutely right, I might be a bit tipsy too haha

 

[roots reggae]

You're absolutely right, I might be a bit tipsy too haha

I'm jealous!!!

 

[MikeH]

I think it's referring to the tradition where all Swedish Swiss households must have a serviceable weapon and ammunition ready.

There is no that kind of tradition in Switzerland. What you are mistaken it for is that some members of the Swiss Militia get to keep their service weapons at home for quick response on possible foreign threat. But even they nowadays don't get to have ammunition at home.

Many European countries have tradition for hunting which explains the big number of guns. However the statistics are normally very wrong as some countries don't keep centralised records on purpose. That is so the invading army wouldn't have that information...

One thing is sure; there is no direct link between the number of murders and number of guns in the country. But there are strong relation between the number of murders and the number of people in poverty.

 

[RandomTokyoGuy]

There is also a huge difference in the kind of weapons in private hands. Afaik in Europe it's mostly riffles, something you do not readily carry around all day (hidden).

 

[BIPSY]

Read through most of the article but I skimmed over a bit (particularly some of the history in the middle). There are definitely some good points in there but one thing to keep in mind is that the article is from 1993- its pretty old and some of the info is outdated. Some of the points about the police in Japan also seem a bit naive ("no pot bellies here" and all police are Judo experts, etc), but that might just be my own bias coming through - its not an area I'm well read in.

When I lived in the US I owned a gun and went shooting regularly with my grandfather who had a pretty sizeable collection. At the time I was very much against gun control but after living in Japan for over 10 years I think my perspective has become a bit more pragmatic. I really don't buy into the idea of an armed populace keeping the government in check anymore - while I'm sure that was a huge factor 200 years ago we're living in an age of drones, chemical and biological weapons and mass information dispersal. The idea of an armed insurrection against a tyrannical government in a first world country like the US almost seems quaint at this point and the bottom line is that there's no profit to be made in subjugating the populace of the US by military/political force so the idea of that kind of scenario seems even more unlikely.

That said its an attractive fantasy and the gun industry in the US is massive so there is considerable economic pressure to maintain the status quo. And even if gun possession was made illegal overnight there are already thousands upon thousands of firearms out there - the genie is already out of the bottle.

Japan has been disarmed as a society for hundreds of years and the economy as well as the national psyche are already "set" on that mode. I think you could legalize guns overnight in Japan and outside of military otaku and organized crime you wouldn't see many sales at all - for 99% of the population in Japan its just not something they need/want in their daily life, much less something they've been raised to believe is their right as a citizen.

With the number of mass shootings and incidents over the last few years in the US I would 1000% rather be in Japan in terms of safety. That said I don't think gun control is the right solution to that problem - the only way to address it in the US is to attack the underlying root causes of those shootings and - at least from all I've read - that seems to be more of a mental health issue than anything else.

 

[User#8628]

I'm from Europe from a country where a lot more things are legal in America and which people in Japan call "freedom country" and no guns there.
I don't know why mass shootings are such an enjoyable sight to watch for you.
I'm fine with people who enjoy guns for sport or even recreational hunting but if people can't easily buy them and if police does their job instead of killing innocent people, there is no reason you need to carry a gun around all the time to defend yourself.

To me freedom also means being if a save environment where nobody would kill or rape me. You can't do what you want if there is the chance that people will push a gun under your nose for it.

 

[zer0ed]

if police does their job instead of killing innocent people, there is no reason you need to carry a gu

I think you nailed it on America's problem: their police are doing a dismal job of protecting civilians and the people have lost confidence in them. Hence people feel they need to protect themselves.

 

[zer0ed]

There is no that kind of tradition in Switzerland. What you are mistaken it for is that some members of the Swiss Militia get to keep their service weapons at home for quick response on possible foreign threat. But even they nowadays don't get to have ammunition at home.

I stand corrected, I think I read several other accounts of this and your version seems to be the most accurate of the current environment.

Speaking of freedom, does anyone here have or heard of any unfortunate encounters with the Japanese legal system where you wished you were in America?

 

[meiji]

7/10 too much focus on incarceration and combating the drug supply issue (hint: try addressing the causes) But at least you have basic human rights before you are charged with a crime unlike Japan, where you are guilty until proven otherwise.

Have you ever heard of civil forfeiture in the US? Where the police can take your money, car, house, etc, under suspicion of a crime committed, and....never return it?

 

[Wwanderer]

I think you nailed it on America's problem: their police are doing a dismal job of protecting civilians and the people have lost confidence in them. Hence people feel they need to protect themselves.

Someone with a perhaps too sharp sense of humor said that Americans don't want (undocumented!) foreign terrorists coming to the US and doing for free the work for which the police are paid = shooting innocent people without warning.

-Ww

 

[meiji]

Someone with a perhaps too sharp sense of humor said that Americans don't want foreign terrorists coming to the US and doing for free the work for which the police are paid = shooting innocent people without warning.

-Ww

Ouch. Sounds like something I'd come up with. I'm sorry I didn't think of it first.

 

[john.smith]

Basically, the draconian gun laws of Japan only work because the Japanese people openly accept the paternalistic relationship between the them and their government. The Japanese do not have many of the civil liberties as Amercians enjoy such as freedom from search and seizure. Their legal system is far from ideal when compared to developed countries.

America the land of freedom... LOL

 

[john.smith]

People just don't need gun when they don't feel threathened, which is the case on Japan.
It is not because of law they don't use weapon, they don't use weapon because they have no need for it. It can be either: police does its job without scaring off their citizen, or Japan have a social environment which make confrontation between people relatively rare.

 

[User#16452]

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[BIPSY]

Keeping in mind that I don't think implementing new gun restrictions is the answer nor do I think widespread gun ownership is necessarily a great thing in and unto itself, the full text of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution reads:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

As far as I see it we're keeping the letter of the law (the latter half of the amendment) while completely disregarding the spirit of the law (the first half).
This amendment was drafted in an era where there was no real police force to speak of. There was no strong central military to speak of. And the states were really a republic - a grouping of semi-autonomous political bodies under one overarching governing body. So the need to have a "well regulated militia" (basically the need to have every able bodied individual able to act as a soldier/police officer/etc if the need arose) made a lot of sense.

Its clear that the overall political landscape has changed completely in the intervening years and also that the vast majority of gun owners in the US are hobbyists/collectors/etc - there really isn't any "well regulated militia" to speak of.
I know I'm oversimplifying and I also know that there are a lot of people who would disagree with what I wrote, but at the end of the day I think the simple appeal to the Second Amendment that a lot of Americans fall back on has some serious issues...

 

[Wwanderer]

One (huge imo) reason to be careful about repealing, re-interpreting or generally tampering with the Second Amendment is that it is embedded in the Bill of Rights, a fundamental part of the US Constitution and precisely the parts that guarantees all sorts of VERY important civil and personal rights - freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom from unreasonable searches, habeas corpus, freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, freedom from compelled self-incrimination, right to a fair trial etc. Basically it is Magna Carta stuff and then some. The Constitution was not ratified/adopted until the Bill of Rights was added; it has been there from the beginning and not a word of it has ever been changed (though, to be fair, interpretations have evolved a bit in some cases).

So, however beneficial it might be to get rid of the Second Amendment in one way to another, it would unavoidably set a precedent for getting rid of other amendments and important rights now enshrined deep in the US system of government. That would be a steep and potentially dangerous price to pay imo...maybe worth it, maybe not; personally I'm not sure.

-Ww

 

[zer0ed]

A lot of people would argue that an armed populace would be no match against the US military forces, given the vast difference in firepower. However this doesn't take into account that military personnel are citizens first, and I would say that it would be difficult for many soldiers to take up arms against an essentially non-homogenous enemy consisting of "militia" and civilians. So technically it's still relevant.

BUT, the government isn't stupid and they know this fact. So instead, they choose to control and govern via financial, legislative, and social means. So in this case, bearing arms do little to defend people from this form of oppression. Only education can help this.