Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US. What is the secret?
If you want to buy a gun in Japan you need patience and determination. You have to attend an all-day class, take a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95%.
There are also mental health and drugs tests. Your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups. Then they check your relatives too – and even your work colleagues. And as well as having the power to deny gun licences, police also have sweeping powers to search and seize weapons.
That’s not all. Handguns are banned outright. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed.
The law restricts the number of gun shops. In most of Japan’s 40 or so prefectures there can be no more than three, and you can only buy fresh cartridges by returning the spent cartridges you bought on your last visit.
Police must be […]
Once again, smoke and mirrors in the gun control debate. With phrases like “lowest gun crime in the world” and “just six gun deaths” in Japan in 2014, you would think the writer of this article was comparing apples to apples. But he’s not. The 6 deaths in Japan are actual firearms homicides. The 33,599 recorded in the US include both homicides _and_ suicides. If we compare the actual figures, during that period in the US there were 8,124 firearms homicides (including self-defense and law enforcement shootings). Yes, that’s still quite a lot, but nowhere what the BBC article implies. The rest, (about 25,500–though the CDC puts it at 21,334, out of a total of 42,773 for that year) were suicides by firearm. Now compare Japan, with less than half the population of the US — 6 firearms homicides. Indeed impressive. But overall there were more than 400 murders in Japan in 2014 (official reports put it at 1024, but that includes attempts that didn’t succeed). In the US there were 14,249 murders in 2014. So there seems to be more than just the availability of guns at fault for the US murder rate being so much higher than Japan’s. But that same year Japan (again, with less than half the population) had almost 24,000 suicides. As far as can be determined _none_ of them involved guns. The bottom line is that Japan (as well as several other countries) has a noticeably higher suicide rate than the US, despite being gun-free.This suggest that including suicide figures as an argument for gun control (as this article does) is manipulative at best and blatantly dishonest at worst.
phsmith2012: ‘Once again, smoke and mirrors in the gun control debate.’
This is an ironic statement considering your entire “rebuttal” is smoke and mirrors driven by an ideology that more often than not results in knee-jerk responses driven by subjective misreading.
‘…you would think the writer of this article was comparing apples to apples.’
The title of the article is: “How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime.” The literal first sentence of the article is: “Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US.”
Where was it implied–or mentioned–anywhere in this article about “gun control”? It’s an article about Japan almost eradicating gun crime, literally. At no point is there a proposal, or a suggestion of gun laws being implemented in the U.S. Nowhere, at all. That is what you read into it. One reason no rational, logical, level-headed debate among Americans can get any progress is demonstrated here; because even an article simply explaining data and facts in another country can’t get written without specious attacks about banning guns/anti-gun/take my guns away/eradicating 2nd amendment, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
‘This suggest that including suicide figures as an argument for gun control (as this article does) is manipulative at best and blatantly dishonest at worst.’
The same website this article is on had an article about exactly why Japan–and others–has a higher suicide rate than the U.S. from 7/3/15, entitled “Why does Japan have such a high suicide rate?”. In a nutshell? a tradition of “honourable suicide”. Self-imposed isolation of young men. Insurance companies pay out to families with nearly no hesitation. Significant spikes in the rate after financial crisis. An ancient culture of not complaining. And, perhaps most significantly…”Japan’s mental healthcare system is also a mess. There is an acute shortage of psychiatrists. There is also no tradition of psychiatrists working together with clinical psychologists. The counselling industry itself is a free-for-all.”
As far as specifically guns and suicide; most people choose something other than guns as a “cry for help”. And those that survive and seek help do not attempt it again. Bring a firearm into this scenario and the ‘death rate’ increases dramatically.
News flash: shooting a gun at another unarmed, non-threatening human being is a “gun crime” regardless if that person happens to be yourself.