How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime

[SecularMotion]

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.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729

[TreasonousBastard]

1. No 2nd amendment in Japan, and no history of...

pioneers in the middle of nowhere dealing with bears, buffalo, and rattlesnakes.

(Or robbing stagecoaches.)

[baldguy]

7. You forgot about the Native Americans.

But then, genocide is just a bump on the road to feedum, I guess.

America is not a frontier any more.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. The Japanese shouldn't be too proud of how they treated the Ainu or...

the Okinawans-- discrimination and genocidal tendencies are not just American traits.

But, that has little to do with personal firearms.

[baldguy]

13. You're the one invoking America's pioneering history to justify our high gun crime rates.

[TreasonousBastard]

14. There is a huge difference between explaining and justifying. I do not justify gun crime.

[baldguy]

16. So you beleive that it can be fixed?

We can acknowledge that, like slavery, the 2nd Amendment is a relic of a less enlightened bygone era, and in the modern world it causes more problems than it solves.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. Sure, it could be. But it won't.

[baldguy]

18. So, just throw up your hands & say "nothing can be done, nothing to be done!" because history.

Sure sounds like you're trying to justify gun violence.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. Sure sounds like you'r arguing just for the sake of arguing...

A lot of that going on lately.

If you think I'm just giving in, come up with a proper, and possible, solution.

[baldguy]

20. Nearly every other country on the planet has come up with proper, possible solutions.

It's just the people that think gun violence needs to be a part of living in a "civilized" society that have a problem with those solutions.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. No other country has a 2nd amendment or such a powerful gun lobby, combined with...

our history of personal independence and violence. So, our situation is unique and cannot be compared to, say, Japan or Switzerland.

Gun violence, or violence at all, does not "need" to be a part of our society, it just is and we have not yet found a way to deal with it. If you have a way, let's hear it.

FWIW, crime overall is down in my county, but shootings are up. Most authorities agree it is almost entirely due to increasing gang violence.

[baldguy]

22. A lot of countries had slavery.

It's just those few countries that have a powerful slave-holding lobby, combined with a slave-holding history that still do.

Just because their situation is unique, does that mean that those opposed to slavery should do nothing to stop it? Of course not. Why should it be different with guns?

You agree that gun violence is not a requirement for a free society, but then you fall back on the RW myth that America is a uniquely violent place. And you implore me & other gun control advocates to come up with solutions - when (as I have stated) [b]nearly every other country on the planet has solved the problem of gun violence. The solutions are there. We just have to be smart enough to take them up.

Or do you believe that Americans are uniquely stupid as well?

[krispos42]

2. But you're not coming for our guns.

How does Japan's suicide rate and non-gun homicide rate compare to ours?

[SecularMotion]

3. What do you suggest we do to reduce gun violence?

[mdbl]

4. Let's just ask the dead people at the Ft Lauderdale airport

How they feel about better gun control. Oops, too late. That's the problem. No one speaks for them. The right wing fascists pretend to hear the cries from aborted fetuses but not adults who are gunned down. What a moronic country this has become.

[brush]

5. They get it. No handguns allowed because they're designed to shoot people. It's not rocket science

[stonecutter357]

6. K&R!

[Cha]

10. Good Morning, stonecutter

[stonecutter357]

12. Good morning Cha.

[doc03]

8. Six gun deaths when there are only 12 guns is not so great

[Cha]

9. Not exactly the wild west over there like the US.. lucky they

don't have the craven kill for profits NRA that we do.

Thanks SM.. very interesting

[Igel]

15. So you're implicating that they used to have a gun crime problem?

That their culture is very much like our own in how we're individuals and insist on being the center of attention--and if somebody insults us because we screwed up the only recourse is to fight back?

Oh.