Posted on 02/03/2013 10:29:10 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I. Introduction
In October 1992, in Louisiana, a Japanese exchange student named Yoshihiro Hattori went into the wrong house on the way to a Halloween party. The homeowner's wife screamed for help and the homeowner drew his .44 pistol and yelled for the student to 'freeze!' Not understanding the American idiom that 'freeze!' means 'Don't move or I'll shoot', the student continued advancing towards the homeowner. The homeowner pulled the trigger and shot him dead.[1] While the incident initially attracted only brief attention in the national American press, the shooting horrified Japan; hundreds of thousands of Japanese have signed petitions calling for the United States to implement gun prohibition, and Hattori's parents have announced plans to begin working with the American lobby, Handgun Control Inc.[2]
To many Japanese, and to many Americans, it is simply incomprehensible that the United States has not implemented strict gun controls or prohibitions along the Japanese model. Gun control in Japan is the most stringent in the democratic world. The weapons law begins by stating 'No-one shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords', and very few exceptions are allowed.[3] Gun ownership is minuscule, and so is gun crime. As gun crime in other nations increases, many advocates of gun control urge that Japan's gun control policy be imitated.[4]
But before other nations, particularly the United States, decide that Japanese-style gun control is the magic elixir for the disease of gun violence, it is necessary to understand more fully what Japanese gun control is. Exactly what kinds of controls on guns are imposed by the police? How do the controls fit into the context of the overall relationship between the people and the Government? How has Japan...
(Excerpt) Read more at guncite.com ...
Calm down. I’m sure you’ll feel better after a good cry.
Absolutely correct. The criminal gangs in Japan have guns, use guns and are often protected by the political elite. There’s a strong incentive to lie in Japanese society. Look at their porn problem.
You’ll need to go back to population statistics class. You got an F.
Japan’s population peaked at 128 million in 2010 and has since fallen to 127 million. Where did you get those numbers?
Furthermore, the Japanese are irreligious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan
Which is a major part of the problem. No future, no hope, no relationships, no marriages, no children...extinction.
“Not understanding the American idiom that ‘freeze!’ means ‘Don’t move or I’ll shoot’, the student continued advancing towards the homeowner. The homeowner pulled the trigger and shot him dead.”
Having a gun pointed / orders barked at you must mean, “come closer.” Idiot.
Having conquered the Japanese, Hidéyoshi meant to keep them under control. On 29 August 1588, Hidéyoshi announced 'the Sword Hunt' (taiko no katanagari) and banned possession of swords and firearms by the non-noble classes. He decreed:
The people in the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms or other arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and tends to foment uprisings... Therefore the heads of provinces, official agents and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the Government.[68](emphasis added)
Although the intent of Hidéyoshi's decree was plain, the Sword Hunt was presented to the masses under the pretext that all the swords would be melted down to supply nails and bolts for a temple containing a huge statue of the Buddha. The statue would have been twice the size of the Statue of Liberty.[69] The Western missionaries' Jesuit Annual Letter reported that Hidéyoshi 'is depriving the people of their arms under the pretext of devotion to religion'.[70] (p.33) Once the swords and guns were collected, Hidéyoshi had them melted into a statue of himself.
I dated a girl from Japan for a while. That was interesting.
I was living and working way out in the country in Northern Japan at the time of this incident and remember it well. It angered and outraged many of the Japanese I worked with.
I explained to those who would listen, using the same example of a “gaijin” driving up to one of their houses unannounced and uninvited with music blaring and looking like a character from “A Clockwork Orange” (I actually used a character from a Japanese anime series as I remember), to try to make them understand what the homeowner had done. Given all this and the fact that the young man did not retreat when confronted by the homeowner with a gun, instead choosing to advance and thus presenting a threat, the homeowner had no choice but to shoot him. I told them that whether it was the gun, as was used in this situation, or a sword or a knife or any other tool, the reaction of the homeowner trying to protect his family against an unknown threat advancing against him was justified.
Although this seemed to get through to some, it was mostly discounted and ignored although most were polite enough not to slip into absolute derision.
The Japanese are, for the most part, a subservient group of people. They work well when they have a strong leader who gives them direct orders. For them, gun (and sword) control as it is implemented in Japan works. They should, however, respect the fact that the US is not Japan and should keep their opinions about our practices and politics to themselves. They object to any “gaijin” having an opinion about Japanese practices or politics, but seem more than willing to enlighten us poor, dumb Americans about how we should act.
If you probe a bit, you will find that people who don’t trust others to own firearms, also don’t trust them with other liberties, such as speech, religion, commerce, or property.
Point of fact is the average Jap can’t own a samurai sword. Haven’t been able to do since 1945.
bfl
Re your post 12, good points.
I will concede that the average Japanese is probably smarter than the average American (and we know why), but collectively, I think we trump them.
LOL. That’s what I was thinking. It’s clear Long Duck Dong was drunk. I know that’s a Chinese type name.
At the end of the Sengoku (Warring States) period, Hideyoshi Toyotomi found himself in power. While he never received the title “Shogun” he became the regent, and, effectively, the supreme power in Japan.
Hideyoshi started out as a peasant samurai, an ashisgaru, and ascended to being the supreme power in Japan. He determined that no one else should follow in his footsteps. He forbade ordinary peasants from owning weapons and started a sword hunt to confiscate arms. The swords were melted down to create a statue of the Buddha.
This left peasants at the mercy of bandits, ronin and samurai for the remainder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and pretty much remains the state of things today.
Gun control works in Japan because they follow rules. Just look at the aftermath of all their natural disasters. No looting, orderly lines etc.
The larger cities are safer than the same size cities in the US. You see small children running around without adult supervision. If you drop your wallet on the train you will get it back with nothing missing.
Their form of gun control will not work in the US however.
One other small point of fact. The Japanese are pretty much a homogeneous society. They don’t have racial connected crimes over there.
Americans reward knowledge. The Japanese punish ignorance.
Since then, the population has been a broken spirit, land of submission doomed to be occupied by another stronger power for over 60 years.
I get that that probably frustrates you and you have to take breaks from eating Ben and Jerrys while having a good cry over a riveting made for tv Lifetime movie so you can lash out at folks on FR.
However, that doesn't change the fact that breaking into someone's house and screaming at the occupants after being ordered to stop at gunpoint still warrants getting shot.
The thing about guns is they are universal-lingual and having one pointed at you means "stop" in every language of the world. Failure to understand that while intruding on another person's abode means the gun has to talk a bit louder and force you to stop.
You can hem haw and name call all you want, but them's the facts. And if you come in my house screaming and moving towards me after being ordered to stop, you most certainly will be shot; and I promise more than once. You'd be ignorant and foolish to think otherwise.
Well, commercials are over you can back to evil white-man hater television, Nancy.
Note to Japanese visitors: we now have THREE guns behind every blade of grass. Be very careful what you do here and above all, avoid streets named Martin Luther King.
Have you no comedic impulses?
There are reasons for certain natural disasters that go beyond the laws of physics -- and, yes, major punishments from God are coming to these shores.
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