Japan trading freedom for safety and getting neither?
I usually agree with Joseph Farah, but I think he needs to take a deep breath and honestly assess the gun control situation in Japan. Here’s an excerpt:
A 25-year-old Tokyo man, describing himself as “tired of living,” yesterday killed seven and injured 12 more people…Japan has among the very strictest gun control laws in the world. And that is precisely why one disturbed young man with a truck and a knife could wreak such carnage in a bustling neighborhood.
Tomohiro Kato drive his truck into a crowd of pedestrians shortly after noon, then jumped out of his vehicle and began stabbing any strangers he could reach.
…People who believe gun control will result in less violence should be forced to live in societies where only criminals have guns – or where, like in Japan, police have broad search-and-seizure latitude to hunt down any illicit weapons.
…There are really only two alternatives to a free society that respects the right of armed self-defense: One is chaos and anarchy and the other is a repressive police state like the people of Japan live under.
…We can learn from Japan, all right.
The lesson to be learned is not to repeat the mistakes that country has made on guns – trading freedom for safety and getting neither.
I agree with his logic as it pertains to the situation in the United States, but not in Japan. Handgun ownership has never been legal in Japan. People here in Japan don’t need guns to defend themselves, because criminals do not have guns. If there has been a trade-off between freedom and safety, I’d say Japan has definitely ended up with greater safety. Does anyone want to compare violent crime rates between the US and Japan? When was the last time there was a school shooting in Japan? Does Mr. Farah think that Japan should legalize guns so that they can prevent the rare incident like the above from happening and instead have to deal with random shootings like in the US?
There’s no way to get rid of handguns in the US without jeopardizing the rights of law-abiding citizens. I’d never support that in the US, but there’s no good reason for Japan to legalize guns. It is a safer country without guns. Any country is going to be safer without guns. You can’t argue otherwise. It just makes no logical sense that having wide availability of weapons that can kill several people all at once and from a distance can create a better situation.
And where does he get the idea that Japan is a “repressive police state?” I’ve lived here for seven years now, and I don’t feel repressed. I’ve never been searched for weapons, either. This is a poorly researched and poorly put together article. I’m surprised to see Mr. Farah’s name on it.
I can’t remember which country but it was, but it had one of the highest gun ownership rates but also one of the lowest violent crime rates as well. The State of Maine has the highest gun ownership rate in the US but a crime rate 1/3 below the national average.
Does look like Farah jumped the gun there though.
But I suspect if gun ownership were allowed in Japan the crime rate would still stay basically the same. It’s a monolithic culture that keeps its women in line, not much reason for there to be violence under those circumstances. 
besides they project most of it into their anime, which has some mad psycho sh*& like I’ve never seen. Oy!
You know what has the lowest concentration of violent crimes, murders and rapes even better than Japan? Saudi Arabia. Weird.
But it seems like the more feminist a society becomes, the more violent it gets. Makes sense though, since women are responsible for most of the world’s problems after all.