An unarmed utopia: Japanese gun control a model for America? - San Francisco Expatriate Travel | Examiner.com
Japan is a robber’s playground--if robbers actually existed. As a predominately cash-based society with an unparalleled consumerism that makes even Americans look like conservative spenders, Japanese malls, convenient stores and pretty much anywhere else financial transactions take place are packing tons of unstrapped cash.
For gun control lobbyists, Japan is a realized paradise. The law states that no one can bear firearms (or swords) under any circumstance. The only citizens allowed to possess a weapon at any time are police and the military along with those who have a hunting license weighted with a highly restrictive permit. With one of the world's lowest crime rates and the gun crime rate nearly nonexistent, anti-gun lobbies proclaim Japan as a model society for Americans to follow in their impressionable footsteps.
In an article written by researcher and director, Dave Kopel of the Second Amendment Project, he attests, “Tokyo is the world's safest major city and muggings only occur at the rate of 40 per year per one million inhabitants while New York City's rate is 11,000.” His article, Japan: Gun Control and People Control highlight government statistics showcasing, “Japan's homicide rate is two to three times lower than the U.S. rate. As for handgun murders, the U.S. rate is 200 times higher than Japan's.”
Perhaps history tells the tale of why Japanese society favors a gunless nation. In the late nineteenth century, Japan’s national police force was created and it’s first cohorts were former samurai who were unemployed due to the abolition of feudalism. Considering themselves noble warriors, samurai honored martial arts as a real means of battle and believed guns were for the cowardly. Nonetheless, the Japanese police acquired firearms only when U.S. General MacArthur commanded it in 1946. Even so, in Japanese society today, the government propagates gun control simply by a general lack of interest for carrying or glamorizing guns in their police force.
By way of the gun, Japan could be considered a parallel universe compared to America; however, gun control is not what keeps the crime rate low—it's social control. Japanese society is kept on a tight leash by the government and police force. Questioning the boundaries of personal freedoms and basic rights is rare, which is a key motivator Americans thrive on to better his/her self in society.
This inherent submissiveness in society comes easier to the Japanese than Americans because their country is far more ethnically and economically uniform as well as their voluntary willingness to comply with one of the most unyielding criminal justice system of any democratic nation.
What is even more interesting about the lack of citizen-held weaponry in Japan is how it affects the people's system of worry. For most humans, our basic motivators for survival are the same. We think primitively about the safety and health of ourselves and our families, and the threat of gun violence or robbery is definitely something the majority of Americans have at least an inkling of worry about. We can't leave our doors unlocked or walk onto a crowded bus without a slight suspicion that leads us to check our pockets to make sure nothing's been picked. In the idyllic, unarmed utopia of Japan, this type of petty theft threat hardly exists. Instead, Japanese have more than enough time to worry themselves over other daily occurrences that, to an American, may seem trivial in the grand scheme of survival.
Does America have something to learn from the staunch gun control exhibited in Japan? Perhaps. But, amending an American’s right to bear arms would be the same as telling the Japanese they had to own one. Sometimes no matter how much we have to learn from another culture, we (sadly) stick to our guns.
Japan is a robber’s playground--if robbers actually existed. As a predominately cash-based society with an unparalleled consumerism that makes even Americans look like conservative spenders, Japanese malls, convenient stores and pretty much anywhere else financial transactions take place are packing tons of unstrapped cash.
For gun control lobbyists, Japan is a realized paradise. The law states that no one can bear firearms (or swords) under any circumstance. The only citizens allowed to possess a weapon at any time are police and the military along with those who have a hunting license weighted with a highly restrictive permit. With one of the world's lowest crime rates and the gun crime rate nearly nonexistent, anti-gun lobbies proclaim Japan as a model society for Americans to follow in their impressionable footsteps.
In an article written by researcher and director, Dave Kopel of the Second Amendment Project, he attests, “Tokyo is the world's safest major city and muggings only occur at the rate of 40 per year per one million inhabitants while New York City's rate is 11,000.” His article, Japan: Gun Control and People Control highlight government statistics showcasing, “Japan's homicide rate is two to three times lower than the U.S. rate. As for handgun murders, the U.S. rate is 200 times higher than Japan's.”
Perhaps history tells the tale of why Japanese society favors a gunless nation. In the late nineteenth century, Japan’s national police force was created and it’s first cohorts were former samurai who were unemployed due to the abolition of feudalism. Considering themselves noble warriors, samurai honored martial arts as a real means of battle and believed guns were for the cowardly. Nonetheless, the Japanese police acquired firearms only when U.S. General MacArthur commanded it in 1946. Even so, in Japanese society today, the government propagates gun control simply by a general lack of interest for carrying or glamorizing guns in their police force.
By way of the gun, Japan could be considered a parallel universe compared to America; however, gun control is not what keeps the crime rate low—it's social control. Japanese society is kept on a tight leash by the government and police force. Questioning the boundaries of personal freedoms and basic rights is rare, which is a key motivator Americans thrive on to better his/her self in society.
This inherent submissiveness in society comes easier to the Japanese than Americans because their country is far more ethnically and economically uniform as well as their voluntary willingness to comply with one of the most unyielding criminal justice system of any democratic nation.
What is even more interesting about the lack of citizen-held weaponry in Japan is how it affects the people's system of worry. For most humans, our basic motivators for survival are the same. We think primitively about the safety and health of ourselves and our families, and the threat of gun violence or robbery is definitely something the majority of Americans have at least an inkling of worry about. We can't leave our doors unlocked or walk onto a crowded bus without a slight suspicion that leads us to check our pockets to make sure nothing's been picked. In the idyllic, unarmed utopia of Japan, this type of petty theft threat hardly exists. Instead, Japanese have more than enough time to worry themselves over other daily occurrences that, to an American, may seem trivial in the grand scheme of survival.
Does America have something to learn from the staunch gun control exhibited in Japan? Perhaps. But, amending an American’s right to bear arms would be the same as telling the Japanese they had to own one. Sometimes no matter how much we have to learn from another culture, we (sadly) stick to our guns.
