Interesting that the writer quickly touches on the real issue of why Japan is safer but then goes right back to blaming guns.
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Exactly. He or she hit the nail on the head about Japanese people being different, being compliant conformists, committing few violent crimes even without guns.
I remember reading a story about 2 or 3 teen girls over there who were lured to a hotel with the promise of some modeling job. Once there, they were kidnapped (apparently one of those rare crimes of violence). The kidnapper was waiting for a call from his accomplice, who was supposed to arrange the random demand and such. The girls cowered in the corner while he paced, growing more agitated. After several hours, the appointed time long gone, he killed himself in front of them.
And then it gets weird...
The girls had been told to kneel in the corner, and that's exactly what they did...for several more hours, even though their kidnapper was dead. No American girl would stay there like that.
American soldiers and marines on Okinawa are known for being rowdy and, unfortunately, molesting Japanese women. It happens far too frequently, and Okinawaans are properly outraged. The soldiers, when arrested, are turned over to American authorities for prosecution, per the lease agreement we have with them to have our bases there. This is a sore point with the Japanese, because their idea of jurisprudence is a but different than ours. They don't understand our (former?) concern over whether not the accused actually did it, but think the accused should just take his punishment, whether he deserves it or not, for the good of society. That's why America has always insisted on handling criminal offenses rather than turning accused soldiers over to them.
I was watching a clip from what I think is one of the ******* movies. One of the stars likes to dance around in a jockstrap. So he's in a department store in Japan, and he whips off a breakaway sweat suit and starts dancing in just the jockstrap. A Japanese cop sees him and moves in to intervene, but this guy ignores him and just keeps on dancing. Instead of wrestling this guy to the ground and taking him into custody, the Japanese cop blows his whistle for other cops. It was clear he was unable to do anything about it by himself. Even I don't want cops to be that impotent.
The Japanese merry have many fine traits, but the things I have listed above certainly isn't how Americans are or how we would want America to be. So the comparisons aren't just apples and oranges, but apples and salamanders.
Additionally, though the Japanese may not want to have firearms in their society, when Japanese execs come over here, and if they have a protective detail, they always ask their guard if they can see and handle his weapon. The bodyguard who wrote that said he handles it by telling them his gun is like a Samurai's sword, not to be flashed around without cause, and they understand. But he said every Japanese client he gets wants to handle his gun, or be taken to a shooting range.