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And after debating gun violence all week with my friends in the wake of the 4th of July shooting in Highland Park I made an example of Japan and it’s low gun vi

And after debating gun violence all week with my friends in the wake of the 4th of July shooting in Highland Park I made an example of Japan and it’s low gun violence. Now this happens. Crazy stuff still happens in Japan but it’s usually a knife or ax. But guns and Abe are on another level.

chii 4y ago
My take is that gun violence has several different categories, and gun control only helps some of them (such as accidental, or emotional, spur of the moment shootings), but doesn't prevent any premeditated ones. It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly. The root cause of gun violence is societal issues, not the guns themselves. Solve those societal issues (hard, and likely almost intractable unfortunately), or gun violence will persist.
- mullingitover 4y ago
  > It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly. You sure about that? If we had an aggressive gun buyback program and really dried up the supply, sure, you might still be able to buy an assault rifle from the criminal underworld. However, if you have the disposable income to be able to afford to pay >$20k for that gun...you've probably got your life together and aren't going on shooting sprees.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    That’s not how gun buy back programs work. Hint they don’t and never have. It’s the same as what happened to that town that tried to solve their rat problem by paying people to bring rat heads. Some enterprising townsfolk started breeding rats.
    - jclulow 4y ago
      You have to ban them _and_ buy them back at the same time. You make them illegal to have, then you compensate people for the economic value of the property they now need to surrender for destruction. That is in fact how buyback schemes work in countries that aren't totally irrational about guns.
      - vlovich123 4y ago
        I clearly should have clarified. They don’t work in America where private gun ownership does not look like it’s ever going to get banned. Also America isn’t land locked like Australia. The black market will have an easier time transporting the goods through South America. If that wasn’t the case, then drugs wouldn’t be as accessible here. And given US is the arms capital of the world (American manufacturers supply a significant amount of the arms used in conflicts), those guns will inevitably find their way back to America (conflict stops, owners need money more than weapons, etc). The bigger the conflict the cheaper the guns become. Finally, Australia had a national moment of unity when they banned guns and so giving up your guns was a collective activity. That’s not the case in America.
    - King-Aaron 4y ago
      You're deeply wrong about that. Gun buybacks have worked and do work everywhere that they've been conducted.
      - daenz 4y ago
        It's not a buyback since the government never owned it. It's coerced confiscation.
        King-Aaron 4y ago
        So if you sell your house, or sell your car, or sell a loaf of bread, is that also coerced confiscation?
        4y ago
  - daenz 4y ago
    Guns, but only for criminals and rich people? No thanks.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Better than having guns for criminals, rich people and unhinged teenagers looking to shoot their school.
      - daenz 4y ago
        The largest demographic (hundreds of millions of people), which you seem to have left out, is law abiding citizens looking to protect themselves and their families.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        Protect themselves from what? Unhinged people with guns? Seems like recursion. People in other countries where guns are illegal seem to do just fine without having to protect themselves using their own firearms.
        daenz 4y ago
        People in unarmed countries get stabbed/beaten/shot if their attacker is larger/stronger/younger than them. Here, older/weaker people have a chance to protect their lives. Firearms are frequently used defensively to stop attacks. Here's a couple from the past 2 weeks: https://abc7.com/moreno-valley-intruder-shot-homeowner-investigation/12004046/ https://abc7.com/moreno-valley-intruder-shot-homeowner-inves... https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/man-fatally-shot-at-clearwater-home-police-say/ https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/man-fatally-shot-a...
        mullingitover 4y ago
  - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
    >”and really dried up the supply, sure, you might still be able to buy an assault rifle from the criminal underworld.” Might still? It would kick the underground firearm economy into overdrive. It’s also the case that the United States has a mind boggling amount of guns, more than any forced confiscation program could hope to put a noticeable dent into. “I lost my gun in a boating accident” is already a meme in gun culture. The black market would be well supplied.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  In the school shootings, at least, there is always some unhinged person behind it. Deeper mental health checks before purchasing a gun (like as is required in Germany) could be very useful. Also, rules in place that your gun is stored securely in a safe, and spot checks to verify such (again, in Germany) can help with guns making their way into other people’s hands either by being given or by being taken. A friend of mine in high school killed herself with her father’s gun…she might have not gone through with it if the gun was locked up and the suicide wasn’t so easy. Think of gun restrictions and bans as friction. They act to reduce bad events, they don’t eliminate them. If you just make getting a gun harder (by legitimate and illegitimate means), that will have a marked reduction in gun deaths (and violent deaths overall since other methods require much more work/willpower/skills).
  - cowtools 4y ago
    That is a slippery slope to every state having restrictive NY-like gun laws. I don't care about legal or cultural precedent in germany or the EU. This isn't germany. The US plays a far more important role in global affairs, and as such must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime, those measures include the right to bear arms as well as freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
    - chii 4y ago
      > must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime the pen used for voting has more power than a gun to prevent the US from falling into the hands of "some regime".
      - voakbasda 4y ago
        One could argue the US has already fallen, and guns are the only way we are going to get it back. Of course, that’s not a popular opinion, but try to take guns away from the citizens and it will be.
      - cowtools 4y ago
- cute_boi 4y ago
  I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people. How many school shootings happen in China or India? I am taking china and india because they are populous and don't have gun distributed freely like in US. The fact is quantity matters in such cases. Having 1 incidence vs 10 or 20 is a huge difference.
  - chii 4y ago
    > I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people. and i do believe that this idea doesn't fly in the USA. The culture doesn't allow it. Gun control in the USA can, and will, only ever go as far as checks and registries. It will forever remain a place where anyone, after passing checks, will be able to acquire a gun. There are countries with large gun ownership rates too - finland comes to mind. Those countries have good education, social safety net, healthcare, and other societal support, such that people don't become deranged or fall into crime (as easily). Of course, having some gun control laws will help - i am all for a complete registry of guns (which doesn't exist in the US - and fuck those who are against it). But it's not a panacea. Effort and political capital spent on trying to get gun control means effort not spent on social progress, which is a deeper root cause of the problem.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    There are hundreds of millions of americans. These mass shooting events are insignifigant in the grand scheme of things. I don't think we should give away our essential freedoms just so we can live in a "safe" country like... China and India?
    - lifeformed 4y ago
      Surely there are more palatable examples of countries without guns than China and India.
      - cowtools 4y ago
- kadoban 4y ago
  > The root cause of gun violence is societal issues, not the guns themselves. Solve those societal issues (hard, and likely almost intractable unfortunately), or gun violence will persist. We have what, near 200 examples of other countries who are able to do better? It's almost like it doesn't require a society with no (vaguely alluded to) issues to prevent many gun crimes and mass shootings, and it's more about being able and willing to add common-sense restrictions instead of being committed to an extreme "no restrictions" policy. > will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly. The perpretator of that attack had the biggest of red flags for a long time. He should _not_ have been able to legally purchase a firearm.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - kadoban 4y ago
      We could start with "if someone keeps telling people they're going to shoot a bunch of people, they can't buy a gun" and go from there. Requiring training, background checks (no loopholes), an interview and a license would also be a good idea, though it requires a bit of care in implementation. There's a few things that are pretty close to harmless to moral gun owners but would reduce the incidence and severity of gun violence.
      - cowtools 4y ago
    - kthejoker2 4y ago
      Whatever they do in those in those other 200 countries are clearly both common and sensible.
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  Sorry, but why would a complete ban on citizens owning guns, unless for very special cases not severely curb gun violence?
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Japan has 9 cases of gun deaths, the US had 35,000. You’d almost think it has an effect.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      You are including suicides in the US gun deaths which makes it a bit of weird comparison.
      - Aeolun 4y ago
        No? I’m including suicides for Japan as well.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        I wasn't clear. What I mean, is a huge number of the gun deaths in the US are with guns. Suicide in Japan is usually not with guns.
  - chii 4y ago
    it would curb spur of the moment shootings, and may be accidental, or simple premeditated ones. It would not stop a determined religious or fundamentalist fanatic, as guns can still be acquired even if banned. Plus, a complete ban on civilians owning guns is very unlikely to ever happen in the USA.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      > It would not stop a determined religious or fundamentalist fanatic, as guns can still be acquired even if banned. That's also the case in every country where guns are illegal and yet in practice it remains a very rare occurrence.
- notabee 4y ago
  Very insightful and refreshing to see a nuanced take like this. I agree, it's a sick society problem, and blaming just guns or just "mental illness" (as if that's somehow unconnected from society as a whole) misses the bigger picture.
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  One very concrete action that requires no political will, would be for the media to stop giving a platform to the shooters. If any would be shooter clearly sees that their message will go unheard, that they will die in anonymity, I think that could deter at least some. Your point stands though, that the issue is societal.
  - chii 4y ago
    yes, media has a huge role in aggrandizing the shooters, even if inadvertently. Unfortunately, due to the profit nature of most media, they gain clicks/views when such events happen. Political will - which might in this case be synonymous with profit motive - is definitely lacking.
  - CapricornNoble 4y ago
    Yeah, school shooters should just be described as "Anonymous Coward {$serialnumber}", with no picture shown or anything.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  Belgian gun owner here, so let me give you my take on this. > It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Proper gun laws could definitely prevented the 4th of july shooting. Have you seen the guy's picture and background? No way in hell that he would have gotten a legal gun in Belgium. Same for most school shootings. The solution is very simple: don't let aggressive and crazy people buy guns. > Solve those societal issues Or you need to accept that your society will have aggressive and crazy people, and make laws accordingly. US always thinks black and white. Either everyone can buy a gun, or nobody can buy a gun. There seems to be no grey zone in between? Same for mass shootings, either you have them or you have 0, also no grey zone. Maybe you could try to prevent most of them? Like most sane countries? You need a driver license to drive a car, seems logical. But in US, anyone can walk into a store and buy a gun with bullets. Absolutely bonkers in these times. Like I said, I'm a gun owner. So let me tell you what I have to do to get a gun, to give you an idea how other countries work. First of all I need a reason to own a gun, and "defend my home" is not a valid one. "I shoot for sports" is a valid one. In that sense, we don't have an NRA organisation, we have a Sport Shooting Organisation, which actually wants to have proper legislation with restrictive licenses. So first I need to subscribe myself into a shooting range. I can't have any convictions, my doctor needs to approve I can handle guns. The shooting range itself also judges if they want a person like me in their club (=is this person going to be handling guns safely?). I can tell you there are no members in my club who have tattoos in their face. For 3 months I can only shoot air guns. After 3 months, I can apply for a firearm. Again, no convictions, doctor needs to approve, all adult people in my house need to approve. Then you need to pass a theoretical and practical exam. Theoretical also includes gun laws, where to store guns, how to transport them, etc. After that is done, you can send the documents to the government, they have to approve it. After they say yes, they send your dossier to the local police, and a cop will come by to check where and how you store your guns (stored away from kids, bullets separate, not easily accessible, ...). After that person approves, it goes back to the government and you get your license. If any of the people in those steps says "no", you don't get your firearm. This application takes months. Then, once you have your firearm, every year you need to prove you at least went 12 times to the shooting range, and have a clear criminal record. Every 5 years your doctor needs to approve. When you want to buy another firearm, do the whole thing again. Also, cops can come by any time and check where your guns are stored. Do I like to do all of this every year? No. Do I prefer that over my neighbour owning a gun and no clue how to safely use it? Yes. Do I prefer that over any crazy idiot going to the shop and buy a firearm and bullets? Hell YES!!!! What is the result? Compare the gun violence results of Belgium with any US state the size of Belgium.
- skissane 4y ago
  > but doesn't prevent any premeditated ones Not all premeditated attackers are equal in motivation and ability. Make the obstacle high enough, some people will still make it over, others will either lack the motivation to scale it or the ability to do so. Lower the obstacle, and suddenly that later group gets over it too. "Premeditation" just means the attacker intended to do the act before-hand. The degree of preparation involved varies widely. Some premeditated attacks are the fruit of weeks, months, even years of preparation. Other premeditated attacks are triggered by a recent stressor, sometimes only days old. Gun control can make a big difference to the odds of the later kind of premeditated attack, but makes little difference to the odds of the former kind.
- achenet 4y ago
  Strongly disagree. Access to powerful firearms vastly increases how damaging shootings are. Compare the single death in a decade for Japan to the hundreds, if not thousands of deaths per year from gun violence in the US[0] [1]. Keeping guns out of circulation reduces gun deaths. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    "It's the exception that proves the rule".
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      In this case, it proved both rules. One of the ostensible purposes of the Second Amendment is for Americans to be able to hold their own government in check via the private capacity to cause violence. Well, lacking anything even approximating a Second Amendment, an individual Japanese citizen just forced leadership change.
      - madeofpalk 4y ago
        You think in America citizens should shoot Bush or Obama to "hold their own government in check"? You think that's a valid exercise of the second amendment?
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Are you asking me or the Founding Fathers? I think it's a terrible and apocryphal idea and America would be well served by repealing the Second Amendment. The perpetual loss of civilian life to violent urges consummated by easy access to deadly firearms is in no way worth the possibility that Americans may need to rise up and shoot a bunch of their own politicians someday. But among the reasons that it was put into place is definitely the idea that you must arm the citizenry because a government that disarms its citizenry is a tyranny. The US had, in living memory of the people who wrote the Constitution, just fought a war against their legitimate government and won it because, among other things, colonial life had made the average American familiar with a gun. They saw that as a useful facet of their culture to preserve.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  This was even more wild because of the guns involved were somewhat complex homemade guns.
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bigDinosaur 4y ago
They've also had chemical weapon attacks which are scarier than gun attacks. Give me a person with a gun rather than some lethal chemical piped into the subway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack
- glogla 4y ago
  I'm not sure if it should be scarier - the deadliest terrorist gas attack in Japan killed less people than the regularly scheduled weekly mass shooting in US usually does.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    Not to minimise shootings, but at least you (or law enforcement) can shoot back, whereas with chemical attacks you cannot. The issue is really that you could scale chemical attacks up immensely and find some truly nasty chemical agents. I'm surprised it hasn't happened more - perhaps due to how dangerous working with extremely toxic chemicals actually is. Either way, wikipedia suggests 1k were injured in the attacks, so it's not just deaths. Imagine a terrorist who attacked with a chemical agent that just made you blind or gave you brain damage, but didn't kill you. Would that not be much scarier than being shot?
    - oynqr 4y ago
      Someone did the math, scaling up chemical attacks is really hard because the stuff dissipates so quickly, even if you have something like sarin.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        Also, it is really hard to gather the materials needed in the amounts necessary without raising suspicions, which also says a lot about how Japanese police handled the case.
      - bigDinosaur 4y ago
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daenz 4y ago
I don't think people realize just how easy it is to make a homemade shotgun. Literally tubes.
- totetsu 4y ago
  Looks like tubes and black tape.
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lazide 4y ago
Looks like it was home made. Guns are not complicated machines, anyone motivated with even basic household tools can make one if they want to do so. And it looks like someone did.
- Hamuko 4y ago
  Although in this case, the suspect had worked for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, so it wasn't just your average person off the street. At least I imagine that being in the navy would entail much more domain knowledge about firearms than your lay perosn.
  - bismuthcrystal 4y ago
    Not enough of a difference to make a difference. Single use shotguns from smooth pipes and black powder are very simple. Any lay person can figure it out.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Not very likely, military arms are so many steps removed from ‘improvised weapon’ that the only thing they share in common is they use burning propellant to shove a projectile out the end. Everything from chemistry, techniques, methods, materials is different. Military is all about ‘at scale’ and ‘ready and waiting after decades’. A couple pipes and end caps, a drill, some wire of different diameters, a 9v battery, and some common household chemicals and time and you’re good to go with what I saw the dude using. Some odds you’d blow yourself up, but that’s easy to test out in the woods or whatever remotely. All the above can be gleaned with some easy google searches or YouTube, including people making them and showing all the steps.
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resonious 4y ago
This news about Abe is definitely a bit shocking, but nowhere near as scary as the indiscriminate killings we keep hearing about from the US. If you're a high profile politician, having a target on your back is basically part of the job description. The fact that "being a US resident" is now on more or less the same level, is a bit scary.
- namecheapTA 4y ago
  Statistics still matter. The odds of dying in a car accident throughout your life are about 1 in 100. If you take out suicide and gang violence, getting shot randomly is much less likely than dying in a car. Yet I go and drive around for fun some days and don't worry one but about it.
  - davenaff 4y ago
    Guns are now the leading cause of death for people under the age of 24 in the US (and have been for several years). Yes, they exceed motor vehicle deaths. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/05/25/guns-are-the-things-most-likely-to-kill-young-people-in-america https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/05/25/guns-are...
    - aksss 4y ago
      Is that including suicides?
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      My first thought on seeing that statistic some weeks ago was that auto deaths must be falling. They're not.
    - pseudo0 4y ago
      Now do the stats for people under 24 without gang affiliation... It's incredibly misleading for the Economist to tie that stat to Uvalde when in reality, it's 16-24 year old gang members shooting each other over the drug trade and personal beefs.
    - 4y ago
kumarvvr 4y ago
This argument that "look at the gun controlled state" after a shooting is such a dumb one to make. How many mass shootings happen in Japan? How many kids are killed in Japanese schools because someone barged in with a military grade assault weapon, tactical gear and unlimited ammo? How many gun killings per capita happen in Japan? How many people per capita in Japan have gun violence as a priority as compared to the US? So many questions that have answers in favor of gun control are ignored. Guns are in-compatible with human nature (The off chance of a bad decision for revenge or murderous rampage is high enough to ban guns). Because they distort the power in favor of the gun bearer.
- jesterson 4y ago
  Been living in Japan and US for a while. There are substantial cultural differences in those countries. Even if tomorrow you would allow any weapon in Japan it won't change anything. There will be no school shootings (at substantial amount). Japanese people conditioned differently.
  - kumarvvr 4y ago
    Totally agree. But give every Japanese a weapon. And then wait a few decades. Can you guarantee me that the culture will hold back gun violence?
    - jesterson 4y ago
      I doubt anyone can "guarantee" how things will be developed in few decades. Noone knows for sure how the policy will transform societal relationships. Presence or absence of weapons doesn't affect if someone will use it or not. Getting or making a weapon is relatively easy task even in Japan. Growing a cohesive society where people use other means to cooperate instead of assaulting everyone who disagrees with their opinion is most important
      - kumarvvr 4y ago
        > Presence or absence of weapons doesn't affect if someone will use it or not. Yeah No. When weapons are absent, the probability of using a weapon is exactly 0. When weapons are cheaply and easily available, the probability is definitely not 0. Those who wish to create mayhem, can and will, get weapons one way or another. Happens all over the world. No amount of laws or severity of punishments can change that. But, gun restrictions prevent impulsive actions, and actions or situations exacerbated by the false security that having a gun gives, or plain right idiots who don't know how to safely handle guns.
unrealhoang 4y ago
I'd argue that because gun crime in Japan is so low that the security required to prevent this sort of attack has not been properly prepared.
hintymad 4y ago
> I made an example of Japan and it’s low gun violence. Now this happens. I think your argument still holds. Japanese politicians usually have really relaxed security details partly because it's hard to get a gun in Japan. This kind of shooting is an exception, not a norm.
sofixa 4y ago
> Now this happens. It's like the recent shootings in Norway and Denmark. Yes, those things happen even in "those" places (good quality of life, happy people, well developed, socialised healthcare, etc.) but they're a once in a decade, at most, event. Meanwhile the US has one of those what, weekly? It's unfortunate that guns are religious issue there, which means nothing meaningful will change.
solarkraft 4y ago
It's not like that invalidates anything. Bad things can still happen, just much less often.
lazide 4y ago
Having spent some time in Japan and knowing many Japanese folks and many Western folks who have lived and worked in Japan a long time, my impression is that Japan is (like many East Asian countries) obsessed with looking perfect. It often means actually nearly perfect (on some axis, at least in Japan, but with clear ‘acceptable’ issues on others), but coverups, suppressing inconvenient facts, oppressing or exiling troublesome elements, etc. all happen too. Folks call it ‘face’, and it isn’t unique to East Asia, but it is very pronounced in Japan. Japan also being an island and very culturally homogenous, makes it possible to take it to real extremes not doable elsewhere, and it can be a very oppressive environment if you don’t fit in (and are trying to do so). If you’re ok with being treated as a foreign curiosity, everyone is very friendly and helpful. With everything tightening the screws lately (Covid, economy, etc), it’s another example (like the attempted subway gassings) of something slipping out of control and blowing up where it can’t be swept under the rug.

chii 4y ago

My take is that gun violence has several different categories, and gun control only helps some of them (such as accidental, or emotional, spur of the moment shootings), but doesn't prevent any premeditated ones. It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly. The root cause of gun violence is societal issues, not the guns themselves. Solve those societal issues (hard, and likely almost intractable unfortunately), or gun violence will persist.

mullingitover 4y ago
> It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly. You sure about that? If we had an aggressive gun buyback program and really dried up the supply, sure, you might still be able to buy an assault rifle from the criminal underworld. However, if you have the disposable income to be able to afford to pay >$20k for that gun...you've probably got your life together and aren't going on shooting sprees.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  That’s not how gun buy back programs work. Hint they don’t and never have. It’s the same as what happened to that town that tried to solve their rat problem by paying people to bring rat heads. Some enterprising townsfolk started breeding rats.
  - jclulow 4y ago
    You have to ban them _and_ buy them back at the same time. You make them illegal to have, then you compensate people for the economic value of the property they now need to surrender for destruction. That is in fact how buyback schemes work in countries that aren't totally irrational about guns.
    - vlovich123 4y ago
      I clearly should have clarified. They don’t work in America where private gun ownership does not look like it’s ever going to get banned. Also America isn’t land locked like Australia. The black market will have an easier time transporting the goods through South America. If that wasn’t the case, then drugs wouldn’t be as accessible here. And given US is the arms capital of the world (American manufacturers supply a significant amount of the arms used in conflicts), those guns will inevitably find their way back to America (conflict stops, owners need money more than weapons, etc). The bigger the conflict the cheaper the guns become. Finally, Australia had a national moment of unity when they banned guns and so giving up your guns was a collective activity. That’s not the case in America.
  - King-Aaron 4y ago
    You're deeply wrong about that. Gun buybacks have worked and do work everywhere that they've been conducted.
    - daenz 4y ago
      It's not a buyback since the government never owned it. It's coerced confiscation.
      - King-Aaron 4y ago
        So if you sell your house, or sell your car, or sell a loaf of bread, is that also coerced confiscation?
        4y ago
- daenz 4y ago
  Guns, but only for criminals and rich people? No thanks.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Better than having guns for criminals, rich people and unhinged teenagers looking to shoot their school.
    - daenz 4y ago
      The largest demographic (hundreds of millions of people), which you seem to have left out, is law abiding citizens looking to protect themselves and their families.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        Protect themselves from what? Unhinged people with guns? Seems like recursion. People in other countries where guns are illegal seem to do just fine without having to protect themselves using their own firearms.
        daenz 4y ago
        People in unarmed countries get stabbed/beaten/shot if their attacker is larger/stronger/younger than them. Here, older/weaker people have a chance to protect their lives. Firearms are frequently used defensively to stop attacks. Here's a couple from the past 2 weeks: https://abc7.com/moreno-valley-intruder-shot-homeowner-investigation/12004046/ https://abc7.com/moreno-valley-intruder-shot-homeowner-inves... https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/man-fatally-shot-at-clearwater-home-police-say/ https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/man-fatally-shot-a...
        mullingitover 4y ago
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
  >”and really dried up the supply, sure, you might still be able to buy an assault rifle from the criminal underworld.” Might still? It would kick the underground firearm economy into overdrive. It’s also the case that the United States has a mind boggling amount of guns, more than any forced confiscation program could hope to put a noticeable dent into. “I lost my gun in a boating accident” is already a meme in gun culture. The black market would be well supplied.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
In the school shootings, at least, there is always some unhinged person behind it. Deeper mental health checks before purchasing a gun (like as is required in Germany) could be very useful. Also, rules in place that your gun is stored securely in a safe, and spot checks to verify such (again, in Germany) can help with guns making their way into other people’s hands either by being given or by being taken. A friend of mine in high school killed herself with her father’s gun…she might have not gone through with it if the gun was locked up and the suicide wasn’t so easy. Think of gun restrictions and bans as friction. They act to reduce bad events, they don’t eliminate them. If you just make getting a gun harder (by legitimate and illegitimate means), that will have a marked reduction in gun deaths (and violent deaths overall since other methods require much more work/willpower/skills).
- cowtools 4y ago
  That is a slippery slope to every state having restrictive NY-like gun laws. I don't care about legal or cultural precedent in germany or the EU. This isn't germany. The US plays a far more important role in global affairs, and as such must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime, those measures include the right to bear arms as well as freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
  - chii 4y ago
    > must take more dramatic measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of some regime the pen used for voting has more power than a gun to prevent the US from falling into the hands of "some regime".
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      One could argue the US has already fallen, and guns are the only way we are going to get it back. Of course, that’s not a popular opinion, but try to take guns away from the citizens and it will be.
    - cowtools 4y ago
cute_boi 4y ago
I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people. How many school shootings happen in China or India? I am taking china and india because they are populous and don't have gun distributed freely like in US. The fact is quantity matters in such cases. Having 1 incidence vs 10 or 20 is a huge difference.
- chii 4y ago
  > I am sorry, but it will stop if guns are banned for ordinary people. and i do believe that this idea doesn't fly in the USA. The culture doesn't allow it. Gun control in the USA can, and will, only ever go as far as checks and registries. It will forever remain a place where anyone, after passing checks, will be able to acquire a gun. There are countries with large gun ownership rates too - finland comes to mind. Those countries have good education, social safety net, healthcare, and other societal support, such that people don't become deranged or fall into crime (as easily). Of course, having some gun control laws will help - i am all for a complete registry of guns (which doesn't exist in the US - and fuck those who are against it). But it's not a panacea. Effort and political capital spent on trying to get gun control means effort not spent on social progress, which is a deeper root cause of the problem.
- cowtools 4y ago
  There are hundreds of millions of americans. These mass shooting events are insignifigant in the grand scheme of things. I don't think we should give away our essential freedoms just so we can live in a "safe" country like... China and India?
  - lifeformed 4y ago
    Surely there are more palatable examples of countries without guns than China and India.
    - cowtools 4y ago
kadoban 4y ago
> The root cause of gun violence is societal issues, not the guns themselves. Solve those societal issues (hard, and likely almost intractable unfortunately), or gun violence will persist. We have what, near 200 examples of other countries who are able to do better? It's almost like it doesn't require a society with no (vaguely alluded to) issues to prevent many gun crimes and mass shootings, and it's more about being able and willing to add common-sense restrictions instead of being committed to an extreme "no restrictions" policy. > will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Unless the gun control laws completely outlaw civilians owning guns - which i dont think will fly. The perpretator of that attack had the biggest of red flags for a long time. He should _not_ have been able to legally purchase a firearm.
- cowtools 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - kadoban 4y ago
    We could start with "if someone keeps telling people they're going to shoot a bunch of people, they can't buy a gun" and go from there. Requiring training, background checks (no loopholes), an interview and a license would also be a good idea, though it requires a bit of care in implementation. There's a few things that are pretty close to harmless to moral gun owners but would reduce the incidence and severity of gun violence.
    - cowtools 4y ago
  - kthejoker2 4y ago
    Whatever they do in those in those other 200 countries are clearly both common and sensible.
kumarvvr 4y ago
Sorry, but why would a complete ban on citizens owning guns, unless for very special cases not severely curb gun violence?
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Japan has 9 cases of gun deaths, the US had 35,000. You’d almost think it has an effect.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    You are including suicides in the US gun deaths which makes it a bit of weird comparison.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      No? I’m including suicides for Japan as well.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        I wasn't clear. What I mean, is a huge number of the gun deaths in the US are with guns. Suicide in Japan is usually not with guns.
- chii 4y ago
  it would curb spur of the moment shootings, and may be accidental, or simple premeditated ones. It would not stop a determined religious or fundamentalist fanatic, as guns can still be acquired even if banned. Plus, a complete ban on civilians owning guns is very unlikely to ever happen in the USA.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > It would not stop a determined religious or fundamentalist fanatic, as guns can still be acquired even if banned. That's also the case in every country where guns are illegal and yet in practice it remains a very rare occurrence.
notabee 4y ago
Very insightful and refreshing to see a nuanced take like this. I agree, it's a sick society problem, and blaming just guns or just "mental illness" (as if that's somehow unconnected from society as a whole) misses the bigger picture.
pawsforthought 4y ago
One very concrete action that requires no political will, would be for the media to stop giving a platform to the shooters. If any would be shooter clearly sees that their message will go unheard, that they will die in anonymity, I think that could deter at least some. Your point stands though, that the issue is societal.
- chii 4y ago
  yes, media has a huge role in aggrandizing the shooters, even if inadvertently. Unfortunately, due to the profit nature of most media, they gain clicks/views when such events happen. Political will - which might in this case be synonymous with profit motive - is definitely lacking.
- CapricornNoble 4y ago
  Yeah, school shooters should just be described as "Anonymous Coward {$serialnumber}", with no picture shown or anything.
koonsolo 4y ago
Belgian gun owner here, so let me give you my take on this. > It will not stop people like the one at 4th july, nor those school shootings. Proper gun laws could definitely prevented the 4th of july shooting. Have you seen the guy's picture and background? No way in hell that he would have gotten a legal gun in Belgium. Same for most school shootings. The solution is very simple: don't let aggressive and crazy people buy guns. > Solve those societal issues Or you need to accept that your society will have aggressive and crazy people, and make laws accordingly. US always thinks black and white. Either everyone can buy a gun, or nobody can buy a gun. There seems to be no grey zone in between? Same for mass shootings, either you have them or you have 0, also no grey zone. Maybe you could try to prevent most of them? Like most sane countries? You need a driver license to drive a car, seems logical. But in US, anyone can walk into a store and buy a gun with bullets. Absolutely bonkers in these times. Like I said, I'm a gun owner. So let me tell you what I have to do to get a gun, to give you an idea how other countries work. First of all I need a reason to own a gun, and "defend my home" is not a valid one. "I shoot for sports" is a valid one. In that sense, we don't have an NRA organisation, we have a Sport Shooting Organisation, which actually wants to have proper legislation with restrictive licenses. So first I need to subscribe myself into a shooting range. I can't have any convictions, my doctor needs to approve I can handle guns. The shooting range itself also judges if they want a person like me in their club (=is this person going to be handling guns safely?). I can tell you there are no members in my club who have tattoos in their face. For 3 months I can only shoot air guns. After 3 months, I can apply for a firearm. Again, no convictions, doctor needs to approve, all adult people in my house need to approve. Then you need to pass a theoretical and practical exam. Theoretical also includes gun laws, where to store guns, how to transport them, etc. After that is done, you can send the documents to the government, they have to approve it. After they say yes, they send your dossier to the local police, and a cop will come by to check where and how you store your guns (stored away from kids, bullets separate, not easily accessible, ...). After that person approves, it goes back to the government and you get your license. If any of the people in those steps says "no", you don't get your firearm. This application takes months. Then, once you have your firearm, every year you need to prove you at least went 12 times to the shooting range, and have a clear criminal record. Every 5 years your doctor needs to approve. When you want to buy another firearm, do the whole thing again. Also, cops can come by any time and check where your guns are stored. Do I like to do all of this every year? No. Do I prefer that over my neighbour owning a gun and no clue how to safely use it? Yes. Do I prefer that over any crazy idiot going to the shop and buy a firearm and bullets? Hell YES!!!! What is the result? Compare the gun violence results of Belgium with any US state the size of Belgium.
skissane 4y ago
> but doesn't prevent any premeditated ones Not all premeditated attackers are equal in motivation and ability. Make the obstacle high enough, some people will still make it over, others will either lack the motivation to scale it or the ability to do so. Lower the obstacle, and suddenly that later group gets over it too. "Premeditation" just means the attacker intended to do the act before-hand. The degree of preparation involved varies widely. Some premeditated attacks are the fruit of weeks, months, even years of preparation. Other premeditated attacks are triggered by a recent stressor, sometimes only days old. Gun control can make a big difference to the odds of the later kind of premeditated attack, but makes little difference to the odds of the former kind.
achenet 4y ago
Strongly disagree. Access to powerful firearms vastly increases how damaging shootings are. Compare the single death in a decade for Japan to the hundreds, if not thousands of deaths per year from gun violence in the US[0] [1]. Keeping guns out of circulation reduces gun deaths. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  "It's the exception that proves the rule".
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    In this case, it proved both rules. One of the ostensible purposes of the Second Amendment is for Americans to be able to hold their own government in check via the private capacity to cause violence. Well, lacking anything even approximating a Second Amendment, an individual Japanese citizen just forced leadership change.
    - madeofpalk 4y ago
      You think in America citizens should shoot Bush or Obama to "hold their own government in check"? You think that's a valid exercise of the second amendment?
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Are you asking me or the Founding Fathers? I think it's a terrible and apocryphal idea and America would be well served by repealing the Second Amendment. The perpetual loss of civilian life to violent urges consummated by easy access to deadly firearms is in no way worth the possibility that Americans may need to rise up and shoot a bunch of their own politicians someday. But among the reasons that it was put into place is definitely the idea that you must arm the citizenry because a government that disarms its citizenry is a tyranny. The US had, in living memory of the people who wrote the Constitution, just fought a war against their legitimate government and won it because, among other things, colonial life had made the average American familiar with a gun. They saw that as a useful facet of their culture to preserve.
the_only_law 4y ago
This was even more wild because of the guns involved were somewhat complex homemade guns.

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bigDinosaur 4y ago

They've also had chemical weapon attacks which are scarier than gun attacks. Give me a person with a gun rather than some lethal chemical piped into the subway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack

glogla 4y ago
I'm not sure if it should be scarier - the deadliest terrorist gas attack in Japan killed less people than the regularly scheduled weekly mass shooting in US usually does.
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Not to minimise shootings, but at least you (or law enforcement) can shoot back, whereas with chemical attacks you cannot. The issue is really that you could scale chemical attacks up immensely and find some truly nasty chemical agents. I'm surprised it hasn't happened more - perhaps due to how dangerous working with extremely toxic chemicals actually is. Either way, wikipedia suggests 1k were injured in the attacks, so it's not just deaths. Imagine a terrorist who attacked with a chemical agent that just made you blind or gave you brain damage, but didn't kill you. Would that not be much scarier than being shot?
  - oynqr 4y ago
    Someone did the math, scaling up chemical attacks is really hard because the stuff dissipates so quickly, even if you have something like sarin.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Also, it is really hard to gather the materials needed in the amounts necessary without raising suspicions, which also says a lot about how Japanese police handled the case.
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago

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daenz 4y ago

I don't think people realize just how easy it is to make a homemade shotgun. Literally tubes.

totetsu 4y ago
Looks like tubes and black tape.

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lazide 4y ago

Looks like it was home made. Guns are not complicated machines, anyone motivated with even basic household tools can make one if they want to do so. And it looks like someone did.

Hamuko 4y ago
Although in this case, the suspect had worked for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, so it wasn't just your average person off the street. At least I imagine that being in the navy would entail much more domain knowledge about firearms than your lay perosn.
- bismuthcrystal 4y ago
  Not enough of a difference to make a difference. Single use shotguns from smooth pipes and black powder are very simple. Any lay person can figure it out.
- lazide 4y ago
  Not very likely, military arms are so many steps removed from ‘improvised weapon’ that the only thing they share in common is they use burning propellant to shove a projectile out the end. Everything from chemistry, techniques, methods, materials is different. Military is all about ‘at scale’ and ‘ready and waiting after decades’. A couple pipes and end caps, a drill, some wire of different diameters, a 9v battery, and some common household chemicals and time and you’re good to go with what I saw the dude using. Some odds you’d blow yourself up, but that’s easy to test out in the woods or whatever remotely. All the above can be gleaned with some easy google searches or YouTube, including people making them and showing all the steps.

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resonious 4y ago

This news about Abe is definitely a bit shocking, but nowhere near as scary as the indiscriminate killings we keep hearing about from the US. If you're a high profile politician, having a target on your back is basically part of the job description. The fact that "being a US resident" is now on more or less the same level, is a bit scary.

namecheapTA 4y ago
Statistics still matter. The odds of dying in a car accident throughout your life are about 1 in 100. If you take out suicide and gang violence, getting shot randomly is much less likely than dying in a car. Yet I go and drive around for fun some days and don't worry one but about it.
- davenaff 4y ago
  Guns are now the leading cause of death for people under the age of 24 in the US (and have been for several years). Yes, they exceed motor vehicle deaths. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/05/25/guns-are-the-things-most-likely-to-kill-young-people-in-america https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/05/25/guns-are...
  - aksss 4y ago
    Is that including suicides?
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    My first thought on seeing that statistic some weeks ago was that auto deaths must be falling. They're not.
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    Now do the stats for people under 24 without gang affiliation... It's incredibly misleading for the Economist to tie that stat to Uvalde when in reality, it's 16-24 year old gang members shooting each other over the drug trade and personal beefs.
  - 4y ago

kumarvvr 4y ago

This argument that "look at the gun controlled state" after a shooting is such a dumb one to make. How many mass shootings happen in Japan? How many kids are killed in Japanese schools because someone barged in with a military grade assault weapon, tactical gear and unlimited ammo? How many gun killings per capita happen in Japan? How many people per capita in Japan have gun violence as a priority as compared to the US? So many questions that have answers in favor of gun control are ignored. Guns are in-compatible with human nature (The off chance of a bad decision for revenge or murderous rampage is high enough to ban guns). Because they distort the power in favor of the gun bearer.

jesterson 4y ago
Been living in Japan and US for a while. There are substantial cultural differences in those countries. Even if tomorrow you would allow any weapon in Japan it won't change anything. There will be no school shootings (at substantial amount). Japanese people conditioned differently.
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  Totally agree. But give every Japanese a weapon. And then wait a few decades. Can you guarantee me that the culture will hold back gun violence?
  - jesterson 4y ago
    I doubt anyone can "guarantee" how things will be developed in few decades. Noone knows for sure how the policy will transform societal relationships. Presence or absence of weapons doesn't affect if someone will use it or not. Getting or making a weapon is relatively easy task even in Japan. Growing a cohesive society where people use other means to cooperate instead of assaulting everyone who disagrees with their opinion is most important
    - kumarvvr 4y ago
      > Presence or absence of weapons doesn't affect if someone will use it or not. Yeah No. When weapons are absent, the probability of using a weapon is exactly 0. When weapons are cheaply and easily available, the probability is definitely not 0. Those who wish to create mayhem, can and will, get weapons one way or another. Happens all over the world. No amount of laws or severity of punishments can change that. But, gun restrictions prevent impulsive actions, and actions or situations exacerbated by the false security that having a gun gives, or plain right idiots who don't know how to safely handle guns.

unrealhoang 4y ago

I'd argue that because gun crime in Japan is so low that the security required to prevent this sort of attack has not been properly prepared.

hintymad 4y ago

> I made an example of Japan and it’s low gun violence. Now this happens. I think your argument still holds. Japanese politicians usually have really relaxed security details partly because it's hard to get a gun in Japan. This kind of shooting is an exception, not a norm.

sofixa 4y ago

> Now this happens. It's like the recent shootings in Norway and Denmark. Yes, those things happen even in "those" places (good quality of life, happy people, well developed, socialised healthcare, etc.) but they're a once in a decade, at most, event. Meanwhile the US has one of those what, weekly? It's unfortunate that guns are religious issue there, which means nothing meaningful will change.

solarkraft 4y ago

It's not like that invalidates anything. Bad things can still happen, just much less often.

lazide 4y ago

Having spent some time in Japan and knowing many Japanese folks and many Western folks who have lived and worked in Japan a long time, my impression is that Japan is (like many East Asian countries) obsessed with looking perfect. It often means actually nearly perfect (on some axis, at least in Japan, but with clear ‘acceptable’ issues on others), but coverups, suppressing inconvenient facts, oppressing or exiling troublesome elements, etc. all happen too. Folks call it ‘face’, and it isn’t unique to East Asia, but it is very pronounced in Japan. Japan also being an island and very culturally homogenous, makes it possible to take it to real extremes not doable elsewhere, and it can be a very oppressive environment if you don’t fit in (and are trying to do so). If you’re ok with being treated as a foreign curiosity, everyone is very friendly and helpful. With everything tightening the screws lately (Covid, economy, etc), it’s another example (like the attempted subway gassings) of something slipping out of control and blowing up where it can’t be swept under the rug.