Even gangsters live in fear of Japan’s gun laws by Jake Adelstein
Last edited Sat Jan 26, 2013, 01:00 AM - Edit history (1)
“You have to bring your rifle in every year for inspection. You have to pass a drug test. You can’t have a criminal record. A doctor has to certify you’re mentally and physically healthy. You have to actually go to the firing range and show that you can use the weapon. If you have any sort of issue, we’re going to take away your firearms,” Detective X said.
“Sometimes, police officers even go to the neighborhoods where a gun owner lives and interview neighbors to make sure the owner isn’t causing problems or having issues with his spouse,” he added.
However, the focus is not only on ensuring gun owners don’t misuse their weapons, but also on getting rid of what the police call nemuri-ju (sleeping guns).
“There are not many hunters left now and many people get too old to use their weapons. If they can’t fire them properly, they get taken away. The fewer guns that are out there, the safer Japan is. That’s how we look at it,” Detective X explained.
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Under current laws, if a low-level yakuza is caught with a gun and bullets that match, he’ll be charged with aggravated possession of firearms and will then face an average seven-year prison term. Simply firing a gun carries a penalty of three years to life. And for the “accomplice” reasons above, a yakuza boss may decide a death sentence is more appropriate if his thug miraculously gets released on bail before going to jail.
One mid-level yakuza boss told me, “Having a gun now is like having a time bomb. Do you think any sane person wants to keep one around the house?”
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/01/06/news/even-gangsters-live-in-fear-of-japans-gun-laws/
= new reply since forum marked as read
end of argument, thanks for the backup! welcome!
keep at it! 
And if they don't pass, they have to give up their guns.
I'm sure that'll work just fine.
If you're about taking guns, take them from the criminals first, then get back to me.
The only firearms which a civilian may have in Japan are shotguns. Sportsmen are permitted to possess shotguns for hunting and for skeet shooting, but only after submitting to a lengthy licensing procedure. Without a license, a Japanese citizen person may not even hold a gun in his or her hands (unless they are a member of the olympic shooting team, in which case they can hold a pistol while shooting in competition). Weapons must be stored in a safe when not in use and you must submit proof of the safe when making the application. Regulation of air rifles (not "firearms"
is similar to shotguns. Police randomly search the owners home for violation (no 4th amend in Japan either). Further, non shotgun owners are subject to stop and frisk policies which the NYPD would be envious of. Mere unarticulated suspicion that a person may have a weapon of any sort is sufficient.
Japan has strictly controlled civilian ownership of all weapons since about 1560 when the shogun warlord Hidéyoshi fought his way to power and promptly banned weapons ownership for all except his warriors.
Editorial
In Other Countries, Laws Are Strict and Work
Experts from the Harvard School of Public Health, using data from 26 developed countries, have shown that wherever there are more firearms, there are more homicides. In the case of the United States, exponentially more: the American murder rate is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have much tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/the-gun-challenge-strict-laws-work.html
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from a pro-gun blog: (not entire accurate, but somewhat.)
http://www.weapon-blog.com/2011/11/comparing-gun-laws-around-the-world/
3. Japan – Japan has strict laws regarding firearms licensing, but they are considered a formality. In spite of the liberal nature of the policy, gun deaths in Japan are among the lowest in the world.
avoid the issue, much? 
***
Here is my small thought. It is quite possible, perhaps probable, that stricter gun laws of the sort that Mr Obama may or may not be planning, would not have stopped the horrible killings of this morning. But that is a separate question from whether it is a good idea to allow private individuals to own guns. And that, really, is what I think I understand by gun control. Once you have guns in circulation, in significant numbers, I suspect that specific controls on things like automatic weapons or large magazines can have only marginal effects. Once lots of other people have guns, it becomes rational for you to want your own too.
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I would also say, to stick my neck out a bit further, that I find many of the arguments advanced for private gun ownership in America a bit unconvincing, and tinged with a blend of excessive self-confidence and faulty risk perception.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2012/12/gun-control
I would also say, to stick my neck out a bit further, that I find many of the arguments advanced for private gun ownership in America a bit unconvincing, and tinged with a blend of excessive self-confidence and faulty risk perception.
very polite!
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Will Lessons From Down Under Stem the Undertaker Here?
In 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant finished his lunch in a café in the seaside resort of Port Arthur and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle. In the first 15 seconds of his attack, he killed 12 and wounded 10.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/australia-model-successful-gun-control-laws/story?id=18007055
not so polite-
15 FUCKING SECONDS!!!!!
will you gun bunnies shut the fuck up about the 2nd amendment for 15 fucking seconds and imagine what being in a situation like that would be like?
what the fuck good would your gun do?
you want to be a 'hero' so just let shit like that happen?
(that cnn thing was supposed to go @ the end of the thread)
they also have the highest life expectancy in the world.
AND sushi is delicious!
they really are very..thorough
http://japanisweird.com/
(that's so the watermelons fit in the fridge better, they grow them in frames!)
they also put fireflies in cricket cages tied to their ankles so they can work at night in the fields!
