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First Arrest In Japan For 3D-Printed Guns
PuceBaboon (469044) writes "Earlier today (Thursday), police in Kawasaki, Japan, arrested a man for violation of the firearms control law. He was apparently in possession of five, 3D-printed handguns, two of which were reportedly capable of firing normal rounds (although no actual bullets were found). The suspect was arrested after releasing video of the guns online. Japan has very strict gun control laws and, whether or not the suspect actually appeared in the alleged video, he may just have signed himself up for some serious porridge."
it's in 3D
If guns are illegal in Chicago why do businesses use bulletproof glass?
This porridge, while thick and creamy, may also in fact come with maple syrup and fresh berries or should he plead guilty, a knob of butter and a dash of salt as would be the law in japan as it applies to sentencing and conviction within the bounds of the criminal porridge system. The whole grain oats, enriched generously with folate and iron, would serve to deter even the most wanton of breakfast criminal.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Belt and suspenders protect. 1. No gun allowed here, and 2. If there is one, it's safer to stay indoors.
How thick is the glass behind glass behind that female anchor of E! News on her Chicago-area set?
Because when guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
3D printing and a hotbutton political topic.
Cause Japanese are way more civilized than the rest of us!
Ever been to Tokyo? Greater Tokyo had almost 35 million people packed
on the edge of a stamp and... there is essentially no violent crime. Everything
looks clean, new, and well-kept. Also great and safe public transportation!
Japanese are so polite and nice...
That old hackney phrase.
Where you outlaws get those guns?
Oh from good guys in states where it is legal to sell them in bulk.
That old hackney phrase. Where you outlaws get those guns? Oh from good guys in states where it is legal to sell them in bulk.
I disagree with your insinuation that the US Government are the good guys in this case. (Think "Fast & Furious".)
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Because guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Because you can buy one five miles away and there's no border control?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
There is plenty of violent crime in Japan. The difference between their violent crime and violent crime in the United States is that Japan's guns laws are very highly restrictive. I can still remember reading an interview a gaming website did with a mid-level yakuza, who they had play Yakuza 4. He remarked that none of the actual yakuza use guns, because the cops there will arrest on sight if they see someone carrying one. Instead, they tend to snatch people off the streets and use the $5 wrench approach.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the violent crime rate in Japan, especially by organized crime, is under-reported. One of the main slang terms for the yakuza translates to "the office", a remark on how big of an institution organized crime is in the country, to the point where it's almost like a business.
While I'm sure the yakuza don't account for 100% of violent crime there, I'd be willing to bet they account for quite a bit.
But if outlaws are ostracized, only ostriches will have guns.
Or perhaps it is because they have an entirely different culture? One where violence had a severe cost just two generations ago, just about the same time had all cultural celebration of violence stomped out by foreign influence, and at the same time their national defense was overseen by an entirely different country so there was no nationalistic need to push any type of propoganda for desiring a career relating to violence on its young men. Assuming you could snap your fingers and make all the guns go away in America, you still haven't solved the underlying problems of undertreatment of the mentally ill, mistreatment of the poor, and the prevailing attitude that I'm not responsible for my own actions.
Guns aren't illegal in Chicago. You just can't buy a gun in Chicago thanks to scaremongering about Chicago's crime rate* and the predictable response from voters: to be scared into ceding some rights to politicians.
* There are pretty rough areas, yes, just like any major city in the US. And yes, the number of murders is higher than zero, which is bad but to be expected. And yes, the total number of people murdered by guns seems shockingly high until you adjust for population, at which point it looks very much average for an American city. The fact that everyone is convinced the crime rate is really high in Chicago is about the only thing unusual about the situation.
Where you outlaws get those guns?
What a silly question. Cocaine is outlawed too: how come there are so many junkies?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
And the lawmen.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Murder rates won't change anyone's mind. Those who are for gun control will think they are proof of their side while those who are against it will take them as precisely the reason to own a gun to protect oneself in a violent country.
Since it is illegal to sell firearms across state lines (you can only legally buy them in your State of residence), people selling them in bulk in another State are NOT "good guys"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Underreporting may be an issue, but the reported violent crime rate in the US is about 11x higher than Japan so that would require over 90% of violent crimes going unreported to reach the level of the US (assuming 100% reporting in the US).
Because there's no border security, customs, or bloody great big oceans between Chicago and areas where guns aren't outlawed?
He broke the law and then told on himself. Plastic guns are stupid and so are laws.Once I had a cop threaten to arrest me if I didn't mow my lawn YET the same day I was firing metal home built guns on lawn. The officer called them fascinating.
Chicago is a slightly curious case: city-wide, it has been getting safer, more slowly than some would like; but steadily, for some years. However, some of the parts that were always pretty nasty have actually been getting worse, they just aren't large enough or worse enough to drag down the citywide average.
The nicer bits were never as rough as 'Chicago's image suggested, and they've been improving. The rougher areas, though, earned the nickname 'Chiraq' honestly and messily.
Maybe if you wanted to at least attempt to compare like to like you should compare Japan's murder rates to the murder rates for Japanese Americans.
it's in 3D
So I need glasses to fire the gun now ?
How many legal sources of cocaine are there in the US?
It is unwise to ascribe motive
You can sell firearms across state lines just fine --- the transaction just has to take place at an FFL in the state-of-residence of the purchaser and be legal in the destination state.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
How many legal sources of cocaine are there in the US?
Big ol' Whoosh.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
>
I also wouldn't be surprised if the violent crime rate in Japan, especially by organized crime, is under-reported. One of the main slang terms for the yakuza translates to "the office", a remark on how big of an institution organized crime is in the country, to the point where it's almost like a business.
Ah yes, country X doing better than USA as measured by statistic Y ? Of course the statistic must be false!
USA! USA! USA!
Maybe it's because their police treat the people in their community like patrons, and build courteous relationships with them?
Maybe it's because Japanese culture is ingrained with a respect for authority?
Maybe it's the tentacle porn?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"...mass shootings are carried out by law abiding citizens"
You want to rethink that statement a little?
Guns are illegal in Mexico and they have boarder control yet the bad guys get guns, cocaine is illegal in the US yet addicts still get cocaine, even prisons with very high security can't stop contraband from coming in. Unless you think the answer is tighter control of law abiding citizens then prisons have over prisoners there is no way to stop criminals from committing crimes.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
And of course, that means undergoing a background check.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Guns are illegal in Mexico and they have boarder control
I really don't see what the room rental market has to do with it.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
just about the same time had all cultural celebration of violence stomped out by foreign influence
You're rather unfamiliar with Japanese culture, aren't you...
By your own premise, once you "snap your fingers and make all the guns go away in America," then the people suffering from "problems of undertreatment of the mentally ill, mistreatment of the poor, and the prevailing attitude that I'm not responsible for my own actions" will not be able to shoot anyone. Thus the murder rate would go down (since you imply it is because of these problems, and not the availability of guns, that people shoot people).
I would not be surprised if you're making exaggerations to justify your world view about guns.
Japan's violent crime rates are orders of magnitude less than that of the US. They've got their own justice system and social problems, but violent crime is not one of them.
With 3d printing, I suppose you can print something which would be capable of firing a bullet, but not look or seem anything like a gun. A box perhaps. Would that still be a gun? I don't know if laws define guns as what most people traditionally think of - a handgun shape is very recognisable and 3d guns look similar...at what point does it become a gun, and at what point is a piece of plastic just a toy? If he printed a box with a cylindrical hole in it and a mechanism to pound into the centre of the cylinder, would it also be a gun?
Obviously not enough.
Legalize it, tax it, and regulate it. Better questions would be: How many illegal distilleries are there in the US? How many illegal firearms manufacturers are there in the US?
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Mexico has a tight restriction on guns yet their murder rate is 23.7, Switzerland where every adult over 18 is issued a true assault rifle has a murder rate of 0.7. It is not the gun laws that cause problems it is the culture. Lets stop punishing the people that do the right thing based on delusions and the desire to control the population.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I realize / hope that you're joking, but to be abundantly clear: the US Government doesn't sell guns to individuals. Not during the Fast & Furious operation or ever. They do sell guns to states sometimes - e.g. Iran / Contra.
What is the point of this? It's a tautology. It brings nothing to the conversation.
He was apparently in possession of five, 3D-printed handguns, two of which were reportedly capable of firing normal rounds (although no actual bullets were found)
The commas...I just don't understand...
I think the 'woosh' is yours. Parent is pointing out that there are states where it's ridiculously easy to buy guns, and those guns can easily be transported to areas where gun ownership is more restricted. However, the same is not true of cocaine, which can't easily be bought legally.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Exact. Current laws against guns only serve to prevent the population from react against attempts of aggression coming from the government itself or from the 1% overlords (the true government in some sense). Because no law will prevent criminals from having guns, as always.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
No, parent is asking a silly question, that ignores grandparent's point - cocaine is completely illegal in the US, and there are no legal sources of it, yet a lot of people still manage to get their hands on the substance, thus negating the assumption that gun crime rates in states that ban firearms is a direct result of being adjacent to states that do not.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If what you say is true, then criminals in every single country would be armed to the teeth with all the guns they want. As they are not, you're must be missing something quite important. You also must remember that when a criminal's potential victim has no gun, the criminal doesn't need a gun, and so won't want the increased cost and risk of actually having one. Cocaine and other drugs are public health issues, based on human psychology and physiology (substance abuse, etc.), so comparing the two simply because they are illegal is oversimplifying things to the point of nonsense.
It's not about stopping crime, it's about ensuring when crime does happen, it's as easy to walk away from as possible.
He's simply stating that up until the point the crime was underway, the shooter was not acting illegally, so all the NRA hysterics about protecting "innocent gun owners" means absolutely nothing. Plus every single one of the guns used in these crimes was, at one point, legally sold to a responsible, legal gun owner. Obviously gun owners can't be trusted, as their guns fall into the hands of criminals. You can't have it both ways.
Besides if it gets too hard to buy or import them, you could always build them.
A nice 1911 copy could probably be made in a fairly small shop these days with a PC and some decent metal working machines. I am not a gun smith but if they could make these in 1911 it doesn't seem like much of a tech barrier to just clone them now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
How many legal sources of cocaine are there in the US?
Every single pharmacy in the US is a legal source of cocaine.
All you need is a prescription.
Thousands....
Any machine shop in high school kicks a kid or two out of class every year for making "cannons" I wouldn't be surprised if welding shops have the same problem.
The problem with banning guns, really is that it's not hard to make them as people think. The quality of steel used to be an issue but any more you can get steel that exceeds the quality of stuff they used to make these bad boys back in 1911....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
The whole 3D printed plastic stuff seems dumb to me to make "guns" just buy some metal working tools (also much cheaper than they used to be.) and get to work on some real material, seems a little safer to me too...
The truth is, if your determined to be an ass hat and want to build a bomb or shoot a bunch of people or knife a bunch of people, nothing can stop you from achieving true duchebaggery except how determined you are. Sure most people will not go to such huge lengths but every once in a while you get some real nut jobs that go to lengths like buying a bunch of fertilizer and barrels and renting a truck. So in a sense the people who say stuff like "Only criminals will have guns" are correct. Nothing can really prevent that unless your willing to go all out and ban every tool that could be used to make them and all materials that could be used to make them and the knowledge...
You are a bad person. :-)
However, we have no clue how much those problems are going to effect the percentage of those firearm murders being converted to murders with another weapon beyond difference in lethality stats. We also know that solving the major problems that contribute to all violence have other clear social benefits that are probably even more significant than the drop in murder rate. While we are bickering over whether you can trust me with a firearm or not, the social factors that lead to violence are only getting worse.
In the U.S., they get them from friends who buy them in proxy "straw purchases", or from corrupt gun dealers.
But if you think that getting rid of these sources is possible and would stop bad guys from getting guns, nope; in the Philippines and Australia and India bad guys get guns from back alley gunsmiths. And these are not just zip guns, some of them are high quality firearms.
Guns just are not hard to make. The Nazis couldn't keep resistance movements from churning out submachine guns in clandestine factories.
If we magically made all guns in the U.S. disappear and sealed the borders so none could get in, your local meth lab would open up a metalworking annex and become a one-shop shop for crime. Only ordinary citizens -- the folks who are unlikely to shoot people anyway -- would be disarmed.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Japan can implement gun control, whole countries other than Japan can implement gun control, even places that once put a gun into the hands of everyone who could carry one can implement gun control, even when the guns are printed. Gun control IS implementable. Here too...
Nullius in verba
My browser lost my original lengthy response. Short answer is my exposure to Japanese culture is through martial arts. What I'm drawing from is first hand accounts that after WWII there was pressure in the Japanese martial arts to expel martial traditions and training that weren't sport, exercise, or religious in nature. It is possible that I've over generalized those accounts. If you have information to expand my knowledge then I'd welcome it.
How is a lower violent crime rate not a good thing? I agree that there can be too heavy-handed measures for achieving these goals - but how could a lower violent crime rate *not* be a good thing?
Besides if it gets too hard to buy or import them, you could always build them.
A nice 1911 copy could probably be made in a fairly small shop these days with a PC and some decent metal working machines. I am not a gun smith but if they could make these in 1911 it doesn't seem like much of a tech barrier to just clone them now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Hell, for $30 you can buy all the stuff needed to send a round downrange at friggin' Home Depot, no machine shop needed.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
require the people carrying a gun to also carry liability insurance and carry proof of that insurance with them anytime they are carrying their gun? I hope so, but probably not.
I think that if we are required to carry liability insurance and proof thereof for something as mundane as driving a car we should require the same for carrying something that is designed specifically to kill other people.
I think the "free market" could solve the gun problem in the US in a hurry. Insurers would simply make it so expensive to carry a gun that people would have to give up on the idea.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha.... oh wait, you're serious. Jesus christ.
So let's take a look at the things that you're saying that aren't true, first. Switzerland - Every adult MALE is issued an assault rifle, WHEN THEY GO INTO THE MILITIA, at the age of 18 - when they are trained to use them. If they want to keep them, however, they remove the autofire, so it's no longer a "true assault rifle", whatever you meant by that. If they want to actually CARRY the guns, they have to go through an extensive permitting process, where basically everyone who doesn't have a need to carry (people in the security field) get rejected. Oh, also, you know that "murder rate" might be correlated with "gun death rate", they're not the same. Right? You know that? I'm assuming you just used the murder rate because it makes your point much better than the actual GUN DEATH RATE - you know, the number that shows how many people are KILLED WITH GUNS. There, Mexico has about triple the rate of Switzerland. I know it's not as impressive as 30x the rate, but it is - you know - relevant.
Now, let's look at your interesting and - I'm sure - random and totally neutral choice of Mexico as a counterexample. I mean, you chose a failed state in the middle of a civil war with narcoterrorists - something that (one might think) would drive the gun death rate up. And, in fact, it does - Mexico's gun death rate is about 20x what it was in 2001. So it seems what you've proved - and I'm not saying that this isn't a relevant and important point - is that laws are not magic and we don't live in Hogwarts. Mexico passing restrictive gun laws does not magically make guns vanish. I look forward to reading your thesis on this brilliant insight.
I'm going to pick out some TOTALLY RANDOM AND NEUTRAL countries of my own. Israel and Japan. Both countries with INCREDIBLY restrictive gun laws, so based on what we've learned from you, they'll obviously have ridiculously high gun death rates. Hmm... looking at Wikipedia, Israel is about half of the Swiss Gun Utopia, and Japan has about 2% of the gun deaths of Switzerland. Jesus, who would have thought MY unbiased, random and neutral countries would make the exact opposite point of YOUR unbiased, random and neutral countries? Except, you know, relevant. And without the circumstances that make Mexico a terrible example. And handsomer.
So I get that Slashdot has always had a weird subculture of gun nuts - but you can be pro-gun without being a moron. Let go of the ridiculous dogma and look at the ACTUAL FACTS that support your point. I think there's a special place in hell for people who make an argument so badly [you], it actually turns someone who supports the cause that they're espousing against them [that's me.]
Except you can't legally buy ammunition for it and store at home. And yes, the culture is different - no-one here is walking/driving around with their rifle for "self protection". I would think there are some restrictions on who gets these rifles - i.e. background checks. And finally, the amount of households with guns are roughly half of in the USA.
A lot of info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Tight restrictions doesn't mean that no-one has guns.
Mexico has tight restrictions on guns yet are flooded with guns from the USA. This effect is so severe that researchers have actually studied the effect on Mexican homicide rates from the lapsing of the US Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which had a ten year sunset rule.
Switzerland does have a lot of guns .... at home, as part of their military system. There is no culture of people carrying around guns with them in civilian life just in case they get randomly attacked for no reason. I live in Switzerland. I've not spent a huge amount of time in the USA, just visits over the years, yet I've seen there a bar with a "no guns" sign outside. This is something I have yet to encounter here.
But even if it is due to culture, you aren't going to turn the USA into Switzerland, so stop blaming culture (which implies that's how to fix it). Instead look to the UK, which has a culture far closer to America's. The UK experienced steadily growing gun crime rates for decades (graph on page 4), with very small occasional falls being quickly reversed by growth again. The big jumps in 1998 and 2002 are due to changes in counting methods - so you can mentally smooth the graph if you like. A few years after the UK passed much stricter gun control laws firearms offences started to fall dramatically and have continued falling every year.
I've noticed that UK statistics are frequently abused by gun rights advocates in the USA. Ways I've seen them be distorted include: chopping off the earlier years and then trying to claim that passing gun control laws made gun crime go up (it was going up anyway and the big jump was due to counting method changes), and claims that the UK has more violent crime than the USA (the category of "violent crime" excludes homicide, because the stats are collected through surveys and dead people don't reply to surveys, homicide rates are over 4x higher in America).
Something else to consider about the UK experience is that the stats cover up a lot of interesting detail, like the fact that whilst there are still firearms offences they are almost invariably committed with used guns and that provides a lot of evidence that can be used to bring the cases to resolution. "Clean guns" that have never been used before are exceptionally rare. In the USA they're the norm because it's so easy to buy new guns, so why leave a trail of evidence? Ammo is also hard to obtain. Some gangs have tried to make their own, but their home made ammo is far less deadly than professionally manufactured ammo.
I do not expect the USA to actually ever shift itself on the issue of gun control, even though it stands practically alone amongst developed countries. Instead American's who don't want to fear getting shot should simply leave.
the prevailing attitude that I'm not responsible for my own actions.
You probably meant "the prevailing attitude that I'm not responsible for my own actions but all other people are, and they are, in fact, in perfect control of their lives".
Ezekiel 23:20
That's so wrong on so many levels, where to begin? The majority of shootings are gang related. Hardly "law abiding" citizens.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Te samurai might be gone but the Japanese elites have never tolerated armed peasants.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Japan has a 99% conviction rate for accused criminals. I'd say there's plenty of reason to mistrust their prosecution and judicial system. It turns out that the Phoenix Wright games were not about a sinister future judicial system, but instead a poignant commentary on the present Japanese legal system.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
That old hackney phrase.
Where you outlaws get those guns?
Oh from good guys in states where it is legal to sell them in bulk.
I didn't expect you to read the submission, but at least read the title. They just make the guns themselves, dumbass. They have hardware stores the world over with ball peen hammers, pipe, and fittings. Zip guns are even better than most 3D printed guns, and will remain so until additive and subtractive metal machining becomes available in a single device.
Exactly. There is no way to stop criminals from committing crimes.
The point of gun control is to reduce the number of (violent) crimes committed.
That being said, there is ample evidence that the most effective method to combat crime is to dump money into social programs: education, child-care, drug rehab, welfare, etc. Unfortunately, it seems that this solution is also an anathema for most Americans....which may somewhat explain the rates of violent crime & incarceration in the USA.
Same difference these days.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Curious as to which styles were supressed, as many of them seem to be thriving, at least here in the US.
My point with the drug use was to highlight that stopping the flow of illegal products to a market where they are desired is impossible. Lets take Mexico for instance they have very restrictive gun laws and yet they have a much higher homicide rates 5x the US rate, the drug cartels are armed to the teeth, it's not the laws it's the culture. Switzerland has a 6x lower murder rate then the US and every adult is issued an assault rifle when they turn 18. Russia which has fairly strict gun ownership requirements has 6 million guns legally registered and estimates there are 12 million illegal weapons, they have nearly double the homicide rate as the US. In areas where lawlessness is tolerated and celebrated you will have higher murder rates. Eliminating guns from this world or completely from any country is naive and will not change the problem. If a stranger's life is not valued in a society, the taking of a life is inconsequential to the criminal.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
The rougher areas, though, earned the nickname 'Chiraq' honestly and messily.
They name them after a former French president? That's strange..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Because achieving that lower rate has an associated cost.
If we got rid of all guns in America, it's reasonable to assume the violent crime rate overall would go down to some degree. How much is debatable because some of the violent crimes committed with guns now would still be committed just with a different instrument. But it would go down, that seems fair.
But, what of the people who now do not have a gun to defend themselves? Quite a few defensive gun uses occur daily in America... exactly how many is difficult to know because they're frequently not reported (because simply pulling out a gun will sometimes end a violent confrontation and people tend not to report those cases). I wouldn't go so far as to say the number of people saved by there not being a gun involved is equal to the number saved by there BEING a gun involved, but clearly SOME number cancel out. Here's the big question: is a life saved because we got rid of guns somehow more valuable than one saved because we didn't? Do you want to tell the family of a gun who was killed because he wasn't allowed to have a gun anymore that it's okay because someone else was saved due to guns being removed from society? I'd bet not.
So, that's a cost. Whether the benefits outweigh that cost is what's debatable. A lot of people take the Spock approach: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. It's a great-sounding platitude, but when it gets down to actual people it doesn't stand up so well. See my above scenario.
A potentially MUCH bigger cost is the deterrent effect guns have against a corrupt government. We can argue all day and night about without an armed American population could overthrow a corrupt government with the might of the military on its side, but what CAN'T be debated is that if you remove guns from society you've given up just about the ONLY thing that gives us ANY chance whatsoever. I mean, if you believe the military would crush us WITH guns than you can't logically think it wouldn't be MUCH worse it we didn't have them!
So, that's a (potential) cost too... but that one is very important because the potential cost is MASSIVE. Is there really ANY benefit worth that cost? I for one argue no. It's exceedingly tragic any time someone dies... whether a gun is involved or not hardly matters... a suicide is a suicide, gun or not. A homicide is a homicide, gun or not. The only one that's a little different is accidental shootings because it's not like someone is going to accidentally kill you as easily with a baseball bat. But, statistically-speaking, accidental shootings in America isn't, to put it coldly, all that significant a number. It's certainly a much smaller number than car accidents, or even pool drownings year by year. Even if every last one of them is unarguably tragic, logically, the cost of saving those lives by getting rid of guns is too high, and that's even before we talk about the POTENTIAL costs.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
What a load of crap. To say that government programs are the answer is insulting to millions of parents that have raised decent, productive members of society without any government assistance.
If you want to drastically reduce crime you need a least one parent and preferably 2 that are fully involved in their children's upbringing.
While we are bickering over whether you can trust me with a firearm or not, the social factors that lead to violence are only getting worse.
Uh, citation? Every report I've heard says that violence, crime, and most related things have been declining for years in the US and continue to do so...
That "cocaine hydrochloric solution" is not the same as "cocaine?"
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You seem to be missing my point, it's simply that you can not just look at gun laws and legal gun ownership and say tougher gun laws make people safer. As to why I used homicide rates instead of gun death rates which include suicide which invalidates many of you claims. Take your example of Israel they have tougher gun laws then Canada but nearly 2x the gun homicide rate but almost half the gun death rate. Also many countries do not track gun death rates so places like Russia with 2/3 of nonmilitary guns being illegal and having higher over twice the homicide rate as the US while having much stricter gun laws sure paints a compelling picture.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Officially, you're entirely correct, not just as it pertains to martial arts but regarding everything cultural; the official position and attitude of government, academia and media in Japan is that their "national mores" are flawless.
Unofficially, however, Japanese culture continues to celebrate many differente types of violence in blatant fashion... and this hypocritical state of affairs is perpetuated and encouraged by the status quo's refusal to acknowledge its existence...
The hardest part is the rifling.
Plus every single one of the guns used in these crimes was, at one point, legally sold to a responsible, legal gun owner.
Citation Needed
Switzerland has a 6x lower murder rate then the US and every adult is issued an assault rifle when they turn 18.
That is not quite correct.
They get issued a gun when they get drafted, and they keep it while in "reserves". Also they have to keep the gun securely in a locked locker.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Exactly. There is no way to stop criminals from committing crimes.
The point of gun control is to reduce the number of (violent) crimes committed.
A point that is, at least in America, an abject failure, judging from the violent crime rates in places like Chicago and Detroit. Obviously the issue is more one of culture than access to certain tools.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Realistic movie idea:
Dystopian society in not-so-distant future where the oppressive government has passed such strict gun control and anti-gay laws that the noble resistance has resorted to bright, neon-colored 3D-printed weapons to fight the tyrannical regime, simultaneously demonstrating their right to bear arms and to choose their sexual orientation.
Oh wait... did I just offend everyone at once?
"With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone."
While we are bickering over whether you can trust me with a firearm or not, the social factors that lead to violence are only getting worse.
Uh, citation? Every report I've heard says that violence, crime, and most related things have been declining for years in the US and continue to do so...
Well, here's a citation that shows indeed, the US crime rate has been dropping at a fairly steady pace since 1994.
I think the problem is that a lot of people equate an increase in the amount of violent crime reported by the MSM (a consequence of the 24-hour "news" cycle) with an increase in the actual crime rate.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Thus the murder rate involving firearms would go down (since you imply it is because of these problems, and not the availability of guns, that people shoot people).
FTFY. There's no way to prove that a lack of one tool will prevent anyone from committing murder; if a person has an intent to harm another, they're probably going to do it, regardless of what tool they choose for the job - proven by the fact that more American citizens are beaten to death than shot with long rifles.
The irony being, of course, that most anti-gun politicians want to ban long rifles, but keep pistols.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Every adult in Switzerland has an assault rifle, but (almost) none of them have any bullets to go with it.
You see, the assault riffle is issued when you finish the military training, and you're supposed to maintain it until the day when the country gets invaded and the government distributes the rounds through the populace.
As to your other point, you may not be able to stop the flow of illegal products, but you sure as hell can make it inconvenient enough that only people who really want it can get it, at a risk to themselves.
Most of the gun injuries in the US today can be attributed to either accidents or heat-of-the-moment exchanges. In most of those situations guns simply wouldn't be available if firearms were forbidden.
He's simply stating that up until the point the crime was underway, the shooter was not acting illegally,
Replace "shooter" with "person."
so all the NRA hysterics about protecting "innocent gun owners" means absolutely nothing.
So all the ACLU hysterics about protecting "innocent people" also means absolutely nothing, right? Or do the rules change when we're talking about a right other people have that you don't like? For the record, I support the shit out of the ACLU, especially when they're protecting the rights of people with less-than-popular opinions.
Plus every single one of the guns used in these crimes was, at one point, legally sold to a responsible, legal gun owner.
Riiiight... because a person who values human life so little that they would willfully and harmfully take someone else's is totally above theft and/or buying shit from thieves.
Obviously gun owners can't be trusted, as their guns fall into the hands of criminals.
Obviously [item] owners can't be trusted, as their [items] fall into the hands of criminals.
See what I did there? I generalized your statement, so maybe, if you put a little thought into it, you can see how ridiculous your premise is. Should we ban people from owning cars, or hammers, or metal pipes, because a fraction of a fraction of a percent might fall into criminal hands? I assume you would not agree... either that, or you're posting from North Korea.
You can't have it both ways.
If, by that, you mean that you can't claim to support, say, the First Amendment, without also supporting the Constitution as a whole, I'd have to agree. But I somehow doubt that's what you're saying.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha.... oh wait, you're serious. Jesus christ.
So let's take a look at the things that you're saying that aren't true, first. Switzerland - Every adult MALE is issued an assault rifle, WHEN THEY GO INTO THE MILITIA, at the age of 18 - when they are trained to use them. If they want to keep them, however, they remove the autofire, so it's no longer a "true assault rifle", whatever you meant by that. If they want to actually CARRY the guns, they have to go through an extensive permitting process, where basically everyone who doesn't have a need to carry (people in the security field) get rejected
So, then, you agree with OP's premise that the issue isn't availability of firearms, but rather is a cultural one.
Good to have that cleared up. Not sure why the smart-ass tone.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
3D printed guns don't mean the end of gun control. If it means the end of anything, it's unregulated 3D printing.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Tautology: If outlaws are outlawed then only outlaws will be outlaws.
I don't think just looking at rate of gun ownership is the answer. At least in North America, most gun homicides are committed with handguns, but most of the guns in Canada are rifles and shotguns, so I think it's quite possible there's a very strong correlation between rate of handgun ownership and murder rate.
No, parent is asking a silly question, that ignores grandparent's point - cocaine is completely illegal in the US, and there are no legal sources of it, yet a lot of people still manage to get their hands on the substance, thus negating the assumption that gun crime rates in states that ban firearms is a direct result of being adjacent to states that do not.
Also, why is crime so much lower in those nearby areas with easier access to firearms? If the firearms themselves are the cause of the problem, as the ban fans claim, why is violent crime higher in the ban areas than the non-ban areas?
no-one here is walking/driving around with their rifle for "self protection".
I presume by "here" you mean Switzerland.
For the record, not a lot of Americans are walking/driving around with rifles, either. We prefer handguns, for many obvious reasons.
Usually, you only see Americans openly displaying rifles during either hunting season or pro-2nd Amendment rallies.
Oh, yea, and we also have a 2nd Amendment right to "keep and bear arms." That's probably important to point out.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Even if you maintain the rifle diligently, wouldn't you want to occasionally test it to make sure it still fires?
To me that's akin to doing backups but never actually checking to see if there's an actual working copy of the backup.
Because achieving that lower rate has an associated cost.
If we got rid of all guns in America, it's reasonable to assume the violent crime rate overall would go down to some degree. How much is debatable because some of the violent crimes committed with guns now would still be committed just with a different instrument. But it would go down, that seems fair.
But, what of the people who now do not have a gun to defend themselves? Quite a few defensive gun uses occur daily in America... exactly how many is difficult to know because they're frequently not reported (because simply pulling out a gun will sometimes end a violent confrontation and people tend not to report those cases). I wouldn't go so far as to say the number of people saved by there not being a gun involved is equal to the number saved by there BEING a gun involved, but clearly SOME number cancel out.
If number of violent crimes (or just number of deaths caused by violent crimes) goes down (as you assume in first sentence), then DEFINITELY more people are saved than killed due to lack of gun.
Here's the big question: is a life saved because we got rid of guns somehow more valuable than one saved because we didn't? Do you want to tell the family of a gun who was killed because he wasn't allowed to have a gun anymore that it's okay because someone else was saved due to guns being removed from society? I'd bet not.
So, that's a cost. Whether the benefits outweigh that cost is what's debatable. A lot of people take the Spock approach: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. It's a great-sounding platitude, but when it gets down to actual people it doesn't stand up so well. See my above scenario.
This is not a platitude, but the only reasonable way of judging if given measure saves lives or not - assume that every life is equal and see if number of deaths is gets lower. Otherwise you could sink ANY idea as long as you prove that it caused even one death (no matter if it saved 100 000 or not). "If even one life is saved then we should spare no expense" is populism of worst kind (and ironically often used by gun control advocates).
A potentially MUCH bigger cost is the deterrent effect guns have against a corrupt government. We can argue all day and night about without an armed American population could overthrow a corrupt government with the might of the military on its side, but what CAN'T be debated is that if you remove guns from society you've given up just about the ONLY thing that gives us ANY chance whatsoever.
It can't be debated? I present you exhibit A: Ukraine. Completely non-violent protests were enough to overthrow government.
I mean, if you believe the military would crush us WITH guns than you can't logically think it wouldn't be MUCH worse it we didn't have them!
Actually no. If uprising is doomed to fail, then the quicker it gets put down, the less people die. Surely you are not going to argue that prolonged (and lost) civil war is better than quickly crushed revolt?
So, that's a (potential) cost too... but that one is very important because the potential cost is MASSIVE. Is there really ANY benefit worth that cost? I for one argue no. It's exceedingly tragic any time someone dies... whether a gun is involved or not hardly matters... a suicide is a suicide, gun or not. A homicide is a homicide, gun or not.
I don't agree, but since this point is argued to death in *every* thread related to gun control, I am going to leave it.
The only one that's a little different is accidental shootings because it's not like someone is going to accidentally kill you as easily with a baseball bat. But, statistically-speaking, accidental shootings in America isn't, to put it coldly, all that significant a number. It's certainly a much smaller number than car accidents, or even
And if guns are decriminalized, then de criminals will get de guns.
Odd, that's not what I got out of the paragraph you quoted. Assuming the facts are true, amosh seems to suggest that the availability of firearms to Swiss citizens is indeed restricted to a great degree so availability is an important factor.
Yes, they just tell gun store owners to do it and not ask questions--such as during Fast & Furious.
But how do you quantify the benefit of freedom versus the costs of people's lives? If you socially engineer everything in terms of number of people saved, then you end up with a full blown nanny state.
I've said this before: you CANNOT use Japan as an example for anything to apply to other countries.
Japan is a seriously unique country, in Geography, history, culture, and attitudes of the people.
Things that would work in Japan would fail miserably elsewhere, and things that work elsewhere just don't work in Japan.
I've traveled on every continent, and lived on a few, and Japan is simply different.
You're both trolls. And wrong.
The Fast and Furious investigation got nowhere because the guy being investigated was ultimately responsible for the investigation.
Though I suppose you could also blame the Republicans for child slavery as well.
Go Go partisan power!
"There is plenty of violent crime in Japan."
No there isn't. I've lived in Japan for over 20 years and never once ever felt the slightest apprehension anywhere, any place, any time of the day of night, period. I live a life free of fear of having to watch my wallet, look over my shoulder, or worry that i might stumble into the wrong neighborhood.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
He said, "every adult male is issued an assault rifle," right? OK, so by anti-gun thinking, it would be a trivial matter for criminals to break into the homes of adult males and steal fully automatic, military grade weapons (at least, that's the argument a lot of them seem to make against private firearm ownership in America). Thus, as every Swiss household with at least one adult male is verified to have an assault weapon, and I can only assume there are a fair number of adult males in Switzerland, one can assume that, regardless of restrictions on the weapons legal owner, automatic rifles are "highly available" in that country. Again, per common anti-gun propaganda, the mere existence of these guns means that there should be a high rate of gun crime, regardless of how well they're stored, or how well trained their owners happen to be.
But that's not the case; Switzerland has a much lower gun-related homicide rate than the US, despite an increased availability of automatic weapons. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the ubiquity of the tool's presence is not the deciding factor in gun-related crime rates, but rather the culture surrounding them.
If our culture mirrored the Swiss (i.e., every adult male is conscripted, trained, and issued an assault rifle), one can presume that, regardless of how many guns exist within our borders, gun-related crime would drop significantly. Ergo, a culture issue.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Crime, including violent crime, is very low in Japan. The Yakuza are not like the Mafia either, they are semi legitimate. They have offices, quote openly and which conduct legitimate business. Of course there is the illegal side and the violence that goes with it, but that is mostly confined to action against other Yakuza.
Most of their illegal activity is protection and gambling. They tend to see themselves more like lords in the old feudal system, with the protection being a form of tax in exchange for order and policing (in that they do provide actual protection from other criminals, as well as not smashing your nice stuff up).
I'm not saying they aren't violent criminals, but they are quite different to other organized crime groups and overall violent crime in Japan is very low. Aside from anything else would-be muggers have to worry about not only the police but the local Yakuza.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The push was to move away from the old feudal traditions and hierarchies that made the military so powerful and able to inflict unwanted war on the rest of the country. Generally speaking there is so little crime in Japan that there isn't much need for self defence, beyond making the practitioner feel more confident and secure. More over the spiritual and mental aspects are considered as important as the physical ones.
Most people in Japan during the war were not keen on it, and suffered a great deal during and afterwards. There was a strong movement to never let that happen again, through an increased emphasis on individualism.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Apart from other weapons generally being less efficient for killing human beings, few offer the ability to do it from a distance and make several rapid attempts. Guns are a tool to make injuring and killing others safer and easier for the user, and it seems reasonable to assume that if the process were made significantly harder and more risky fewer people would be inclined to try.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"... Or do you support the notion of everyone being able to legal own a 20 Megaton nuke? Because that's the sort of firepower you really need to oppose the US government; ..."
Just wanted to point out in reply that in a democracy, people oppose the government in terms of existing laws all the time through voting, lawsuits, campaign donations, jury nullification, running for office, civil disobedience, writing to their congress person, moving, innovation that changes perceived economic imperatives, performance art, publishing books, writing newspaper editorials, buying different products, eating differently (like eating less energy/water-intensive meat despite government subsidies for it), creating new organizations as examples, fostering alternative communities, contributing to internal political pressures when working with government, and so on. These could be considered variations on the "boxes" of democracy: soap box (publishing), ballot box (voting), mail box (writing legislators), band box / pizza box (community), lunch box (eating and purchasing politically as I see it; social safety net as originally defined), jury box (jury nullification by voting not-guilty because the law is wrong), moving box (between states or between countries) -- all available before the ammo box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Other countries oppose the USA all the time as well via the international laws, tariffs, subsidizing local industries, currency manipulations, making choices about whether to trade in dollars, setting standards of imported products, forming their own cartels (like OPEC), educating their own populace, investing in their own infrastructure, making stuff for the USA cheaply to make the USA dependent on the other country and to obtain its business and technological secrets, setting examples of alternative practices as successes, and so on. See also Noam Chomsky on "The Threat of a Good Example":
http://www.thirdworldtraveler....
As Isaac Asimov had a character (Salvor Hardin) say, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
And for a true-life example, consider Leon Shenandoah:
http://pathwayofpeace.blogspot...
"We are the spiritual energy that is thousands time stronger than nuclear energy. Our energy in the combined will of all people with the spirit of the Natural World, to be of one body, one heart and one mind for peace."
Or as I quote about him here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d...
"Warriors are held up as heroes. They are praised for their gallantry, exalted for their conquests, and used as symbols to inspire patriotism. Monuments are built for them as reminders of past victories and to prepare citizens for the next campaign. Leon Shenandoah was no warrior, yet no warrior could stand up against his power. He carried no weapons, used no harsh rhetoric, and made no demands. His strength was in gentleness. When he spoke, those around him listened. His words were always soft, his kindness evident. He was a spiritual man."
I don't feel US gun culture or politics is likely to change anytime soon. The USA is what it is with a certain cultural momentum. And personally I feel if the USA took care of its economic and mental health issues better (like a basic income and medicare for all) the amount of gun violence would go down. Improving the environment helps too, given lead levels have been linked to violence:
http://www.motherjones.com/env...
But what really bothers me is US gun owners who vote for politicians (of any party) who put i
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If outlaws are the only thing that's outlawed, then only outlaws will be outlaws.
I'm not Swiss but my understanding is that they can fire the guns in shooting ranges.
If I'm not mistaken, in addition to absolute gun control, Japan also practices what we need here in the states; bullet control. i.e. it would basically be impossible for him to acquire ammunition in the first place. So, while manufacturing what is ostensibly a firearm in the eyes of the law is almost certainly illegal in Japan, might it not have been more prudent to wait and see what he intended to do?
I see three possible outcomes they missed by not waiting:
Of course, being Japan, that last one is just as unlikely as the first two-- except not as ludicrous --because the police, as much as the media, like to turn just about any crime above a purse-snatching into a spectacle simply to show that they're doing their jobs.
At any rate, I hope they show some restraint in prosecuting him. Barring any further evidence, he just seems to be a nerd/tinkerer who wasn't thinking about what he was doing, but didn't intend any harm. (And no harm was done.)
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
It doesn't make sense to talk about single factors in isolation. You simply cannot lower crime rate without paying for it somehow. For example, you can achieve very low crime rates by creating a police state. Would that be a good trade-off? Obviously not.
Europe's and Asia's lower murder rates (other crime rates are actually generally higher than in the US) come at a cost. Many of the social factors that lead to those lower murder rates, we couldn't replicate in the US even if we wanted to.
You're missing his point. It's not about trading off lives saved vs lives lost, it's about trading off lives vs liberty.
Gun control advocates and progressives in general seem to think that when it comes to owning things (guns, drugs, etc.) that can harm the owner or others, the state has a right to demand justification for the possession of those things. Others (including myself) include that an unjust intrusion into our liberty.
I don't own a gun and never intend to own one. In fact, in my personal life, I'm a pacifist. But I value my liberty. If you follow the gun control logic, our liberties evaporate entirely. That's not a slippery slope argument: objectively, guns are no more dangerous than a million other objects we currently can use freely, so if even constitutionally protected gun ownership falls, any liberty is fair game for arbitrary government interference.
The war on drugs used similar arguments to gun control. Not only has it been woefully ineffective in achieving its goals, it has destroyed the ability of citizens to engage in chemistry. If gun control goes through, it will basically destroy the ability of citizens to make stuff out of metal, because the only way you can have any meaningful gun control is if you control metal drills and saws.
A possible candidate for an IgNobel Prize?
I did mean Switzerland. And very few Swiss are carrying a handgun either (which is usually not what is issued by the military), as you need a permit which is quite hard to get in order to carry a loaded weapon in public. The point I was making is that you can't really take the number of guns in Switzerland use that to "prove" that guns and gun culture in the US is unproblematic problem, as the situations are not comparable. As the grandparent points out, the cultures are different - people here don't feel like they need to carry a handgun for self protection. I think they are right about that - and honestly I've never felt like I needed it while visiting the US either.
And to be honest - the people saying they would move if they couldn't carry a gun of whatever specification everywhere have a point, except I would leave if I saw that I needed to carry one to feel safe. I don't want to live in a warzone.
It absolutely does make sense to talk about single factors in isolation - it is obvious that lowered rate of violent crime is a good thing.
It is also likely that trying to change society in order to lower this statistic will affect other aspects of society, and not all of these changes are wanted - I think we agree on that. Thus it becomes an optimization problem, where you try to maximise some set of values - typically safety from violence (no matter wether it comes from private persons or governement, against your person or your property), freedom (what we typically call "liberal values" i.e. the freedom from someone else telling you what you can and can't do), predictability (i.e. making it unlikely that the economy crashes tomorrow, or Putin invades, or tax law rapidly changes, etc.), economic growth (you can afford more stuff next year) and many more.
These values have to be weighted against each other, and it is by no means certain that the current setup is the ideal one or even the only good one. Given that the boundary conditions are always changing, what worked yesterday may be less optimal today, so we must continiously reevaluate both our goal function and how we try to maximize it. As an example, there are many places which are further from being a "police state" than the US, while still having relatively strict gun laws - this is only a insignificantly tiny part of the huge patchwork which is society.
The federal law allows to waive the NICS check for concealed carry license holders, provided the license requirements involve a similar check - but that's up to the states to apply or not. Some do, like Texas or Kansas.
You still need to fill out form 4473, and it still goes on record with the dealer. It's just that it's not phoned in.
You missed the part where he talks about cherry picking the countries to look at.
Thing is, you can actually find countries with lax gun laws but low crime. Case in point: Czech Republic (they allow concealed carry, even).
So there's no meaningful correlation when you look at all cases, rather than just cherry picked ones.
First, you say it makes sense to talk about them in isolation, and then you go on for two paragraphs blathering on about tradeoffs. If you actually read my message, you saw that I did exactly what you agreed one should do, I weighed the pros and cons. You just don't like my conclusions, which roughly come down to that we shouldn't try to emulate Europe even if that were a possible option, because the European situation is not a desirable one.
This was on TV in Japan a couple days ago, and they showed a pretty in-depth report.
The film crew talked to the guy who was arrested and looked at his home lab setup.
The guy looked like a typical geek but was very pro-guns, saying guns are necessary in case someone you know is getting beat up and since he could easily get one on the net he thought he should. Guns are prominent in entertainment in Japan though.
His nice looking 3D printer was shown printing something and the guy has developed his own parts they said.
Three people were solicited for their viewpoints about the story, which is a common approach of Japanese news shows. This is roughly from memory, but one was a smart and sensitive appearing woman who said "We [Japanese] have grown up in Japan but live now in a world that is permeated with these cultural values" and I think suggested we need to adjust the laws or find some way to harmonize the gap between law and contemporary culture. Then they showed how high-end 3D printers being used in a fab where a skull was being printed, though I don't remember if they talked about 3D printing for surgery. A second person was a 3D printer user (a man in his 30s maybe) who said, "This was very regrettable... As these kinds of machines spread into homes all over the country, we need to concurrently learn how to use them ethically." Finally they had the third person, a man in his 50s who was some famous professor IIRC. They usually pick such a person to give a socially acceptable comment. I found it interesting that this person did not go down harshly on the victim but rather suggested that laws needed to be changed even about guns perhaps.
Personally I am interested in 3d printers though I have never used them. I am not interested in guns at all. I wish those people had not uploaded gun plans to the net causing all kinds of problems for people like this guy who has no need of a gun, who they would never try to help, and ignite a controversy that could end up forcing licensing or vetting of 3d printer owners for no good reason.
The person who was arrested seemed to be a pretty naive, introverted otaku kind of guy and he was obviously an idiot for posting to youtube or whatever. I felt bad for him since he seemed a bit disturbed and he seemed to have fallen into a pitfall, and I wondered what kind of experience he must have had which led him to print, use and brag about guns when they aren't even legal in Japan. Perhaps it was even a call for help of some kind.
It was interesting to me that the news show emphasized that he only fired empty rounds and had never actually fired a real bullet in them. The whole spin on the show was a big difference from the way I would have expected a Japanese news show to act which would usually have the pretty announcer frowning with crinkled brow, etc. The two announcers did at the end seem to sort of shrug at each other sort of like "what a weird story" (didn't catch what they said) but considering the comments they aired by the defendant and the other people they had rounded up, it came out quite positively it seemed on the side of the defendant, 3D printing, and even the question about guns. This is all a huge change from what the attitude would have been 10 years ago.
FWIW Japanese culture still is extremely highly influenced by U.S. culture though it does not share the love of the military and police, personal weaponry, force makes right, and so on. My impression is that when technology makes it possible Japanese geeks will without question build gundam-style giant robots (one group in Kyushu has actually built a rescue robot a man can ride in even), so anime is a major influence and guns are undoubtedly a romantic object. This does seem to point to a dissonance such as the woman mentioned, where Western media influence causes desires and thought processes that conflict with Japanese culture and legal system. This probably will continue to grow.
Even comic-style books in the local convenience store sometimes provide links to apparently d
The point I'm trying to make, is that violent crime is not directly a lever - you can't legislate less violent crime, only measures to lower it. Thus the statistic "violent crime" in itself is always better if it's lower - but of course the measures taken may also influence other things. That doesn't make violent crime into something you want in a society.
I also question your assertion that "the European situation is not a desireable one" - here people may have differing opinions, I would say that the US situation is not a desireable one.