How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime

[Vyxn]

Has more to do with Japanese culture then it has to do with their strict gun control

[Spectral]

Has more to do with Japanese culture then it has to do with their strict gun control

"Culture"

Heh.

[zenkai]

Do you believe a country where there are 100 guns in circulation is likely to have more or less gun violence than a country with 100 000 guns in circulation?

Do you believe a country with less cars have less car accidents? You're logic is amazing!

[Krawu]

The July 26th 2016 Knife attack that killed 19 and wounded 25 others says SUP you don't need a gun m8

So what about knife attacks in the US? Even if it's the same amount of deaths by stabbing per 100,000 as in Japan they still have way less gun violence. Plus they have a lower crime rate overall. Though that's no surprise with Japans draconian legal system.

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729

What is the secret?

lol

The overwhelming, vast majority of gun deaths come from two sources in America: Suicide and urban gang violence.

[Isadora]

Switzerland's murder rate is fairly comparable to Japan's and they're stacked full of guns. While the easy availability of guns may exacerbate the level of violence in a society that has a violence problem, the violence problem is a necessary prerequisite for their to be any significant number of murders.

When looking at a scatterplot of all nation's murder/gun ratios, there doesn't look like an impressive correlation (unless you use the cherry-picked Vox data). The United States is a giant outlier on the number of weapons and has a lot of murders, but the next most heavily armed nations (Switzerland, Canada, Finland) aren't exactly known for violence.

I am Swiss. And I can tell you that the "Switzerland is stack full of guns" is not as straight forward as it seems. To my knowledge, there are only estimates as to how many guns are really owned by the Swiss. What leads to the whole "Every Swiss man has a gun"-idea is that in theory Swiss men keep the weapon they obtain during their mandatory military service. Thus every able bodied Swiss guy would happen to have a gun at the ready.

This is not entirely true for a few different reasons:
1. Not every Swiss man is doing the aforementioned military service. In fact, only 60 percent of Swiss males are actually fit for duty. The other 40 percent never go to the military and thus never get handed their service weapon.
2. You get to keep your rifle at home, but you are not allowed to have the necessary ammo for it at your home too. Therefore, if you don't steal ammo while doing your military service or if you don't just buy the ammo that is needed for your rifle, you can't shoot your rifle because you don't have any bullets. In a case of emergency, the Swiss military would hand out the ammo (by dropping them from the air for example) so that you can load your weapon and then proceed to follow your orders.
3. The Swiss government recently changed the rule that made you keep your weapon at home, you're now allowed to stow it elsewhere. That being said, most Swiss men chose not to do so.
4. Military duty is only mandatory for males, the female population usually doesn't own guns.

All that being said, the numbers of guns per capita in Switzerland is still relatively high and it might be like that regardless of the military service, because Switzerland has a long and strong gun culture. Shooting as a sport is common in Switzerland and is also part of the reason why the gun per capita number is relatively high. Also, buying a gun in Switzerland is not difficult. You need a permit, yes, but all you need to get that is fill out a form. Carrying your gun around though needs a special permit.

[Spectral]

Apparently 20 victims of knife violence is compareably to over 30 000 gun related deaths? Some people in this thread are reaching badly

Using "gun-related deaths" to include suicide and accident really is pretty silly.

[Underverse]

But for Japanese gangsters the tight gun control laws are a problem. Yakuza gun crime has sharply declined in the last 15 years, but those who continue to carry firearms have to find ingenious ways of smuggling them into the country.

I thought gun control didn't work on criminals?

[Aoyi]

Although Japan and the US are very different, I do wish the US would make more of an effort to address gun violence. Gun ownership is way too high and guns are by far the easiest way to kill in an irrational moment. Personally, I grew up in a very small town in the northeast. Even here, two students I went to school with committed murder (separate incidents). One killed their mother (she wouldn't take him to the mall) and another killed their grandmother (I was actually friends with this idiot). My wife's cousin murdered his father as well because he got grounded. That's 3 gun murders that I know about in my limited experience. My limited experience is as much as half of the country of Japan's yearly total. Its also been more than 16 years since I graduated high school and I've moved out of state, so I don't know if any more of my classmates or people in my old town were murderers/murdered now as well.

[Deleted]

Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world.
In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US.
What is the secret?

Be an Island.

You don't have to build any wall to keep immigrants out, when you have a moat few Km wide in all directions.

[Underverse]

Let's not forget that the knife attack that ended with some 20 people dead occurred at a facility for the disabled. If it was a gun, many more still would have died. And these knife attacks are very rare in Japan.

- - - Updated - - -

Be an Island.

You don't have to build any wall to keep immigrants out, when you have a moat few Km wide in all directions.

That helps, but Japan is also pretty xenophobic/racist.

[Draco-Onis]

Switzerland's murder rate is fairly comparable to Japan's and they're stacked full of guns. While the easy availability of guns may exacerbate the level of violence in a society that has a violence problem, the violence problem is a necessary prerequisite for their to be any significant number of murders.

When looking at a scatterplot of all nation's murder/gun ratios, there doesn't look like an impressive correlation (unless you use the cherry-picked Vox data). The United States is a giant outlier on the number of weapons and has a lot of murders, but the next most heavily armed nations (Switzerland, Canada, Finland) aren't exactly known for violence.

I think the difference is the process involved in getting a gun and the way guns are restricted, I don't think we should get rid of all guns but the entire US process is a joke.

[Spectral]

That helps, but Japan is also pretty xenophobic/racist.

Which probably also helps.

[Deleted]

Do you believe a country with less cars have less car accidents? You're logic is amazing!

I do! And yes, this is pure logic. So can we cement that amount of guns will correlate to amount of gun violence? This isn't the issue that should be debated in politics but somehow it is. The real issue to discuss is whether or not making guns illegal or taking other actions actually will result in fewer guns in the hands of criminals at the expense of people's freedom of choice to carry, and if it's worth it.

[unbound]

The July 26th 2016 Knife attack that killed 19 and wounded 25 others says SUP you don't need a gun m8

Yes...sometimes (like once every 7 or 8 years) there are devastating knife attacks in Japan. That particular one is the the deadliest mass killing since WWII...so not exactly common. Anyone happen to mention to you that this took place in a care home for disabled people? Not exactly able to defend themselves very well.

Let's compare the number of mass killings in Japan vs the US.

In the past 15 years, there have only been 3 mass killings in Japan (July 2016 - 19 dead, 25 injured; June 2008 - 7 dead, 10 injured; 2001 - 8 dead, 15 injured).

In the past 15 years, there have been literally thousands of mass killings by guns in the US...only a few of which ever make it to national news. Heck, there have already been 8 in the US so far this year alone (http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting - note that the incident and sources are documented). In 2015, there were 333 (total of 13,480 dead, 27,023 injured), and 275 in 2014 (total of 12,548 dead, 23,007 injured)...these are only the ones that had at least 4 people injured or killed. 2016 totals will probably be available there in the next week or two, but expect more of the same.

So, yes, knife stabbings happen in Japan, but to try to compare the rare knife stabbings in Japan to the massive number of gun shootings in the US as if they are the same? Well, that is just keeping with the theme of the past few years...false equivalency...

[zenkai]

I do! And yes, this is pure logic. So can we cement that amount of guns will correlate to amount of gun violence? This isn't the issue that should be debated in politics but somehow it is. The real issue to discuss is whether or not making guns illegal or taking other actions actually will result in fewer guns in the hands of criminals at the expense of people's freedom of choice to carry, and if it's worth it.

You missed the point, not surprising though.

[Deleted]

You missed the point, not surprising though.

Well I only responded to you because you missed my point, so let's leave it like that

[Spectral]

Why? Fewer guns=fewer accidents and fewer suicides with a gun.

Because I don't actually have any preference for preventing suicides with guns relative to suicides with poison, neckties, or bridges. The US suicide rate is pretty unremarkable when looked at internationally. The substitution effect for suicides is likely to be sufficiently strong that one wouldn't expect an impressive abrogation of suicide rate from even a complete gun ban.

Also because it's such an obviously dishonest tactic - people hedge with "gun-related deaths" knowing that it will call to mind homicide rather than suicide.

[Ragedaug]

I suspect it's more about a culture of violence versus a culture of guns. Guns are just the most efficient way to be violent. The guns aren't causing good people to do bad things.

[zenkai]

Well I only responded to you because you missed my point, so let's leave it like that

I saw the point and showed the flawed logic but you couldn't see that, so let's leave it at that