Young also described Koban, a unique community policing system where law enforcement booths are stationed in neighborhoods to be more accessible and maintain relationships with the community. However, in recent years, there have been several attacks on Koban officials to steal their weapons. As a result, they were given knife-proof vests to protect themselves. He attributes this to a 1588 measure that prohibited civilians from possessing swords and firearms. This was followed by centuries-old decrees aimed at limiting the proliferation of weapons that Western traders and missionaries had brought into the country, culminating in a 1958 federal law that banned almost all gun possession and is still in effect today. The same researchers found that the total number of guns in the United States ranges from 265 million to 393 million, with about 120.5 guns per 100 people in 2017. The result is a situation in which citizens and police rarely carry or use weapons. That`s not all. Handguns are totally banned. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed. Acceptance of arms reduction in the country is attributed to factors such as social norms that emphasize respect for authority and voluntary government initiatives for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in response to the atomic bombings that devastated Japan, according to an article in the Asia Pacific Law Review. In addition, Japan`s island geography limits the smuggling of illegal goods into the country. According to a University of Sydney tracker, Japanese civilians possessed about 310,400 legal and illegal weapons per population of 126.9 million in 2019, or about 0.25 weapons per 100 people.
The police must be informed of where the weapon and ammunition are stored – and they must be kept separately under lock and key. Police will also check weapons once a year. And after three years, your driver`s license expires, and then you have to take the course and take the exams again. “If you ask people, `Where are the guns in Japan?` they say, `Well, cops have guns, but they don`t usually use them,` and `The yakuza have guns,`” Gordon says. “I think the general attitude of the Japanese public is that as long as the gangsters shoot each other, it`s not a big problem, but if they start targeting other people, that`s it.” That figure includes an estimate of illegally owned guns in Japan, which are considered scarce in part because restrictions have eliminated private guns from the country, allowing criminals to buy fewer guns on the black market. Even the country`s notorious organized crime syndicates are largely weapons free. Air rifles are also allowed, Fukuda said, and shotguns. And that`s it. The few legally acquired weapons, mostly shotguns, can only be acquired after a selection and training process so expensive that Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the world: one gun for every 330 people. “It`s the first country to pass gun laws in the world, and I think that has laid the groundwork for saying guns really don`t matter in civil society.” All these shooters had acquired their weapons legally. These are just a few of the more than 300 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone, according to one count.
Non-duty police officers are not allowed to carry firearms, and most encounters with suspects involve a combination of martial arts or striking weapons. When Japanese attacks are deadly, they usually involve fatal stabbings. In July 2016, an assailant killed 19 people at an assisted living center. Japan rarely sees so many gun deaths in an entire year. Japan prohibits individuals from possessing handguns and only licensed hunters and sport shooters to purchase shotguns or air rifles. Police found several different models of homemade weapons made from pipes in Yamagami`s apartment and investigated how he tested the weapons and selected the most effective model, NHK reported. During the search, an investigator collected more than 10 boxes of suspicious documents and evidence from Yamagami`s apartment, NHK also reported. Yamagami reportedly admitted to buying the weapons equipment online, saying he targeted Abe because of his alleged affiliation with a religious group. Maritime Self-Defense Forces officers receive weapons and marksmanship training, a possible indicator of Yamagami`s knowledge base.
There have been several massacres in Japan in recent years, but most were unarmed. These include a stabbing in 2008 that killed seven people in Tokyo, a stabbing attack that killed 19 people at an assisted care facility in 2016, and an arson attack on an animation studio in 2019 that killed 34 people. “As soon as you have guns in society, you`re going to have gun violence, but I think it`s about the crowd,” Overton says. “If you have very few guns in society, you will almost inevitably have a low level of violence.” “The killing of Abe Shinzo [underscores that] even if you don`t have your own weapon, you can make one or steal one. Gun regulation is important, but there will always be something it will miss,” Young says — though she notes that`s no reason not to regulate guns. But in Japan, such weapons are impossible to buy legally, and not much easier to acquire illegally. Even the simplest weapons such as handguns are effectively banned. Just as very few people in Japan own guns, very few are involved in shootings. Both Young and Gordon say violent crime still happens, but usually through means other than guns. Young listed knives, arson and planned car accidents in the arsenal of the average violent criminal.
“Since guns entered the country, Japan has always had strict gun laws,” Iain Overton, executive director of Action on Armed Violence, a British advocacy group, told the BBC. “It`s the first nation to introduce gun laws in the world, and I think that created a foundation that says guns really don`t play a role in civil society.” Under Japanese law, possession of firearms without a special permit is illegal. Importation is also illegal. The same rules apply to certain types of knives and some other weapons, such as crossbows. In 1995, an amendment to the Possession of Guns and Swords Act criminalized shooting a firearm on a street, park, train, store or other place used by large numbers of people. The same amendment provided for lighter sentences for those who voluntarily surrender illegal firearms to the government. Japanese police carry handguns, but only they can have them, and they are rarely shot. The gunman apparently used a rudimentary homemade weapon made of duct tape and metal tubes. These weapons, known as zipper guns or pipe guns, can be assembled using materials from most hardware stores, making them functionally impossible to track or prevent.
The government has since relaxed the law, but the fact that Japan has introduced gun control out of the prohibition position is important. (It`s also one of the main factors separating Japan from the United States, where the Second Amendment largely allows people to own guns.) “Basically, people don`t have guns or think it`s important to have a gun unless they`re hunting or shooting clay pigeons, which are the only reasons you might be eligible to have a gun unless you`re a police officer,” Andrew Gordon, a Harvard University history professor who specializes in modern Japan. TIME said. But despite all the cultural and political specificities of these two companies, both fit neatly into a consistent global trend that has been repeatedly established in independent research.