How to own a gun in Japan

A lot of people, myself included, thought that there was absolutely no way a Japanese civilian could legally own a firearm. As it turns out, this isn't extactly true. Here's the scoop:

Step 1 - If a Japanese civilian of at least 20 years of age decides to seek out a firearm, she must sign up to attend a lecture on gun regulations for beginners, held once a month at her local police station. The lecture, which lasts for approximately three hours, is followed by a written examination with 20 questions; she must get at least 14 of them right to obtain a certificate that is valid for three years.

Step 2 - The prospective gun owner must supply her local police station with her employment history and all residences over the past 10 years, along with a roster of everyone who lives at her residence and a quick summary of her family history. Police will determine if she is seeking a firearm for hunting or competitive shooting. No other reasons for gun ownership will be considered, including self-defense.

Step 3 - If she does not have it already, the prospective gun owner must obtain certification from a doctor that she does not use illegal or recreational drugs and that she has no preexisting physical or mental conditions that would disqualify her from owning a firearm. She must hand this certificate over to the police, as well as her written examination certificate.

Step 4 - Police will check out her family to see if she is related to any Yakuza or other "undesirables." Having one black sheep in her somewhat-immediate family could disqualify her from owning a gun.

Step 5 - After a minimum one-month waiting period (usually takes longer because of background checks on family), if she qualifies, the prospective gun owner will receive a call from her local police station to come and pick up her license booklet. It looks similar to a passport, and will feature the prospective gun owner's name, address, birthdate, license number, date of issue, and a photograph of the licensee on the front page.

Step 6 - The new licensee must have a specially-designed gun safe installed somewhere in her home. The key to the safe must be hidden somewhere very secure, and not even her family should have access to the key. Police, on the other hand, may require that she provide them with a map of her home indicating where the key and the gun safe are located, and reserve the right to inspect her gun and gun safe with adequate prior notification.

Step 7 - The licensee must take a shooting class at an approved gun range, following by another examination. This stage is supposed to be fairly easy to pass.

Step 8 - After all of the prerequisites are satisfied, the certificates are approved, the safe is purchased, and the license booklet is deemed valid, our new licensee may finally head down to an approved gun shop and purchase...

...a single-shot, break-action shotgun.

Wheeeeee.

Step 9 - Time for our new gun owner to purchase some buckshot for that shotgun. Unfortunately, this requires a separate permit, and ammunition must be stored in a separate safe from that used to house the shotgun.

Wasn't that fun?

Now, contrast the Japanese process for legally obtaining a break-action shotgun with the American process for legally obtaining the same type of gun:

My dad gave me one. :woohoo:

Step 4 - Police will check out her family to see if she is related to any Yakuza or other "undesirables." Having one black sheep in her somewhat-immediate family could disqualify her from owning a gun.

If you have family in the Yakuza, me thinks acquiring a weapon is not an issue. :D

Guess that's why there aren't any mass shootings in Japan.

Given the history of mass shootings by Japanese in other countries.

Got Nanking?

killings with swords.....or gas attacks.....or murders of other types???

Not to mention the suicide levels.

Not that the gun proliferation advocates care about that. In fact, it seems at time that they revel in it.

The implement is pretty unimportant to me. Death is death. Gun death is still just death.

About half of all gun related deaths in the US are suicides. How do the US and Japan stack up for suicide rate? What's that, Japan is almost double? Not per capita, double the TOTAL suicides. They have more total suicides per year than we do gun deaths from ALL causes, murder, suicide, and accident. That's a lot, considering their population is less than half ours.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/27/ST2008052702980.html

But hey, good thing they don't have guns right?

see: correlation =/= causation

fwiw, japanese society is MUCH More restrictive on nearly all civil liberties and police and govt. have far far more power in all sorts of areas (search, seizure, interrogation, etc.)

furthermore, japanese society is far less individualistic than our society.

japanese have a much higher suicide rate than we do, fwiw. it's a very different culture.

Smart folks over there.

...that this is the same nation that introduced the world to painful game shows (long before FOX gave us The Chamber, there was Super Jockey), fugu liver in restaurants, mosaic-blurred porn, J-Pop music, and schoolgirl panty vending machines.

Every nation has its quirks, and Japan is no exception. Musically, I like Kotohime, Boredoms, 5.6.7.8s, and much of Japan's classical music.

The mainstream type, not the perverted kind.

Akira is one of my favorite movies of all time, and a damn good piece of sci-fi.

I also have a soft spot in my heart for My Neighbor Totoro. I can't help it, I love those goofy bat-eared puffballs.

How about Spirited Away?

I gravitated away from anime around the time Katsuhiro Ohtomo released Ghost In A Shell. I hear it's quite good, though; I must check it out sometime.

i like anime, but i HATED that movie.

it was painfully boring to me

It's my favorite short series of all time. Cowboy Bebop is another fave.

When Evangelion isn't enough, watch FLCL. I love it, just wish they'd have treated it as more than a novelty and made it a bit longer, but I'm greedy that way. My favorite's still Outlaw Star.

I've loved anime for years.

Japan's fun to visit, but if you live there you'll soon realize that it's a dollhouse nation with a sitcom culture where no one can defy their ordained fate. The US is more dangerous, but danger breeds opportunity.

With their little white gloves.

Their suicide rate is double ours. :hi:

After you do that we can figure out a time line.

edit for spelling... which I suck at.

No pistols or rifles of any kind unless she's a registered sport shooter in good standing with Japan's version of the NRA, and then only for sports shooting - I don't think Japanese police even allow pistols kept at home, even in a safe.

You may not be keen on civilians owning ARs or AKs, but in Japan, even a simple .22-caliber squirrel rifle is illegal except for sporting purposes - you cannot legally hunt with one.

First, institute a feudal society in which commoners are not allowed to have weapons, but the ruling elite's hired thugs are. Prevent the importing of firearms, since possession of those might allow the increasing number of peasant rebellions you have to deal with to defeat the ruling elite's hired thugs (who are more into expensive swords).
Then transition to a constitutional monarchy, and build a strong conscript army to slaughter the no-longer-ruling elite's hired thugs. Having built a strong army, allow the nationalist elements in its leadership to periodically dominate the government and invade and annex a few neighboring countries. Allow this trend to gather momentum, until your territorial ambitions bring you into conflict with the world's largest industrial power. Escalate that conflict into all-out war, and lose. Make sure you don't surrender until the enemy has found it necessary to utterly trash your industrial base and much of your cities. Be forced to fully disarm your society because nobody in the hemisphere trusts you with so much as peashooter.

Of catching up with Japan's high rate of suicide.

Yeah, it is a bit too restrictive; but it's much preferable to the American idiocy.

oh wait :rofl:

Despite the fact that Japanese constitution contains a right to remain silent, 95% of people arrested by Japanese police sign a confession. Of criminal defendants, 99.9% are convicted, almost always on the basis of their confession. Essentially, if you're arrested in Japan, chances are you're going to prison, because the cops will probably beat a confession out of you, and the judge (no juries in Japan) will convict you--even sentence you to death--on the basis of that coerced confession.

The cops can hold you incommunicado for 48 hours without access to legal counsel; the public prosecutor can hold you for another 24. The a judge can authorize the police to hold you another ten days, and then another ten days. The police and prosecutor aren't required to record interrogations, and a suspiciously high number of people die "accidentally" in police custody.

Frankly, the Japanese criminal justice system makes Apartheid-era South Africa's look like a model of the Rule of Law. But hey, if you want to live in a police state masquerading as a democracy, be my guest.

japan is FAR more restrictive with nearly every civil right.

are you ok with their gun policy, or all of them? search? seizure? interrogation? etc.

japan is a much more conformist, and far less individualistic society.

conditions" especially hoplophobia.

But they manage to commit suicide at a rate considerably higher that us (I think its even close to our murder rate!) without the use of firearms.

Created by mixing toilet cleaner and bath salts (good luck restricting those). And the fun part is, it doesn't dissipate readily, so unlike with a firearm, you can kill other people in the household (and neighboring apartments) after you've killed yourself.

an individual right to arms in it.

And fucking rightly so.

I had a great-uncle, my maternal grandmother's eldest brother, who was drafted into the Dutch East Indies army when war with Japan loomed in 1941. He was captured on Java along with the rest of the army personnel on the island, and the Japanese first put them through a "lite" version of the Bataan Death March, and then murdered the survivors.

I wasn't born until 28 years later, but I don't have a lot of use for Japan as a state, and its political culture. Figures "Dugout Doug" McArthur liked them; he had an inflated sense of self-importance combined with an authoritarian streak as well.

were made for each other. The Japanese were conditioned to blind obedience and fealty to an Emperor and McArthur always wanted to be one.

But there are plently of legally owned firearms (hunting, sport, self-defense), even with their restrictive gun laws in place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Mexico

Xela

the idea of denying basic rights to individuals based on the actions of their kin is very, I biblical I suppose. Sins of the father and whatnot.

I have no problem with encouraging basic gun safety training. And also with penalizing severely anyone who uses a firearm inappropriately, either intentionally or through neglect. But those regulations are ridiculous.

Oh well, their country they can do as they please. I just don't want our gun-grabbers trying to emulate them.

This procedure is so quietly and politely fascist.