[whiteperil] Sean: Guns

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Posted by Sean:
Guns
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1177049770.shtml


   Michael has [1]caught some flak (so to speak) over [2]his posting
   about gun control and how to compare the shootings of students at
   Virginia Tech and of the mayor of Nagasaki here in Japan. I think he's
   absolutely right. (Hey, it happens sometimes.)

     If guns were completely illegal in the U.S., and the government did
     everything possible to collect all of the guns, the VA Tech student
     would still have found a way to get a gun and shoot up the campus.

   All right, yes, that's speculative, and it's phrased a bit
   sententiously. But it has the ring of truth because we [3]know now
   that Cho was planning this kind of thing for a long time and was
   obsessed with the military. Henry Lewis may no more know how to get an
   illegal gun than I know how to get drugs in Roppongi, in the sense
   that neither of us is interested or would know where to begin. But
   people who are interested figure out a way to find out.
   Does gun control work in Japan? Difficult to say, because there are
   many other factors that make society function as it does. Japan is
   much more homogeneous and self-policing than immigrant-rich societies
   such as the United States. Another thing I've definitely noticed in
   talking to Japanese friends is that the idea that citizens might have
   the right to defend themselves from agents of their own government if
   they get too high-handed isn't one that crosses their mind very
   frequently. They also don't think often about situations in which the
   police or other authorities may not be around to help them and they
   must see to their own defense. Part of that is that Japanese people
   are acculturated to like being under authority, part of it is that
   Japanese people tend to be suspicious of an individual who wants to go
   it alone, and part of it is that the post-war Japanese government did
   a lot of things the citizenry is rightfully grateful for. Japanese
   people--this is my narrow individual experience talking, but I don't
   think it's aberrant--are unusually ready to believe that the victim of
   a crime by a stranger is at fault for getting himself into a sticky
   situation rather than staying in safe, known spaces.
   And let's not forget that Japan doesn't lack for lunatics who kill
   multiple victims. They tend to be serial killers rather than spree
   killers--gun control probably does have something to do with that--but
   their victims are just as dead.

References

   1. http://gayorbit.net/?p=6925#comments
   2. http://gayorbit.net/?p=6924
   3. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/vtech.shooting/index.html