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Forum - View topicNEWS: U.S. House Minority Leader Cites Japan's Low Gun Violence in Game Debate
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Well, it helps when basically all guns are illegal to possess for citizens aside from ridiculously regulated shotguns that those in more rural areas may have. Handguns are more than likely going to be tied to organized crime who smuggle them in, so I doubt any average petty thug can get his hands on one easily. No firearm will be laying around the house for kids to grab, so no school shootings using the parent's legally obtained gun, like we often see. We'll never have those gun laws in the US unless something unbelievably unimaginable occurs (no amount of school shootings would be enough), it would require gun-grabbing the hundreds of millions of firearms in the country, so bringing up Japan's system is moot.
I do know military otaku love deactivated weapons and air rifles (since they can actually own them), so the fascination with guns still exists. Instead of just tying gun crime to violet media, how about all violent crime regardless of whether a weapon was included? Battery, assault, murder, rape, etc, does any of that tie to video games? |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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People are going to heinous acts regardless of the media around them. If you truly wish to murder, rape or assault some one you are still the one in the end to blame for your actions. Edit: Did some cleaning for my own reasons... Last edited by Cecilthedarkknight_234 on Mon Feb 11, 2013 12:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Citizens are completely banned from owning guns as far as I know, unless they're in the JSSDF (maybe?). So it's not exactly the most useful of retorts. Also, I don't think Japan has anywhere near the amount of violent video games than we have here in the USA. What they do have is a plethora of adult erotic games.
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2210 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Absolutely. No guns for citizens. Which is exactly what I'm for. Good example lady.
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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Japanese video games are more violent than their American counterparts? I suppose Dragon Quest is technically violent, but they're Harry Potter compared to American FPS games.
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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Citizens can possess shotguns and corresponding ammo, but it's such a tightly controlled, restricted, and monitored system that many don't see the use in bothering. You have to register everything, renew it constantly, take mental health examinations, and more. At any point you can be denied as well. Registered rifles (owned from before 1971) have to be surrendered upon that owner's and cannot be transferred to another party. No handguns whatsoever. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2267 |
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The laws for owning a gun in Japan are pretty tough. You have to take an all day class, pass a written test, pass a firearms test at a gun range, take a drug test, a psych test, criminal background check, register with the police and let them know where your gun is located in your house, the gun and ammo must be stored separately, the Police come to your house once a year to check you are following the guidelines, and after 3 years you get to repeat the whole process again. Give up a day or two of work? I don't think it would be attractive to many Japanese.
The whole idea that its video games to blame is just scapegoating. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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While I am not a fan of our current gun laws (or current mental health laws/practices for that matter), I am even less of a fan of Rep. Pelosi, so I would like to remind her that pointing out Japan, a country where nerve gases were used in a mass casualty event (luckily they screwed up otherwise it could have been much worse) and a detergent based poison gas is used for suicides (luckily I have heard of few collateral casualties) proves the point of the gun lobby that removing guns from the equation changes nothing.
As far as the violent media link goes, crazy is crazy, if it wasn't a FPS, it would be a youtube cat video. Once you have decided on a one way trip to Valhala, all that is left is to count the bodies left behind. Last edited by lhernan02 on Mon Feb 11, 2013 2:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8503 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Anecdotal evidence: as useless as ever! |
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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Not anecdotal at all, just proof that a determined (and usually deranged) perpetrator will not be stopped by weapon selection controls. |
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Mr Adventure
 Posts: 1598 |
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But that doesn't tell you how many violent crimes WERE NOT carried out because firearms were not readily available. Isolated and sporadic incidents are not a statistic. Of course random acts of violence will continue to happen in a gun restricted society. No body is saying we'd enter into a violence free utopia. But the frequency of such events would drop drastically (which all statistical analysis seems to suggest base on other modern democratic nations with tighter gun controls). Which is the important thing. |
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Panzer Vor
 Posts: 648 |
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Japan is a very poor example. Finland, Switzerland, Germany, and other countries that allow private firearm ownership yet have low violent crime rates in general would have been more relevant, but the gun control lobbyists have their own agenda to push, and like all other lobbyists, they ignore evidence that contradicts their chosen positions.
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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I would say very few, weapon selection is the least important part of the equation: Muggers willl still mug you, lunatics/fanatics will still cause mass casualties (McVeigh didn't even point a gun at anybody), abusive/scorned lovers will still kill their partners. Guns would only be an issue with ghetto thugs who lack the brains for other means of effective casualty generation. If we manage to limit their guns, then the ghetto situation would be similar to the UK's, lots of violent crime, but fewer deaths. Now if anybody is willing to push a plan to do that, then we are in business. |
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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Even those have issues since population size, economy, culture, mental health system, law enforcement traditions, and population diversity all have a material effect. The US could only be validly compared to the UK or Australia (and Australia is a bit of a stretch, but we need more than one comparison) and once you reach a general similarity you have to compare similar blocks (Cornwall is not the southside of Chicago and the East end is not Iowa). |
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