Midnight Mutterings | Shinzo Abe and gun laws in Japan

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES |||

Last night (translate to ‘early this morning’ when I was trying to go to sleep) I realized I had not submitted my fortnightly column to Lin, out esteemed editor. And worse, it had not spontaneously evolved from scratched notes on paper to the
keyboard. I had planned to write about Shinzo Abe and Gun Laws. Which I will do in a moment.

First, about the time I was falling asleep, someone (and I’m pretty sure I know who, or at least the gender) set off some fireworks. Just a few, and not the pretty ones. Still, it led me once again to wonder why it is fun to make noise for its own sake. It’s not just because I am old and cranky. I was complaining about loud noises when I was young and cranky.

Earlier this week I had consulted AI (Almighty Internet) about gun laws, and gun ownership and gun deaths in preparation for this column. And found there is so much conflicting information as to exactly how many or much in each category, I could not come to any real numbers or statistics. Only this: Our United States leads by A Lot in gun numbers overall, in gun manufacture, in gun sales, in private gun ownership, in guns per household, in injury and death by gunshot. What is
undisputed: At least 48% of households in the US are confirmed to contain at least one firearm.

I grew up with guns (firearms). When I grew up there were guns in the house, in the barn, and maybe other places, in the seventy acres that surrounded our house, but not in the cars and trucks, as far as I know. My father thought I should learn to shoot though he never said why. I liked to please my father, even though it wasn’t hard to do, and I agreed to learn to shoot. I was small for my age and the rifles and I were about the same size, at least in the beginning, and very heavy. It was a long walk to the small lake (? big pond) my father had built. My father built things: houses, furniture, barns, sheds, wonderful tree houses, electric motors from scattered parts, swings, fences, wagons, sleds, boats and a couple of ponds with elaborate docks and swinging ladders. He also taught me to say ‘cartridges’ and ‘bullets’ appropriately, as well as ‘engines‘ and ‘motors.’ And, I learned to pick up my spent cartridges.
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I learned to shoot those rifles over the water at tiny targets on the other side. I suppose it was so I wouldn’t hurt anything, but it may have been it was the only clear space besides the pastures. And the horse and cows would not have liked the
noise any more than I did. So I learned to shoot. I was an OK shot, but I didn’t like it much. The noise, the smell, and, most of all, the fact that every time I pulled that stiff trigger with two small fingers, I ended up flat on my young back. My ever-practical father had me stand on the down side of a small hill, so I didn’t fall so far. I was compliant if unenthusiastic, but it wasn’t too long before we went back to risking my life on tall trees, deep water, tractors, a skittish horse, tricky pony and poison ivy, to which we were both highly allergic. I have never fired a handgun, and I don’t recall ever holding one.

Back to the internet: What I did learn from the Internet was that, in addition to the US having possibly the most guns, we also have one of the least restrictive gun laws. (At least last week, the House passed legislation restricting some aspects of assault–semi-automatic weapons–but, as reported in The Guardian, the Senate is unlikely to agree.) As one senator warned, ‘They are coming for your guns.’ Alas, I thought that was the point, not the problem…

The other thing I learned from my confusing online search is that Japan has perhaps the most restrictive gun laws in the world. A law passed in 1958, and still stands that says, ‘No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or sword or swords.’ Certain registered hunting weapons are permitted with special training and other conditions, including renewal every three years. Japan has probably the lowest per capita death rate from firearms. One source said there was ONE gunshot-related
death not related to the military, reported in Japan in 2021. Um, does that mean the law is working?

Of course, the law did not protect Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022. However, it did mean his assailant (whose name I will not glorify here) had to make his own weapon. That would have slowed down many potential killers. When the assailant’s house was searched, there were several other guns in process as well as ‘empty plastic cartridges and ‘drying gunpowder.’

Oh, I forgot. The 1958 law in Japan also made possessing ammunition illegal. You can’t legally dry your own gunpowder in Japan. And to refresh your memory about Shinzo Abe: He was the longest serving former Prime Minister in Japan history and was, until his untimely death earlier this month, a currently serving member of the House of Representatives. Again, Abe was shot while giving a political speech by a single gunman using a homemade weapon and ammunition, apparently, because someone in Abe’s family had supported the Unification Church.

Could one lesson be that politics, religion and illegal firearms are a bad combination?

Am I going to talk to the assumed setter of illegal fireworks about last night’s noise? No, not unless he does it again tonight. He’s young. It’s a peaceable neighborhood, even if I am one of those dogs who hides under the bed every July 4th and New Year’s Eve.