My Letter to The Japan Times

[Munro Williams]

I finally got this in the newspaper over here after waiting for about two weeks, in response to a few nitwits.

READERS IN COUNCIL
Most crimes don't involve guns
According to U.S. Department of Justice, in 1998, "Victimizations involving a firearm represented 23 percent of the 2.9 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault." That means over 2,200,000 people in America were raped, robbed or beaten half to death -- and no guns were involved. In recent years, handguns have become a completely arbitrary convenience employed in homicides, but they are not a critical factor in murder or any other violent crime. For millions of crime victims, it's obvious that the complete banning of all guns will have little or no effect other than depriving them of any means to protect themselves, and criminals will be assured of it.

The reality is that more than 6,200 people a day are raped, beaten, maimed, violently robbed or killed in violence committed without firearms, and the victims have no possibility of police protection and have no means of self defense. But the liberal-socialist axis displays its sadistic streak by diverting attention away from this real problem to focus attention on the actions of 10 or 20 psychotics a year. There is a serious reason to fear walking American streets, and the 6,200 figure is the stark reality. But attention is transferred from this realistic fear to a statistically irrational fear of .0001 percent of the population, and to antigun hysteria, which leaves victims defenseless against the real threat -- which is not even acknowledged.


MUNRO WILLIAMS
Komaki, Aichi

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?rc20010801a4.htm

Anyone who's read A Problem with Guns? will recognize the editing.

 

[MP Freeman]

Atta boy. I'm curious as to how folk in Japan think on the issue of gun control. Not just the talking heads, but the general p;erson on the street.

Regards,
MP

 

[buzz_knox]

Firearms were not introduced in Japan until Europeans forced contact with them. Because an average peasant farmer could kill a samurai using the new weapon with minimal training, the firearm directly threatened the status quo. So, the ruling elite made possession of a firearm by a lower class a capital offense punishable by immediate execution. So, the Japanese consider gun control as perfectly natural.

 

[Charmedlyfe]

Yeah, well Japan really doesn't have much in the way of women's rights. They are noticably lacking in prosecution of rapes due to their cultural bias against women. Hypocrites.

 

[Munro Williams]

There's an old Japanese proverb from Tokugawa (he was the Number One warlord in the early 17th century): "The people are like sesame seeds. The more you squeeze them, the more comes out of them." That about sums it up.