It must stop

I was recently asked by a relative why I had become so anti-gun...

Look in the news just a little and there's my answer.

• Gunman Kills 20 Schoolchildren in Connecticut
• Massacre in Virginia
• Gunman turns 'Batman' screening into real-life 'horror film'

The list goes on and on and on.

The most recent rampage, where a single shooter went into the class where his mother was teaching at a grade school in Newton, Conn., killed her and then went even more crazy killing 20 kids -  most under the age of 10 - should leave anyone who hears about it shocked. There is no excuse why this should happen. No rationale about why guns can be OK when they're used for this kind of mindless violence again and again and again.

You want to know the other reason why I'm so anti-gun? Because I have lived now for 14 years without the fear or even the thought of a gun coming into my life here in Japan. Yes, Japan has some brutal murders. You hear about them on TV every night. But that's a good thing. Japan has so few murders and especially so few gun murders, that every single one makes national news. That's the way it should be.

I was told that if you got rid of every gun you'd still have dudes going on killing rampages. That's true. The worst rampage Japan has had since I've been here would have to be the Akihabara knifings that happened in June of 2008. It resulted in 7 deaths - 4 from stabbing wounds and 3 more from the truck the guy used to plow into a crowd of innocents (for more information here is the Wikipedia page).

Since I've been in Japan there's been a pipe bombing (0 deaths), a shooting spree by a guy using a hunting rifle (I believe he killed 3 at a yoga gym), and a few assassinations by yakuza. That does happen. But the killings are rare and also usually involve a single perpetrator going after a single victim.

But go to the US and you have gobs and gobs of gun killings every year (for a great comparison of gun deaths and other homicide info check out this article at the Atlantic: A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths). Some highlights:

In 2008, the U.S. had over12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.

I'm sorry, when gun rights advocates talk about self-defence, or maintaining the country's integrity, or that if you outlaw guns completely then "only the criminals will have them"... I say tell that to the parents of the kids who died in Connecticut. Oh, and the criminals with guns most likely didn't make them themselves. They got them in pawn shops, highly unregulated gun shows, stole them from people's houses, or used the same guns that have been floating around on the black market for years. But it's not a magical source that just creates guns for crooks.

America may be a country that fought for and forged its own freedom at the barrel of a gun. I do think of course that maintaining a stockpile of guns for national defence is important and necessary. I also think giving adults proper training in the use and maintenance of firearms can be a good thing. But if you look at the mass shootings, the crime waves and all the accidents, suicides and crimes based solely on guns, the evidence is both massive and overwhelming. Something must be done to reduce the numbers killed and injured. And the answer certainly isn't more guns.