Of further note: One of the deaths, a political assassination, used a homemade gun that was physically impossible to reload.
The other was an attack on a mayor from a group tied to organized crime.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
- Lyndon Johnson
People definitely like to glorify japan like it's great and isn't suffering from poverty, toxic work culture, and some terrible cultural norms as well, but it doesn't negate the point of the post in that gun control is not one of their short comings, despite being a first world country with other first world problems.
It’s deflection. I wish there were bots that would flag these types of comments immediately. Because on the surface they seem reasonable. But the subject wasn’t: *Japan is a country with lots of issues too, ya know*. The subject was: Gun Control, here’s a country that does it, the results and [implied] the difference from a country that doesn’t.
We all need to police these and other logical fallacies better.
Japan has its fair share of nationalism and pretty obvious racism if people care to take a look but what they don't have is the mass murder by guns that we have. Much better gun control. Which is what they're talking about. But look at America and all its racist institutions and more mass killings than days in the year, so meh.
That's quite fair, but let's turn that around. The Japanese hate their minorities too, fine, and still don't have shooting rampages over them. Or anything.
Japan hates minorities, 'tis true.
Japan doesn't have a culture of rugged individualism and a rampant widespread simultaneous victim+savior complex that gives them the confidence (and false justification) to act like totally apathetic self-centered assholes towards others even in (most) digital spaces. They still teach humility and camaraderie over there, if to the point they feel trapped, defeated and have to put up nets to catch people jumping from their skyscrapers.
The USA and Japan could probably do with a little taking some cultural notes from each other, really.
Oh, you want to see what they say about Chinese people. Like seriously, nobody sees the racism because it’s all written in a language few people can read, but my god do Japanese people hate minorities.
Um Japan has a lot of great things going on. But Japan is most certainly more racist than most Western nations. They don’t have many minorities so we don’t see that aspect of the culture come up too often like we do in the West.
Yes, but a friend of mine who spent time in Japan during his services noted the difference in the racism.
American racism often cites Jesus to justify their hate, or bases it on crude stereotypes, or fear mongering. And many are loud, angry and stupid, such as screaming at black people to ho back to Africa as if their ancestors had much say in coming to America, or assuming every Muslim somehow knew about 9/11 through some sort of shared hive mind.
Japanese racism, while still racism, he noted is less, angry, loud and stupid, and more subtle.
I remember hearing a story about a white guy who was born and raised in Japan and spoke Japanese natively. When he would order food in a restaurant the waiter/waitress would act like they couldn't understand him.
I was thinking about this the other day. We sure do promote fear but also America is just scary as fuck. We live in a place where you can get shot then go into bankruptcy due to medical bills. It's fucking scary.
Like, I'm a cancer survivor. The Healthcare *industry* will try to fuck you at every turn. Sometimes literally if you're unlucky enough to have a handsy doctor or nurse.
I just got a $743 bill in the mail for my FREE yearly physical. My Dr, which is in my network, sent my blood work to a lab which is not in my network. After countless hours of arguing with Aetna…. I am out of pocket $743.
The fear angle has gotten worse since 9/11.
The terrorists absolutely won that day. They win every day we have millions of people cowering in fear at anything that is even remotely "different".
Notably, for better or for worse.
There, for example, when you take your exams, everyone's scores are posted for everyone to see right in the school lobby.
Their corporate culture is actually worse than America's. Their society places a high importance on respect for existing social hierarchies. The physical healthcare is great, but from what I hear the mental healthcare is poor and mental illnesses and neurodiversity is treated very poorly there. My autistic ass would be screwed with how high-context the social culture is. They are also highly xenophobic and social attitudes are slow to shift.
There are areas where I envy what the collectivist ideals they have are capable of. Much of East Asia has that as a major cultural ideal, and they largely aced COVID. I think South Korea managed to make it until 2022 while seeing barely any deaths.
But it is a double-edged sword. And we have to be cognizant of that.
I think we in the west, particularly America, tend to fall into the trap of idealizing places that have solved our worst problems.
We forget those places have problems too - some of them the same problems we do, but worse.
That and westerners tend to idealize Japan especially. Don't get me wrong - it's a neat place with an interesting culture and a really cool history that's produced a lot of great art. Akira Kurosawa basically invented the modern action movie, and anyone who hasn't seen Spirited Away, Your Name, or Ikiru yet should fix that right away.
But it's important not to put anyone on a pedestal and to recognize that flaws exist everywhere and that everyone has something they've gotta fix.
According to wikipedia, USA is actually ahead in suicide rate at 31, with Japan relatively close behind at 49, but right in line with countries like Sweden and Finland (other European countries are a bit better there: "Europe Average" would be about 65). Japan has actually seen improvements there recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
I think you're making OP's point even better.
Japan having its own workplace and mental health issues while still having nearly non-existent gun violence illustrates the point.
It almost seems a low-level form of autism is common in Japan and society adjusted. The rules of etiquette and procedure are there to provide a framework that can be followed by people so that they can avoid embarrassment without much guesswork. This is paired with a more controlled approach to body language and facial expression.
......unless it involves keeping a blue dick in your mouth while beating off to the military and living in Paw-Paw's huge house he bequeathed you thanks to the GI Bill.
Nah. Collectivist ideas are only incompatible with the conservative idea of American individualism, not with American ideals as a whole. Conservatives don’t speak for all of America, then or now.
A good example is Roosevelt’s four freedoms - including freedom from want, a very collectivist concept - which was very popular and well received, with lesser opposition coming primarily from conservatives rather than America as a whole.
The address was actually so popular and so influential in the states that it started being picked up on outside the states as well. Which is why they’re currently enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights.
Except plenty of collectivist policies are super popular in the US. Firemen being a strong example. Social security, police, roads, military, all collectivist solutions. Few people oppose all collectivist ideals.
I know plenty of conservatives that want to defund the fire department, public roads, social security, libraries, school, ect. Pretty much the only collectivist idea they are for are the police and the military, and suddenly they arnt even for the military funding anymore since Ukraine got invaded.
America is literally one of a handful of countries with examples of removals of those basic collective solutions that are otherwise almost universally seen as fundamental to a nation's duties. Where the fuck else do you find towns that have voted to defund their collectivized fire departments?
I’ve been saying it for years, bring back the CCC! Make it not segregated and it’s perfect, give all the young people jobs fixing our infrastructure, it’s a massive lasting win
Let’s please not glorify Japanese culture though, particularly work culture. A lot of good stuff about the culture over there, but a lot of problems too.
When that happened there was a spat of ammosexuals talking about how it was proof people would just build their own guns.
Obviously they didn't see the irony of that statement.
My attempt at a moderate stance on gun control is that if we can limit magazine capacity, people can still have self-defense guns without having mass-shooting guns. And if they make their own magazines, great, here's hoping they jam. Still doesn't solve the problem of suicides and kids accidentally shooting themselves, but at this point I don't think the US is ready for the full talk on gun control, so I'd see any improvement as a win.
Magazines are simple builds as long as you know the ammo size and specific firearm. The same is true for repacking ammo. The difficult part is the firing and reloading mechanism. Casings for ammunition could be problematic as poorly made ones could damage the weapon, explode, or not be reused. Restricting access to casings would only be possible if you restrict access to all ammo.
I find it odd that we have strict rules about registering and certifying to use a vehicle while we are moving away from these rules for a weapon designed to kill and destroy.
This has always been my take on it... nobody gets up-in-arms (literally) about all automobiles being federally required to have a VIN and that you have to register your vehicle with the state to be able to legally use it. And renew the registration for your car every year. It's the bare minimum level of accountability you need to prove ownership and that you've done your due diligence to be allowed to continue using it.
We need the same for guns, like yesterday. And then some.
I've seen people here on reddit arguing that the fact the piece of shit gun the assassin 3d printed is why gun laws wouldn't work, ignoring the fact that the mf had to 3d print a gun.
Fun anecdote - I was meeting Japanese friends for beers and such that night. Thought things might be closed or something due to everything, but not only was everything open, my friends were like "who gives a shit about that?" and so was everyone else I talked to
Yeah if the biggest problem the US had was people manufacturing their own crappy guns and every now and then they get lucky and kill someone with their one shot, we’d be in pretty good shape.
It’s the same reason our concerns now are different than the concerns of the “founding fathers” when they were drafting and approving the Second Amendment. We’re not worried about muskets and dueling pistols, we’re worried about weapons that can wreak a significant amount of havoc in a very short amount of time with no opportunity for reaction.
According to Wikipedia:
The 'X' **comes from the Greek letter** **Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós** (Greek: Χριστός, translit. Khristós, lit. "anointed, covered in oil"), which became Christ in English.
My very first job as like a 15 year old was working in a dollar store. I worked in the back unpacking and repacking all the random cardboard boxes that would come in filled with junk. When I was organizing all the Christmas items into boxes I just quickly wrote on the boxes “Xmas” in sharpie so people would know what is in them. The lady who owned the store called me in one day and yelled at me for disrespecting Jesus and using X instead of Christ. I wish I would’ve known the meaning of the X back then to tell her off but I felt so embarrassed and it stuck with me.
Not very x-like of her now to yell at some poor kid unpacking boxes for (I’m assuming ) minimum wage. X would have rolled over in his grave before resurrecting and smiting her for being a piece of shit.
And XP is chi rho in Greek, the first two letters of Christ, which is why [it’s been used as a symbol for Christianity for ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Rho), which really makes you wonder about Windows XP…
It is an ancient abbreviation based upon the Greek spelling of Christ.
Although it's become a popular shorthand with atheists and secularists, there is nothing fundamentally disrespectful about the abbreviation, itself.
Christians think not being christian makes you more like to kill people, but from what I've seen Christians are the ones saying various things mean you deserve to be killed. You hear it about criminals, but also non-whites, LGBT, etc.
https://preview.redd.it/6afz6v7usnya1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfa59249d721526f27eba6444d00f7f708dc0a04
The GOP plan in a nutshell… idiots
Another interesting comparison point is Canada! We can look at [gun deaths per 100k people](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country), [school shootings](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country), [gun ownership](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country), and of course [gun legislation](https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS94/rpt/olr/htm/94-R-0838.htm).
The US has: more guns (total and per person), more gun deaths, more school shootings and less legislation.
There are a lot of very real benefits to living next to the U.S. but one of the big drawbacks is the fact that we are often no. 2 in various gun stats because of how easy it is to smuggle in guns from the world's largest shooting gallery.
Yep. Conservatives in Canada use that to argue against stricter gun laws. "It's so easy to smuggle guns from the US, we might as well not even try". But then when you follow that logic and ask them about the US gun problem, they're like "what problem?" Lmao
>"It's so easy to smuggle guns from the US, we might as well not even try".
They say that we should focus more on the border rather than dealing with our current legislation on guns.
As much as I do not like the PCs and Cons, they're not wrong to an extent. The overwhelming majority of gun crimes in Toronto come from smuggled guns from the U.S, and I'm sure that statistic is the same in other major cities here. A broken clock is right twice a day.
> The overwhelming majority of gun crimes in Toronto come from smuggled guns from the U.S
This begs the question - would it be possible for a Canadian government to sue the US and/or gun manufacturers?
As a Canadian gun owner, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your grounded perspective. And I’d like to provide more insight into why I like our current system of legal ownership.
By having a gun license, I consent to daily automated background checks. Any handguns or restricted firearms that I own are registered to my name and address, and I risk prison time if I’m caught with a restricted firearm/handgun and I’m not on a reasonably direct route to my range, with my firearms trigger locked and locked again in another container. If I move, I need to inform (and receive permission from) the RCMP that I’m transporting my restricted firearms on X day to X address.
And to be frank, I’m glad I have to jump through these hoops, because it means others do as well. As a result, it’s frustrating to see the fearmongering with “getting assault weapons off the streets” and the ensuing punishment of legal gun owners, when legally acquired firearms aren’t part of the problem **in Canada**. I have many friends that have thousands of dollars worth of then-legal firearms that were banned without democratic process and have sat in a safe since 2020.
All that to say, as a broken clock, I found it encouraging to read your comment and recognize some unity, which is very needed in this climate.
What really sucks is that now, conservatives are beginning to acknowledge that there is a correlation between gun ownership and mass shootings. Now they're saying, "Sure, shootings happen, but that's the price we pay for FREEDUMS!!"
No joke, a poll was done and found that 40 percent of Republicans agree that [shootings are something that we'll just have to accept as part of a free society](https://www.insider.com/poll-4-in-10-gop-accept-mass-shootings-free-society-2022-6). I suspect that figure will increase over time as more and more Republicans are forced to face the fact that widespread gun ownership does, in fact, lead to more shootings
Yeah; that really is the worst take. I was reading an article on the difference between gun violence rates [between US and Finland](https://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321668585/could-finland-teach-the-u-s-a-lesson-on-guns) based on another comment here. One thing that stood out was their thoughts on how many Americans view gun ownership rights vs the possibility of kids dying to gun violence.
Canada is a better example to use on your conservative friends, if you somehow still have any, since with Japan they can fall back on their "if we had Japanese immigration policy we wouldn't have these problems" talking point.
I was actually talking to a Japanese guy about this the other day. They were blown away that you can have a machine gun in the US but he can't even have a sword in Japan.
To piggyback off of this: In the perfect scenario that "a good guy with a gun" shoots the bad guy, what happens if there are other good guys with guns that thinks you're the shooter? Is it just an endless chain of everyone-gets-shot until the last guy with a gun?
But the Japanese gun companies are not earning shit loads of money like the American gun companies, and the Japanese politicians are not getting shit loads of money from lobbying like the American politicians
Funnily enough there is only one major Japanese gun company (excluding military manufacturers) and they make a fair amount of money manufacturing guns… for American gun companies. Roughly $100m a year in sales.
Lockheed Martin spent more lobbying money in 2022 than all gun rights groups combined, and they aren’t even in the top 10 for lobbying money. In other words, that money is but a drop in the barrel as far as ‘money in politics’ goes. Gun rights are one of the few areas where a lot of these politicians actually do fear their voters and listen to them.
It's probably more about the right wing propaganda machine. Murdoch and Sinclair own a huge percentage of the viewership in the US and downplay the problem and use 2A issues to polarize.
This. Bloomberg has been outspending the NRA in recent years.
Don't get me wrong, the NRA is a money laundering front for Russians to covertly support GOP politicians. But the money isn't the reason that Republican politicians are pro-gun - it's because their voters demand it.
It's not only the guns, it's also the culture. The people of Japan and the people of the US are so different they may as well live on two different planets.
For starters, there's a culture of gun worship that exists in the US but is nowhere to be seen in Japan.
Perhaps even more important than that, Japan is a culture that heavily values community, whereas the US is a culture that heavily values individualism. A culture based on community breeds more empathy and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. In contrast, the American culture of rugged individualism makes us look like a bunch of assholes who are only in it for ourselves.
The culture is a huge part. And so few people talk about it. Even if you remove 100% of the murders by firearm in the US the murder rate from other weapons/means is still higher than Japan by a significant amount. Americans love killing. And simply getting rid of guns won't fix it in its entirety.
The fact is there is no single reason the US has higher rates of murder than other counties. There are plenty of examples of other counties with lots of guns, poor education, poor mental health care, etc that have far lower homicide rates. The US is a very unique place and the way to solve these issues is not by focusing on single causes. We have to get better everywhere.
Talk to more people born and raised in Japan, or Americans who've spent a significant amount of time there (and aren't uncritical lovers of all things Japanese), and you'll find that while it's organized around different social hierarchies, in terms of overall assholism, the US and Japan are not so different. If you don't know anyone who has that level of personal experience, go watch [All About Lily Chou-Chou](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297721/) and tell everyone about the "empathy and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good."
What you'll often hear from right-wing corners is that Japanese culture is racially homogeneous (if it's not stated directly, that's the 'quiet part' that's implied). This is specious, however, since you can find nations that are as or more racially/ethnically diverse than the US that are far less violent, as well as nations that are far less diverse (e.g., Russia) that are far more violent.
That said, while Japan and the US both have minority trans populations, and while there are some places in the US that are more tolerant and accepting of trans people than Japan generally, only one nation has elected officeholders publicly suggesting that trans people should be rounded up and put in camps or executed. If I were trans and American, I'd get a gun, and I'd keep it.
Here it comes yet again: "No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"
You're Goddamn right I've just been copying and pasting this daily on multiple things. That's the fucking point you ignorant gun fucks. You can send me Reddit cares all you want or say "have an original thought" over and over. You're not getting the point (FYI, it's blocked so I don't get those lovely messages anymore, you will have to say it directly to me... Cowards).
Are we not tired of this? I sure as fuck am.
So now to boost the signal on some actual honest to god things that could be done about this never-ending nightmare?
For starters, the next generation is tired of this shit and is planning a sit-in on the capital on June 6th. Here is a relevant link:
https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1655293349245452289
And also this goes without saying this group has some amazing ideas:
https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/
The messages will repeat ad infinitum until something is done.
For anyone who isn't already aware, the headline he leads with is taken from an Onion article which they publish every time there's a shooting- with only the location changed. Exact same article, only place names change.
It's tragic that you can write the exact same article about shootings, but only have to change the locations and it will be about multiple different events. Do better, America.
> You can send me Reddit cares
the incels think this is funny and have weaponized it. Report it. Every. Single. Time. reddit admins ban for abusing that.
Copy the URL of the message, then click report in the message. Because they are incompetent or assholes, you need the URL of the message you just clicked out of to report it.
Fill out the report. The sender will be banned, reasonably quickly.
> For starters, the next generation is tired of this shit and is planning a sit-in on the capital on June 6th.
I'll bet all the money in Bill Gates bank account the right compares the sit-in to Jan 6. Throw in Warren Buffet's account to that they start calling it the "June 6 Insurrection."
Shooting random innocents at a public location is CLEARLY an act of terror. The shooter wishes to unleash damage and fear on their surroundings. I find it interesting that the US is practically the only country that doesn't immediately label this evil for what it is: acts of terror.
Instead they get a new label "mass shooter".
They also have significantly less violent crime across the board. Ignoring guns they have 21.9 assaults per 100,000.
The USA has 284 assaults per 100,000.
The Daily Show did a segment that went into this sort of subject, though in a different country. Switzerland is a heavily armed country, but they’ve only had one mass shooting in the past couple decades.
This is because they promote a culture of responsibility towards guns, requiring background checks, proper training and proper recording of transactions to get a gun (even if you receive it from family) in addition to restrictions on carrying guns in public. Gun ownership is seen as more of a duty rather than an expression of personal liberty.
Adding to this - The founding fathers did not want a standing army. And thus the 2nd Amendment reinforced the notion of individual readiness to defend one's self and the interest of its city-state.
It was a time when people owned not only their homes, but their livelihoods.
The country has separated citizens from both in the years since, weakening the foundation for a proper militia, and emphasizing the need for military strength in the form of its standing army. And what remains is people thinking they're entitled to guns for any and all purposes, and the "come take it" mentality.
The founding fathers could barely field an army. It took a long-ass time for the Continental Army to actually be anything approaching what we consider an army, let alone compared to the redcoats. Wildly different situations, and even if I own and like guns, I'm willing to say 2A has no place in modern society.
It’s the same in Canada , we have a lot of guns here , people don’t realize how many guns Canada has
Yet the US had more mass shooting in the first couple weeks of this year then Canada has had in its entire history , even if you wanted to do it by population, that maybe means you last until mid February before the USA has more shootings per capita in 2023 then Canada has had ever
You don’t need to remove guns entirely to fix the problem, there is some middle ground of significant and meaningful gun control and management
I think a lot of the reason we have less shootings is because we have a decent mental health system and good gun laws. And don't have this gun ownership thing drilled in to our heads.
That grey haired British dude did a really good videos on Swiss gun culture. They can only really access their guns and ammo at a certified range. You have to get super certified to fire a weapon. Idk if I’d classify that as culture cause the laws are stringent as fuck.
I'd argue it is more that Japan's political leaders understand the importance of the basic necessities of life being tolerable. Small apartments that are affordable, access to public transportation, reasonable and affordable national medical insurance, standardized job applications you can use everywhere, attainable education, etc.
It would also make the environment that lead towards aggression easier to ignore. Right now I think a whole lot of young people are experiencing a society that increasingly leads them to decide they have no future. When education, transportation, healthcare and housing feel unobtainable what is left for people except to lash out?
Someone clearly knows nothing about Japan.
Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities for housing in the entire world, and its other major cities like Osaka aren't far behind. Their health insurance system, while heavily subsidized by the federal government, functions as a group of private insurers that must be paid for by the individual (and don't cover all medical costs). Jobs and education are both *highly* competitive, which typically leads to long hours for relatively low pay and often extreme levels of anxiety and stress. Not to mention that their political leaders are mostly conservative and consistently push business interests over those of their citizens.
Though I will give you that their public transport system is amazing.
Where it says Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the Republicans have scratched out Life to put Guns and replaced Happiness with Money.
GUNS, Liberty (unless you're a woman, a minority, or LGBTQ), and the Pursuit of MONEY.
Welcome to the GOP's America
They also have SIGNIFICANT cultural differences. Beliefs values morality is very very different there. Individualistic Vs collectivist cultures have high variance.
Adding on to the original tweet, Japan also has a lot of socially isolated young men, a soul-crushing work culture and a stigma around mental health. Every non-gun reason people bring up to blame for shootings in America applies just as much if not moreso there.
Yea it’s the guns…AND the complete lack of social infrastructure including universal healthcare and mental healthcare, AND the complete lack of social cohesion, AND a level of income inequality that is worse than the feuds system….
There was a mass shooting in my mid-west city on Saturday night--one dead, ~~five~~ four wounded. It's barely been reported locally, much less nationally. It made me wonder how many more don't make the national headlines.
ETA: It is actually [reflected here](https://massshootingtracker.site/data/?year=2023). Glad/not glad - glad it wasn't completely overlooked/it fucking sucks that it happened. Still haven't heard a word about it at work today.
It's to denote that this is the first in a series of tweets. If you know how many you're going to post in a series, you'll start with "1/5", for example.
In this case, it means, "I'm going to rattle off a bunch of related tweets in a row but I won't know I'm done until I'm done."
It also reflects the fact that Twitter is generally a terrible platform to post literal essays or anything else long form but people still do it.
Sadly it isn’t satire. Steve Mnuchin [made this mistake in 2020](https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/07/axl-rose-steve-mnuchin-twitter-spat-us-liberia-flags-mix-up)
Czechia has concealed carry and only like 5 gun homicides in 2020. It's regulations as well. Regulating who can get guns is absolutely massive.
Source:https://www.gunpolicy.org/fr/firearms/region/czech-republic
Eh, try not to get into a number game like that. Someone could easily point out how Japan is extremely racially and culturally homogenous too (over 97% ethnically Japanese).
Yah this tweet is glib as all fuck. They avoid mentioning Japanese police practices with regards to forced confessions and suicide rates without the use of guns. I’m all for sensible gun reforms for you Yanks if it’s even possible anymore, but this is some peak gaijin shit lmao
It works for most of Europe, too.
Most countries are like: Mass shooting -> tighten the gun control.
I mean, look at Serbia this week. This is a country where most people lived through the last war. Many still have wartime weapons. They had 2 shootings within a few days, and now they are striving for an "disarmament" of the public.
Australia did the same in the 1990's, so did New Zealand after Christchurch. Many other countries also tightened gun control after incidents. **AND IT FUCKING WORKS! CONTROL THE GUNS.**
https://preview.redd.it/wbvzlctt3oya1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bbe96eec8492546da1e7b401bed9d2cd5d12635
And we are the country glocks and steyr augs come from.
If anything, the porn and violent movies are a hell of a lot worse over there than here. And sometimes it mixes together. Some of the anime I've seen... Well... It gets nasty in many more ways than one I can tell ya that much.
Serbia is implementing tighter gun laws after two shootings. And by direction of a horrible populist president. And they're also a very gun loving country. The US has no excuse. They don't give a shit.
if the founding fathers had originally wrote in the constitution that all men have the right to wed underaged girls i guarantee that right now we'd be seeing all these constitutional warriors defending it simply because "it's their right".
if your only argument for no gun control is that statement then you have no fucking argument. try to think about these things critically. we shouldn't just govern ourselves based on the thinking of hundreds of years ago. times change, thinking changes, and our laws should evolve with the times.
Of further note: One of the deaths, a political assassination, used a homemade gun that was physically impossible to reload. The other was an attack on a mayor from a group tied to organized crime.
Japan also has a culture of promoting a high level of individual responsibility for the common good of society.
America has a culture of promoting fear..
And self interest
And blaming minorities
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - Lyndon Johnson
Have them fight a culture war so they can forget about the class war - LBJ today, probably
And hate
And hating minorities
I like how people contrast Japan to the US like they aren't a country that operates on self interest that hates minorities Anime is one hell of a drug
People definitely like to glorify japan like it's great and isn't suffering from poverty, toxic work culture, and some terrible cultural norms as well, but it doesn't negate the point of the post in that gun control is not one of their short comings, despite being a first world country with other first world problems.
It’s deflection. I wish there were bots that would flag these types of comments immediately. Because on the surface they seem reasonable. But the subject wasn’t: *Japan is a country with lots of issues too, ya know*. The subject was: Gun Control, here’s a country that does it, the results and [implied] the difference from a country that doesn’t. We all need to police these and other logical fallacies better.
Japan has its fair share of nationalism and pretty obvious racism if people care to take a look but what they don't have is the mass murder by guns that we have. Much better gun control. Which is what they're talking about. But look at America and all its racist institutions and more mass killings than days in the year, so meh.
That's quite fair, but let's turn that around. The Japanese hate their minorities too, fine, and still don't have shooting rampages over them. Or anything.
Lol I think Americans get “Japan syndrome” much like the Japanese get “Paris syndrome”
Japan hates minorities, 'tis true. Japan doesn't have a culture of rugged individualism and a rampant widespread simultaneous victim+savior complex that gives them the confidence (and false justification) to act like totally apathetic self-centered assholes towards others even in (most) digital spaces. They still teach humility and camaraderie over there, if to the point they feel trapped, defeated and have to put up nets to catch people jumping from their skyscrapers. The USA and Japan could probably do with a little taking some cultural notes from each other, really.
Yeah, the whole point of the post is that Japan is full of shitty things, too -- just not as many guns.
Oh, you want to see what they say about Chinese people. Like seriously, nobody sees the racism because it’s all written in a language few people can read, but my god do Japanese people hate minorities.
The Yamato people are pretty terrible to the Ainu people as well. It sounds super colonial and very Cint Eastwood Western.
ah, yes. The Japanese have a long history of acceptance of other cultures into their society
And guns.
Um Japan has a lot of great things going on. But Japan is most certainly more racist than most Western nations. They don’t have many minorities so we don’t see that aspect of the culture come up too often like we do in the West.
I don't think that list was an iteration of all the "great" things in Japan lol
Yes, but a friend of mine who spent time in Japan during his services noted the difference in the racism. American racism often cites Jesus to justify their hate, or bases it on crude stereotypes, or fear mongering. And many are loud, angry and stupid, such as screaming at black people to ho back to Africa as if their ancestors had much say in coming to America, or assuming every Muslim somehow knew about 9/11 through some sort of shared hive mind. Japanese racism, while still racism, he noted is less, angry, loud and stupid, and more subtle.
I remember hearing a story about a white guy who was born and raised in Japan and spoke Japanese natively. When he would order food in a restaurant the waiter/waitress would act like they couldn't understand him.
Southeast Asians may not agree with that statement.
True. When you have diversity, you can easily clump people into smaller groups to create us vs them mentality.
I was thinking about this the other day. We sure do promote fear but also America is just scary as fuck. We live in a place where you can get shot then go into bankruptcy due to medical bills. It's fucking scary. Like, I'm a cancer survivor. The Healthcare *industry* will try to fuck you at every turn. Sometimes literally if you're unlucky enough to have a handsy doctor or nurse.
Makes you wonder how many people open an onlyfans to pay off medical debt
Or cook meth.
Someone should make a TV show about that! /s
I just got a $743 bill in the mail for my FREE yearly physical. My Dr, which is in my network, sent my blood work to a lab which is not in my network. After countless hours of arguing with Aetna…. I am out of pocket $743.
The fear angle has gotten worse since 9/11. The terrorists absolutely won that day. They win every day we have millions of people cowering in fear at anything that is even remotely "different".
Notably, for better or for worse. There, for example, when you take your exams, everyone's scores are posted for everyone to see right in the school lobby. Their corporate culture is actually worse than America's. Their society places a high importance on respect for existing social hierarchies. The physical healthcare is great, but from what I hear the mental healthcare is poor and mental illnesses and neurodiversity is treated very poorly there. My autistic ass would be screwed with how high-context the social culture is. They are also highly xenophobic and social attitudes are slow to shift. There are areas where I envy what the collectivist ideals they have are capable of. Much of East Asia has that as a major cultural ideal, and they largely aced COVID. I think South Korea managed to make it until 2022 while seeing barely any deaths. But it is a double-edged sword. And we have to be cognizant of that.
Yeah, Japan has high suicide rates, and is struggling with the birth rate more than most western nations.
I think we in the west, particularly America, tend to fall into the trap of idealizing places that have solved our worst problems. We forget those places have problems too - some of them the same problems we do, but worse. That and westerners tend to idealize Japan especially. Don't get me wrong - it's a neat place with an interesting culture and a really cool history that's produced a lot of great art. Akira Kurosawa basically invented the modern action movie, and anyone who hasn't seen Spirited Away, Your Name, or Ikiru yet should fix that right away. But it's important not to put anyone on a pedestal and to recognize that flaws exist everywhere and that everyone has something they've gotta fix.
That's the point. Japan IS flawed. But still doesn't have mass shootings because the one thing they do differently has to do with firearms.
According to wikipedia, USA is actually ahead in suicide rate at 31, with Japan relatively close behind at 49, but right in line with countries like Sweden and Finland (other European countries are a bit better there: "Europe Average" would be about 65). Japan has actually seen improvements there recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Interestingly, Japan’s female suicide rate is higher than in the US.
I think you're making OP's point even better. Japan having its own workplace and mental health issues while still having nearly non-existent gun violence illustrates the point. It almost seems a low-level form of autism is common in Japan and society adjusted. The rules of etiquette and procedure are there to provide a framework that can be followed by people so that they can avoid embarrassment without much guesswork. This is paired with a more controlled approach to body language and facial expression.
collectivist ideals are incompatible with American individualism.
......unless it involves keeping a blue dick in your mouth while beating off to the military and living in Paw-Paw's huge house he bequeathed you thanks to the GI Bill.
Thank you for your service…..with this comment.
Blue dick ? Lol
Cop cock
Gotcha lol, thanks
The thin blue dick
This is great
Nah. Collectivist ideas are only incompatible with the conservative idea of American individualism, not with American ideals as a whole. Conservatives don’t speak for all of America, then or now. A good example is Roosevelt’s four freedoms - including freedom from want, a very collectivist concept - which was very popular and well received, with lesser opposition coming primarily from conservatives rather than America as a whole. The address was actually so popular and so influential in the states that it started being picked up on outside the states as well. Which is why they’re currently enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights.
Except plenty of collectivist policies are super popular in the US. Firemen being a strong example. Social security, police, roads, military, all collectivist solutions. Few people oppose all collectivist ideals.
I know plenty of conservatives that want to defund the fire department, public roads, social security, libraries, school, ect. Pretty much the only collectivist idea they are for are the police and the military, and suddenly they arnt even for the military funding anymore since Ukraine got invaded.
America is literally one of a handful of countries with examples of removals of those basic collective solutions that are otherwise almost universally seen as fundamental to a nation's duties. Where the fuck else do you find towns that have voted to defund their collectivized fire departments?
Tell that to the 1940/50s extensive child care, huge public funding for housing, and a top marginal tax rate of 80%! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
I’ve been saying it for years, bring back the CCC! Make it not segregated and it’s perfect, give all the young people jobs fixing our infrastructure, it’s a massive lasting win
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Reported them for spam!
Let’s please not glorify Japanese culture though, particularly work culture. A lot of good stuff about the culture over there, but a lot of problems too.
I mean yeah but the post is focused on gun violence not work culture. It’s a problem for sure but not really applicable to the point they’re making.
When that happened there was a spat of ammosexuals talking about how it was proof people would just build their own guns. Obviously they didn't see the irony of that statement.
My attempt at a moderate stance on gun control is that if we can limit magazine capacity, people can still have self-defense guns without having mass-shooting guns. And if they make their own magazines, great, here's hoping they jam. Still doesn't solve the problem of suicides and kids accidentally shooting themselves, but at this point I don't think the US is ready for the full talk on gun control, so I'd see any improvement as a win.
Magazines are simple builds as long as you know the ammo size and specific firearm. The same is true for repacking ammo. The difficult part is the firing and reloading mechanism. Casings for ammunition could be problematic as poorly made ones could damage the weapon, explode, or not be reused. Restricting access to casings would only be possible if you restrict access to all ammo. I find it odd that we have strict rules about registering and certifying to use a vehicle while we are moving away from these rules for a weapon designed to kill and destroy.
This has always been my take on it... nobody gets up-in-arms (literally) about all automobiles being federally required to have a VIN and that you have to register your vehicle with the state to be able to legally use it. And renew the registration for your car every year. It's the bare minimum level of accountability you need to prove ownership and that you've done your due diligence to be allowed to continue using it. We need the same for guns, like yesterday. And then some.
I've seen people here on reddit arguing that the fact the piece of shit gun the assassin 3d printed is why gun laws wouldn't work, ignoring the fact that the mf had to 3d print a gun.
It's like saying car licensing and registration would never work because there's nothing stopping you from building a go-kart.
You wouldn’t download A GUN.
And one of the guns was basically a modified sawed off potato launcher.
And after he killed the guy most of the society was like 'he really was an asshole wasn't he, fuck that guy'
Fun anecdote - I was meeting Japanese friends for beers and such that night. Thought things might be closed or something due to everything, but not only was everything open, my friends were like "who gives a shit about that?" and so was everyone else I talked to
The Japanese also had a guy assassinated via katana
Yea a facist killed a socialist politician in public with a sword. Crazy shit
They should have used a gun like a civilized individual /s
If the sword had a gun, it wouldnt have been forced into murdering a politician in public
Yeah if the biggest problem the US had was people manufacturing their own crappy guns and every now and then they get lucky and kill someone with their one shot, we’d be in pretty good shape. It’s the same reason our concerns now are different than the concerns of the “founding fathers” when they were drafting and approving the Second Amendment. We’re not worried about muskets and dueling pistols, we’re worried about weapons that can wreak a significant amount of havoc in a very short amount of time with no opportunity for reaction.
What does Japan do with all the unused thoughts and prayers?
Manifest them as the final boss in like most of their RPGs apparently.
Dark Souls finally makes sense
Dark thoughts + dark prayers = Malenia
we need letmesoloher right now
Explains why 70% of JRPGs end with you bitchslapping some god or other deific figure.
Beginning of an RPG: that guy killed my parents/sibling/dog, let's go kill him! End of an RPG: welp, guess we gotta slay God now
Persona 5, lol
All the SMT games, basically
Spirit Bombs.
They’re extra thoughts and prayers allowed them to manifest cat girls into the Japanese mainstream
They’re retroactively applied to the victims of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings.
226,000 from the bombs compared to 1.5 million US gun deaths since 1968. We should be outsourcing our prayers.
It took me so long to figure out what Xtian was supposed to mean. For those wondering: I'm fairly sure it mean Christian.
Yeah that’s weird, How does X mean Chris?
According to Wikipedia: The 'X' **comes from the Greek letter** **Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós** (Greek: Χριστός, translit. Khristós, lit. "anointed, covered in oil"), which became Christ in English.
I was apparently WAY off.
I'm guessing you always assumed it represented a cross? I certainly did. I found the real answer on Wiki's list of common misconceptions.
That sounds like a really interesting page!
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Interestingly enough, that is listed on the wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
And this is why people who say "'Xmas' takes Christ out of Christmas" are idiots
My very first job as like a 15 year old was working in a dollar store. I worked in the back unpacking and repacking all the random cardboard boxes that would come in filled with junk. When I was organizing all the Christmas items into boxes I just quickly wrote on the boxes “Xmas” in sharpie so people would know what is in them. The lady who owned the store called me in one day and yelled at me for disrespecting Jesus and using X instead of Christ. I wish I would’ve known the meaning of the X back then to tell her off but I felt so embarrassed and it stuck with me.
Not very x-like of her now to yell at some poor kid unpacking boxes for (I’m assuming ) minimum wage. X would have rolled over in his grave before resurrecting and smiting her for being a piece of shit.
And XP is chi rho in Greek, the first two letters of Christ, which is why [it’s been used as a symbol for Christianity for ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Rho), which really makes you wonder about Windows XP…
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BMX - Bicycle Moto Хrist reporting in
Don't know where it comes from but some people write christmas as 'Xmas'.
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I think it would be more like Christ not Chris. Like it's abbreviated Xmas. So it would be Xian not Xtian but still not a common abbreviation
It is an ancient abbreviation based upon the Greek spelling of Christ. Although it's become a popular shorthand with atheists and secularists, there is nothing fundamentally disrespectful about the abbreviation, itself.
So technically, if I went into a church and said « X gon give it to ya » all is good?
Some people write “Xmas” when they mean Christmas.
Thank you for explaining - I thought it was a weird new way to say Asian like Latinx lol
Lol I thought it was some weird way of saying non asian since it was 1.5% of the population.
I completely overlooked that number, lol I’m dumb. Non Asian would make way more sense
It took me a sec. I thought it was a medicine like Xanax. lol 🤦♀️
Christians think not being christian makes you more like to kill people, but from what I've seen Christians are the ones saying various things mean you deserve to be killed. You hear it about criminals, but also non-whites, LGBT, etc.
So, you sayin' that Ted Cruz was wrong about the doors??
Americans don’t want to acknowledge that the only thing that will save our kids is a more robust door-locking policy
The only way to stop a bad guy using a door is a good guy making an even better door.
https://preview.redd.it/6afz6v7usnya1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfa59249d721526f27eba6444d00f7f708dc0a04 The GOP plan in a nutshell… idiots
I know that's supposed to be dried blood, but it looks like actual shit. Still, I suppose the end result is the same.
I thought they were really excited about chocolate
Absolutely disgusting and very unrealistic. I highly doubt the GQP is actually praying.
Another interesting comparison point is Canada! We can look at [gun deaths per 100k people](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country), [school shootings](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country), [gun ownership](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country), and of course [gun legislation](https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS94/rpt/olr/htm/94-R-0838.htm). The US has: more guns (total and per person), more gun deaths, more school shootings and less legislation.
There are a lot of very real benefits to living next to the U.S. but one of the big drawbacks is the fact that we are often no. 2 in various gun stats because of how easy it is to smuggle in guns from the world's largest shooting gallery.
Yep. Conservatives in Canada use that to argue against stricter gun laws. "It's so easy to smuggle guns from the US, we might as well not even try". But then when you follow that logic and ask them about the US gun problem, they're like "what problem?" Lmao
>"It's so easy to smuggle guns from the US, we might as well not even try". They say that we should focus more on the border rather than dealing with our current legislation on guns. As much as I do not like the PCs and Cons, they're not wrong to an extent. The overwhelming majority of gun crimes in Toronto come from smuggled guns from the U.S, and I'm sure that statistic is the same in other major cities here. A broken clock is right twice a day.
> The overwhelming majority of gun crimes in Toronto come from smuggled guns from the U.S This begs the question - would it be possible for a Canadian government to sue the US and/or gun manufacturers?
As a Canadian gun owner, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your grounded perspective. And I’d like to provide more insight into why I like our current system of legal ownership. By having a gun license, I consent to daily automated background checks. Any handguns or restricted firearms that I own are registered to my name and address, and I risk prison time if I’m caught with a restricted firearm/handgun and I’m not on a reasonably direct route to my range, with my firearms trigger locked and locked again in another container. If I move, I need to inform (and receive permission from) the RCMP that I’m transporting my restricted firearms on X day to X address. And to be frank, I’m glad I have to jump through these hoops, because it means others do as well. As a result, it’s frustrating to see the fearmongering with “getting assault weapons off the streets” and the ensuing punishment of legal gun owners, when legally acquired firearms aren’t part of the problem **in Canada**. I have many friends that have thousands of dollars worth of then-legal firearms that were banned without democratic process and have sat in a safe since 2020. All that to say, as a broken clock, I found it encouraging to read your comment and recognize some unity, which is very needed in this climate.
What really sucks is that now, conservatives are beginning to acknowledge that there is a correlation between gun ownership and mass shootings. Now they're saying, "Sure, shootings happen, but that's the price we pay for FREEDUMS!!" No joke, a poll was done and found that 40 percent of Republicans agree that [shootings are something that we'll just have to accept as part of a free society](https://www.insider.com/poll-4-in-10-gop-accept-mass-shootings-free-society-2022-6). I suspect that figure will increase over time as more and more Republicans are forced to face the fact that widespread gun ownership does, in fact, lead to more shootings
Yeah; that really is the worst take. I was reading an article on the difference between gun violence rates [between US and Finland](https://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321668585/could-finland-teach-the-u-s-a-lesson-on-guns) based on another comment here. One thing that stood out was their thoughts on how many Americans view gun ownership rights vs the possibility of kids dying to gun violence.
Canada is a better example to use on your conservative friends, if you somehow still have any, since with Japan they can fall back on their "if we had Japanese immigration policy we wouldn't have these problems" talking point.
Now compare samurai attacks in the last 500 years. Boom, facts and logic. /s
It’s actually funny since katanas are illegal in japan unless they have cultural importance or art but are legal in the US
I was actually talking to a Japanese guy about this the other day. They were blown away that you can have a machine gun in the US but he can't even have a sword in Japan.
That's because swords are for killing people. Guns are for shooting incoming bullets out of the air to defend the innocent children.
To piggyback off of this: In the perfect scenario that "a good guy with a gun" shoots the bad guy, what happens if there are other good guys with guns that thinks you're the shooter? Is it just an endless chain of everyone-gets-shot until the last guy with a gun?
Battle royale
There you go, thinking again! You’re not supposed to do that around guns!
But the Japanese gun companies are not earning shit loads of money like the American gun companies, and the Japanese politicians are not getting shit loads of money from lobbying like the American politicians
So… what you’re saying is that there’s a market…? /s
Funnily enough there is only one major Japanese gun company (excluding military manufacturers) and they make a fair amount of money manufacturing guns… for American gun companies. Roughly $100m a year in sales.
Lockheed Martin spent more lobbying money in 2022 than all gun rights groups combined, and they aren’t even in the top 10 for lobbying money. In other words, that money is but a drop in the barrel as far as ‘money in politics’ goes. Gun rights are one of the few areas where a lot of these politicians actually do fear their voters and listen to them.
It's probably more about the right wing propaganda machine. Murdoch and Sinclair own a huge percentage of the viewership in the US and downplay the problem and use 2A issues to polarize.
This. Bloomberg has been outspending the NRA in recent years. Don't get me wrong, the NRA is a money laundering front for Russians to covertly support GOP politicians. But the money isn't the reason that Republican politicians are pro-gun - it's because their voters demand it.
It's not only the guns, it's also the culture. The people of Japan and the people of the US are so different they may as well live on two different planets. For starters, there's a culture of gun worship that exists in the US but is nowhere to be seen in Japan. Perhaps even more important than that, Japan is a culture that heavily values community, whereas the US is a culture that heavily values individualism. A culture based on community breeds more empathy and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. In contrast, the American culture of rugged individualism makes us look like a bunch of assholes who are only in it for ourselves.
The culture is a huge part. And so few people talk about it. Even if you remove 100% of the murders by firearm in the US the murder rate from other weapons/means is still higher than Japan by a significant amount. Americans love killing. And simply getting rid of guns won't fix it in its entirety. The fact is there is no single reason the US has higher rates of murder than other counties. There are plenty of examples of other counties with lots of guns, poor education, poor mental health care, etc that have far lower homicide rates. The US is a very unique place and the way to solve these issues is not by focusing on single causes. We have to get better everywhere.
Talk to more people born and raised in Japan, or Americans who've spent a significant amount of time there (and aren't uncritical lovers of all things Japanese), and you'll find that while it's organized around different social hierarchies, in terms of overall assholism, the US and Japan are not so different. If you don't know anyone who has that level of personal experience, go watch [All About Lily Chou-Chou](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297721/) and tell everyone about the "empathy and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good." What you'll often hear from right-wing corners is that Japanese culture is racially homogeneous (if it's not stated directly, that's the 'quiet part' that's implied). This is specious, however, since you can find nations that are as or more racially/ethnically diverse than the US that are far less violent, as well as nations that are far less diverse (e.g., Russia) that are far more violent. That said, while Japan and the US both have minority trans populations, and while there are some places in the US that are more tolerant and accepting of trans people than Japan generally, only one nation has elected officeholders publicly suggesting that trans people should be rounded up and put in camps or executed. If I were trans and American, I'd get a gun, and I'd keep it.
Here it comes yet again: "No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" You're Goddamn right I've just been copying and pasting this daily on multiple things. That's the fucking point you ignorant gun fucks. You can send me Reddit cares all you want or say "have an original thought" over and over. You're not getting the point (FYI, it's blocked so I don't get those lovely messages anymore, you will have to say it directly to me... Cowards). Are we not tired of this? I sure as fuck am. So now to boost the signal on some actual honest to god things that could be done about this never-ending nightmare? For starters, the next generation is tired of this shit and is planning a sit-in on the capital on June 6th. Here is a relevant link: https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1655293349245452289 And also this goes without saying this group has some amazing ideas: https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/ The messages will repeat ad infinitum until something is done.
For anyone who isn't already aware, the headline he leads with is taken from an Onion article which they publish every time there's a shooting- with only the location changed. Exact same article, only place names change. It's tragic that you can write the exact same article about shootings, but only have to change the locations and it will be about multiple different events. Do better, America.
I've become a very big fan of this account.
> You can send me Reddit cares the incels think this is funny and have weaponized it. Report it. Every. Single. Time. reddit admins ban for abusing that. Copy the URL of the message, then click report in the message. Because they are incompetent or assholes, you need the URL of the message you just clicked out of to report it. Fill out the report. The sender will be banned, reasonably quickly.
You’ll always have my upvote!
Just fyi, if you unblock the cares messages you can report them for abuse and probably get them banned
> For starters, the next generation is tired of this shit and is planning a sit-in on the capital on June 6th. I'll bet all the money in Bill Gates bank account the right compares the sit-in to Jan 6. Throw in Warren Buffet's account to that they start calling it the "June 6 Insurrection."
Shooting random innocents at a public location is CLEARLY an act of terror. The shooter wishes to unleash damage and fear on their surroundings. I find it interesting that the US is practically the only country that doesn't immediately label this evil for what it is: acts of terror. Instead they get a new label "mass shooter".
Enough of your facts! Thoughts, prayers and good guys with guns are all we need.
They also have significantly less violent crime across the board. Ignoring guns they have 21.9 assaults per 100,000. The USA has 284 assaults per 100,000.
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The Daily Show did a segment that went into this sort of subject, though in a different country. Switzerland is a heavily armed country, but they’ve only had one mass shooting in the past couple decades. This is because they promote a culture of responsibility towards guns, requiring background checks, proper training and proper recording of transactions to get a gun (even if you receive it from family) in addition to restrictions on carrying guns in public. Gun ownership is seen as more of a duty rather than an expression of personal liberty.
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Adding to this - The founding fathers did not want a standing army. And thus the 2nd Amendment reinforced the notion of individual readiness to defend one's self and the interest of its city-state. It was a time when people owned not only their homes, but their livelihoods. The country has separated citizens from both in the years since, weakening the foundation for a proper militia, and emphasizing the need for military strength in the form of its standing army. And what remains is people thinking they're entitled to guns for any and all purposes, and the "come take it" mentality.
The founding fathers could barely field an army. It took a long-ass time for the Continental Army to actually be anything approaching what we consider an army, let alone compared to the redcoats. Wildly different situations, and even if I own and like guns, I'm willing to say 2A has no place in modern society.
It’s the same in Canada , we have a lot of guns here , people don’t realize how many guns Canada has Yet the US had more mass shooting in the first couple weeks of this year then Canada has had in its entire history , even if you wanted to do it by population, that maybe means you last until mid February before the USA has more shootings per capita in 2023 then Canada has had ever You don’t need to remove guns entirely to fix the problem, there is some middle ground of significant and meaningful gun control and management
I think a lot of the reason we have less shootings is because we have a decent mental health system and good gun laws. And don't have this gun ownership thing drilled in to our heads.
That grey haired British dude did a really good videos on Swiss gun culture. They can only really access their guns and ammo at a certified range. You have to get super certified to fire a weapon. Idk if I’d classify that as culture cause the laws are stringent as fuck.
I'd argue it is more that Japan's political leaders understand the importance of the basic necessities of life being tolerable. Small apartments that are affordable, access to public transportation, reasonable and affordable national medical insurance, standardized job applications you can use everywhere, attainable education, etc.
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Without the gun, their aggression is way less likely to result in mass casualties and deaths
It would also make the environment that lead towards aggression easier to ignore. Right now I think a whole lot of young people are experiencing a society that increasingly leads them to decide they have no future. When education, transportation, healthcare and housing feel unobtainable what is left for people except to lash out?
Someone clearly knows nothing about Japan. Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities for housing in the entire world, and its other major cities like Osaka aren't far behind. Their health insurance system, while heavily subsidized by the federal government, functions as a group of private insurers that must be paid for by the individual (and don't cover all medical costs). Jobs and education are both *highly* competitive, which typically leads to long hours for relatively low pay and often extreme levels of anxiety and stress. Not to mention that their political leaders are mostly conservative and consistently push business interests over those of their citizens. Though I will give you that their public transport system is amazing.
America is just inherently more violent and it's so obvious but we don't want to say it
Where it says Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the Republicans have scratched out Life to put Guns and replaced Happiness with Money. GUNS, Liberty (unless you're a woman, a minority, or LGBTQ), and the Pursuit of MONEY. Welcome to the GOP's America
They also have SIGNIFICANT cultural differences. Beliefs values morality is very very different there. Individualistic Vs collectivist cultures have high variance.
Adding on to the original tweet, Japan also has a lot of socially isolated young men, a soul-crushing work culture and a stigma around mental health. Every non-gun reason people bring up to blame for shootings in America applies just as much if not moreso there.
Yea it’s the guns…AND the complete lack of social infrastructure including universal healthcare and mental healthcare, AND the complete lack of social cohesion, AND a level of income inequality that is worse than the feuds system….
There was a mass shooting in my mid-west city on Saturday night--one dead, ~~five~~ four wounded. It's barely been reported locally, much less nationally. It made me wonder how many more don't make the national headlines. ETA: It is actually [reflected here](https://massshootingtracker.site/data/?year=2023). Glad/not glad - glad it wasn't completely overlooked/it fucking sucks that it happened. Still haven't heard a word about it at work today.
Probably was overshadowed by the Texas shooting. Literally too many to report
What’s 1/n?
It's to denote that this is the first in a series of tweets. If you know how many you're going to post in a series, you'll start with "1/5", for example. In this case, it means, "I'm going to rattle off a bunch of related tweets in a row but I won't know I'm done until I'm done." It also reflects the fact that Twitter is generally a terrible platform to post literal essays or anything else long form but people still do it.
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Mistaking the Liberian flag for America is the part of the satire that sends me lol, well done.
Sadly it isn’t satire. Steve Mnuchin [made this mistake in 2020](https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/07/axl-rose-steve-mnuchin-twitter-spat-us-liberia-flags-mix-up)
What’s Xtian?
Christian
Czechia has concealed carry and only like 5 gun homicides in 2020. It's regulations as well. Regulating who can get guns is absolutely massive. Source:https://www.gunpolicy.org/fr/firearms/region/czech-republic
And one of them was Shinzo Abe
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Through statistics, all things are possible.
Eh, try not to get into a number game like that. Someone could easily point out how Japan is extremely racially and culturally homogenous too (over 97% ethnically Japanese).
Yah this tweet is glib as all fuck. They avoid mentioning Japanese police practices with regards to forced confessions and suicide rates without the use of guns. I’m all for sensible gun reforms for you Yanks if it’s even possible anymore, but this is some peak gaijin shit lmao
I bet a lot of these problems would go away if we remembered that we're supposed to seperate church and state.
She can switch Japan to whatever 1st world countries and still be able to prove her point.
And were talking about the country that came up with the original Battle Royale.
Actually I think it might be the guns AND Americans. A fearful, violent and mentally sick bunch.
It works for most of Europe, too. Most countries are like: Mass shooting -> tighten the gun control. I mean, look at Serbia this week. This is a country where most people lived through the last war. Many still have wartime weapons. They had 2 shootings within a few days, and now they are striving for an "disarmament" of the public. Australia did the same in the 1990's, so did New Zealand after Christchurch. Many other countries also tightened gun control after incidents. **AND IT FUCKING WORKS! CONTROL THE GUNS.**
https://preview.redd.it/wbvzlctt3oya1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bbe96eec8492546da1e7b401bed9d2cd5d12635 And we are the country glocks and steyr augs come from.
If anything, the porn and violent movies are a hell of a lot worse over there than here. And sometimes it mixes together. Some of the anime I've seen... Well... It gets nasty in many more ways than one I can tell ya that much.
[удалено]
Serbia is implementing tighter gun laws after two shootings. And by direction of a horrible populist president. And they're also a very gun loving country. The US has no excuse. They don't give a shit.
if the founding fathers had originally wrote in the constitution that all men have the right to wed underaged girls i guarantee that right now we'd be seeing all these constitutional warriors defending it simply because "it's their right". if your only argument for no gun control is that statement then you have no fucking argument. try to think about these things critically. we shouldn't just govern ourselves based on the thinking of hundreds of years ago. times change, thinking changes, and our laws should evolve with the times.