Yep, Japanese guncontrol is a success!

J

Jffal

New member
A few stories from an English language
e-rag. Enjoy.
Jeff

Mainichi Daily News
Address:http://www.mainichi.co.jp/englis
h/news/archive/199912/26/news06.html  

Sunday, December 26, 1999 Time bomb
suspected in Osaka bin blast Mainichi
Shimbun SETTSU, Osaka - A trash bag that
exploded at a bullet train depot here
Friday night may have contained a
time-bomb made using a can from a
popular brand of cooking oil, police
said Saturday. Although police said they
have not found any explosives in the
Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai)
depot, they did say they found remnants
of the cooking oil can with a lead wire
running from it, as well as four
batteries.
No one was injured in the explosion,
which occurred at about 4 p.m. Friday,
but it scattered other bags of garbage
over a range of about 10 meters.
JR Tokai officials and counterparts from
the West Japan Railway Co. (JR West)
said Saturday that they planned to
tighten security measures on the JR
Tokaido and JR Sanyo bullet train lines
in the wake of the explosion.
JR Tokai officials added that although
it had started carrying out earlier this
month a special safety test on its
trains, employees had not checked trash
cans for any suspicious objects. In the
wake of the blast, however, JR Tokai
officials had quickly sifted through
trash cans on all its lines Friday
night, but did not find anything out of
the ordinary.
Police said the trash bag that exploded
was one of three bags of rubbish that
had been collected from the Kodama 415
bullet train that arrived at JR
Shin-Osaka Station at about 3:20 p.m.
JR Tokai officials say that the bag did
not explode immediately upon being
hoisted into the incinerator.
   
Sunday, December 26, 1999 Gifu woman
kills husband, hangs self ENA, Gifu - An
elderly woman here may have killed her
ailing husband and herself after getting
tired of caring for him for more than
two years, police said Saturday.
According to police, a local doctor who
visited the home of Kazuo Koketsu, 86,
in Ena, Gifu Prefecture, at around 2:45
p.m., Friday, found him dead with a rope
tied around his neck and his 79-year-old
wife, Mitsue, hanging.
Mitsue left a suicide note saying,
"Exhausted. We will leave (for heaven)."
Investigators suspect that Mitsue
strangled her husband and later hanged
herself.
The couple were living with their son,
his wife and two grandchildren. Mitsue
had been caring for Kazuo, who had been
almost bed-ridden for 21/2 years.  
   
Sunday, December 26, 1999 Man poisoned
after downing soft drink HINO, Shiga - A
51-year-old man became ill here after
drinking a soft drink believed to have
been laced with a chemical, police said
Saturday. Police suspect that the drink
was laced with an agricultural chemical.
The Shiga Prefectural Police lab is
still examining the contents of the
drink.
The company employee from Kawanishi,
Hyogo Prefecture, whose name was not
immediately known, had drunk a canned
soft drink in Hino on Friday afternoon
and became ill. He was rushed to a
hospital where he underwent gastrolavage
because he showed symptoms of slight
chemical poisoning. The man bought the
drink at a discount shop in Toyonaka,
Osaka Prefecture, earlier Friday.
     
Sunday, December 26, 1999 Slain pilot's
wife demands compensation The wife of an
All Nippon Airways pilot who was slain
by a hijacker last July filed a request
Saturday with a labor standards
inspection office for workers
compensation, claiming her husband's
deah was caused by his work.
The wife of Captain Naoyuki Nagashima,
the first person to be killed during a
hijacking in the country, filed the
application with the Ota Labor Standards
Inspection Office in Tokyo under the
Workers' Compensation Insurance Law.
Nagashima, 51, was stabbed to death by
Yuji Nishizawa, 29, who commandeered ANA
Flight 61 from Tokyo's Haneda to Sapporo
and broke into the cockpit.
   
Sunday, December 26, 1999 Ex-child actor
extradited, busted for corpse-dumping
Mainichi Shimbun Mainichi Shimbun
Kazutaka Nishikawa NIIGATA - A child
actor turned local politician suspected
of involvement in the death of a
moneylender has been arrested after
being extradited from Thailand, police
said Saturday.
Kazutaka Nishikawa, 32, who from 1995
until earlier this year served a single
term as a member of the municipal
assembly in the Niigata Prefecture city
of Shirone, was arrested while on a
Japan Airlines flight from Bangkok for
the illegal disposal of a body. He was
taken to Niigata shortly after his
flight arrived at Narita Airport on
Saturday morning.
Nishikawa is alleged to have dumped the
body of Yukio Sato, 56, a moneylender,
in Asahi, Niigata Prefecture, on Nov.
30. Police suspect Nishikawa may have
been involved in Sato's death and placed
him on an international wanted list
after he fled the country on Dec. 1.
Nishikawa flew to Hong Kong and traveled
to Macao before INTERPOL officials
notified Japanese police on Dec. 22 that
the former child actor had been
apprehended in Thailand.
Nishikawa was arrested for conspiring
with Yuichi Kawahara, 30, manager of a
mah-jongg parlor that Nishikawa owned,
to wrap Sato's body in a blanket, shove
it into the trunk of his car, then
dispose of the body in a forest in
Asahi. Kawahara has already been charged
with illegally dumping Sato's body.
Police and sources said that Nishikawa
had eaten with Sato at a restaurant in
Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, on the night
of Nov. 29. Later that night Nishikawa
and Kawahara arranged to travel together
to Sato's office in Joetsu. Nishikawa
left Kawahara sitting in his car,
telling him that he was going to borrow
some money. Nishikawa then apparently
called Kawahara into the office.
Kawahara says that by the time he
arrived there, Sato had already
collapsed on the floor.
Police later discovered that 5 million
yen was missing from Sato's office.
Police believe that Nishikawa and Sato
had quarreled over money the one-time
actor wanted to open a mah-jongg parlor.
Nishikawa played Daigoro in the popular
1970s TV drama "Kozure-Okami," about a
wandering samurai accompanied on his
journeys throughout the country by his
young son ( the tv series followed the
release of six samurai films based on
the same story, collectively entitled
Sword of Vengeance, Lonewolf and Cub or
the Babycart movies). After retiring
from acting, Nishikawa held a number of
jobs, including a post as a manager of a
swimming school, before he was elected
to the Shirone Municipal Assembly in
1995.
 
 
Just demonstrates how over 400 years of government monopoly of force can drive people insane. There is no right to self defense here, even, much less any popular uprising. One effect of this on the Japanese is that they know nothing else except blind obedience to arbitrary authority. Another is barely repressed homicidal-suicidal ideation. Yes, it can get spooky over here.
 
Pretty funny. Some anti's hold the Japanese gun control system as a model that could work in this country, while totally ignoring the socialogical factors that ensure compliance in Japan.

Munro - How do you enjoy living in Japan?

Cliff
 
Hey Cliff,

Good points about Japan: the girls are pretty,the beer is good, work is easy to get.
Wild animals do not roam the streets. The water is drinkable.
Bad points: Depends on your job. If you work for a sadistic control freak it's like being in jail. If you work for someone sane it can be OK.

That said, you still have to work three times as long to spend twice as much for things that are only half as good as back home. Sometimes I think that Japan is the only third world country in the world where you can make $30,000 a year just by having a passport and a pulse.

Some people do well here, some don't. I'm doing ok now. For a while it was absolutely dreadful.

The Japanese are not spontaneous at all over here. They must presume that their every move is being scrutinized by someone.
Japanese overseas are completely different, as no one is watching them all the time. But coming back to Japan, they revert to there I-am-being-watched mode. They ARE being watched.

The stress begins the moment you enter Japanese air space. I'm starting to babble. Better ask me some specific questions. If I continue like this admin will throw me off.
:o
 
That sillyness brought to you from the makers of Pokemon.

Strange people these Crazies... Seems they will use what ever thay can to hurt people.
Dont they know that they cant do that?

------------------
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." - Sigmund Freud
 
My former boss used to teach English in Tokyo. He started less than ten years ago and the incident he related was more recent.

His wife got bored and decided to go back to work. She had classes in the working, so tried to find an evening job. At one interview, the interviewer pointed to her wedding band and said "You can't work evenings for us, you should be home making dinner for your husband." She was unamused.

I used to have a real penchant for Japanese decorative arts, *some* social mores...then I read and heard a bit more and statred wondering if I ever want to visit. Would be like going back to Russia in many ways.

Not to mention I'd miss having guns handy...

------------------
Oleg

http://dd-b.net/RKBA
 
Oleg,
Your friend's wife obviously tried to get a job for one those control-freaks. If she was unmarried, the interview would go something like this: "Let's see, you've got a Ph.D. in Linguistics, have written the seminal work in the field, have also written numerous monographs, and are considered one of the top ten linguists currently living. Great. But can you pour tea, look cute, and raise your voice two octaves whenever you talk to a man?"
She's lucky.
 
I love good Sushi, exquisite gardening and motorcycles. Japan is a phantom police state. Very bad. I could field dress a deer with one hand and a good knife. I would love the opportunity to fillet blowfish for the entire UN.
 
Dear Oleg,
Sometimes I'm able to get through the WebSENSE censor. Last time I did that I printed out some of your starker anti-totalitarian posters. These are now under a vinyl sheet,decorating my desk. The imagery grabs some people's attention,and those that can read a little English struggle through trying to read them. Now and then a momentary look of shocked comprehension passes over their faces :eek:, and then they go back to being flat and controlled.
You DO do good work!
Cheers,
Munro
 
Munro,

I am honored that you like my images enough to print them. I am happy thtat they make people think...but the Japanese seem to be an order of magnitude worse than Russkies in accepting authority. Let me generalize...

Russian: authorities do as they wish with us poor serfs. We gripe about it but do as they say.

Japanese: authorities are and do (questioning them doesn't seem to happen...at least from where I sit. Perhaps I am missing something.)

South American: authorities try to do as they wish with us poor peasants. We don't gripe OR do as they wish.

American: authorities try to do as they wish, sometime succeed. We gripe, disobey and let our neighbors actually try and stop the abuses. In the meantime, we try to get a handout from those same authorities, preferably from the fighters' taxes.

It is late at night and I am probably oversimplifying things...
 
Oleg,
Nothing you haven't read before, but in 1984, when O'Brien is torturing Winston Smith, he makes some distinctions something like this:"The old authoritarians stated 'thou shalt not,' the totalitarians proclaimed 'thou shalt,' and we say 'thou art.'"

I think that the last case is what Japanist ideologues want to proclaim: Japanese culture is used to explain the behavior of all Japanese at all times. A lot of people know that this is nonsense, but they can't express themselves very well because of psychological repression. However, there has been freedom by default since 1945. There certainly isn't freedom by design.
By and large people do what they're told, or better yet, what they're expected to do, and for the rest of it, if a particular action isn't specifically permitted, it is assumed to be prohibited. Or as Tokugawa wanted people to understand, "Rules exist, and every one should know that they exist, but nobody should know what they are."

A lot of Japanese people think that Japanese culture is blind obedience to arbitrary authority.These folks don't know their own history very well. They wouldn't articulate it that way, but that's what it comes down to. And for the rest? Well, if they have no intellect, they obviously can be allowed intellectual freedom :mad:.

Ooops, I'm babbling again, I'd better sign off for now.
 
Oleg,
In 1984, when O'Brien finally has Winston Smith in his clutches and is torturing and browbeating him, he says to Smith something like, "The ancient authoritarians' command was 'Thou shalt not.' The old totalitarians' was 'Thou shalt,' We say 'Thou art.'" This appears to be what Japanist (Yamato Damashii)
ideologues want. Japanese culture is used to explain the behavior of all Japanese at all times.There's a Japanese way to peel oranges, there's a Japanese way to fold the toilet paper on the roll,race and language are the same thing, every conceivable detail of the activities of daily living has been described at length and in detail for the last 400 years or so. Every other way is "hen na," or strange. (Caucasian foreigners who try to do things the Japanese way or who speak Japanese with any proficiency are "hen na gaijin," or "weird foreigners.")
To people of this mindset, and there are more than quite a few,the old Tokugawa dictate still holds true for everything else: rules should exist, and everyone should know that they exist, but no one should no what they are.
As a result, if something isn't explicitly permitted, it's obviously prohibited.
Of course not everyone thinks this way, but it is extremely difficult to know who they are in everyday life. Most Japanese are unable to express themselves in any language,they are repressed beyond belief.
If you go to the big cities and see all kinds of obviously nihilistic whacked-out kids you will be seeing as much intellectual freedom as is possible on a short visit. They are allowed intellectual freedom because they have no intellect :mad:.

Obviously Japan is much different than it was 50 odd years ago. There is freedom here, but it is freedom by default, and certainly not freedom by design.

This is permitted because no one seems to have an opinion about anything, at least, not that the observer can perceive.

I'm sure you're familiar with the slogan "The Party and the people are one!" and "Ein Reich, ein folk, ein Fuhrer," but perhaps you haven't heard this one: "Ichi oku isshin," which means "One hundred million with one heart."
By the way, a lot of people over here want to know, just exactly what was the US Navy doing at Pearl Harbor in the first place!?

Yep, life here can be a real interesting!
 
Also, internet service can be pretty shabby. The server crashed just as I posted my first reply.Ithought that it hadn't gotten sent, so I re-wrote it and posted it again. Hence two entries which say pretty much the same thing.

Apologies.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>By the way, a lot of people over here want to know, just exactly what was the US Navy doing at Pearl Harbor in the first place!?[/quote]

Or in the Fillipinies?

I find history so fascinating in part because the "commonly known" facts are such drastic oversimplifications of what really happened.
One could write a book just about warrior monks, starting with North African Christians of 6c AD and on to Russian/Japanese 16/17c efforts to resist central authority.

Or a book on the role of inventors in world politics. Or the excursions into colonialism which brought us into WW2 to being with . And so on...

I wonder how modern Japanese view the pre-1575 history of their own country.

------------------
Oleg

http://dd-b.net/RKBA
 
Hey, Oleg,

Most people look at that period of history "Segoku Jidai," (literally, the period of the country at war,) as just one long samurai drama.

Some wags opine that because no foreigners were involved, this wasn't a hundred year long period of slaughter, but more of a family spat.

But hardly anybody looks at Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, or Tokugawa as anything more than well-meaning national unifiers.
There are a few who look at them as mass murdering homicidal-suicidal psycopaths, but they keep their voices down. The only non-military, non-police groups who own guns are the ultra-patriotic groups (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more).

For example, my first boss over here was associated with one of these groups, called "Kaze no To," or Wind Society. They are/were ultra-nationalists who have no use for the West except as a source of raw materials and technical expertise. These guys follow the teachings of Hiraizumi Kiyoshi, founder of the Green-Green school of nationalism, which sees Japanese identity as naught but absolute
obedience to family and Emperor.


Anyway, the Chinese character for wind is one brush stroke's difference from the character for louse. A newspaper printed an editorial cartoon making a pun on the mis-drawn character. Suddenly the Wind Society becomes the Lice Society!

Well, my first boss was on very good terms with the organizer of the defamed organization. He took grave offense, walked into the editorial office of the newspaper, said something in medieval Japanese to the effect of "We shall die on each other's swords," pulled out two pistols and shot himself in both kidneys. He died quickly, and the police were called out to protect the newspaper from armed assault by the Wind Society and other wing-nut screw ball groups.

The next day my boss was in a very disturbed state. I didn't find out about his association with these lunatics until later that night. Of course, it was very problematic quitting.... I started whistling the "Colonel Bogey March..."

The only other times I've had any contact with people who had any use for guns is also second and third hand: a friend of mine's ex-girlfriend's a student of politics, and has many strange associates. One of whom is an ex-policeman who joined one of these screwball groups. He was interested in surplus Russian weapons for patriotic reasons. Now this particular story are hear-say, and I don't know the details, but I mention it to emphasize the fact that only the yakuza,national-socialist super patriots, the police, and the military have weapons. Your average Jiro Watanabe doesn't. He merely smiles and agrees enthusiastically with the strongest political force of the moment.... and has done since Hideyoshi's sword hunt disarmed the population in 1588.
Some Japanese historians point this event out as the intellectual foundation of modern Japan, explaining Japanese passivity as the natural result of having been deprived of the means to resist. Of course, such things are not discussed, but it is in the literature.

Oh well, I wouldn't worry about it happening in the states; I read in Free Republic somewhere that even if 90% of all American gun owners where disarmed, that still leaves 14,000,000 people with firearms, or 4,000,000 more people that the Red Chinese PLA. The Soviet Red Army couldn't conquer Afghanistan, and the Afghanis were much fewer in number than 14,000,000.

As the poster commented, "Sleep easy, guys, the Founding Fathers are watching your back."
:D

Mention this numerical fact to the next person you meet who wants to disarm you and me, follow the logic torpedo to its logical conclusion, and watch what happens.
 
Hello!

I'm brand new to the site and am, just now, trying my first post.

"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords,
bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult
the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising." Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun of Japan, 29
Aug. 1558.

Thought that this quote might fit in ...
 
Thank you straybr, that quotation dovetails in to the thread quite nicely.



I don't know about the rest of the members, but I find this glimpse into what is effectively a "gunless" society very compelling. I agree with Munro Williams that it could never happen here "exactly" as it has in Japan, but there may be lessons to be learned from their culture that could be translated to our own.



------------------
RKBA!

"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security"
Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 4
Concealed Carry is illegal in Ohio.
Ohioans for Concealed Carry Website
 
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