In another thread Cgrx said:

The murder rate in the Unted States is 200 times greater than in Japan. In Japan no private citizen can buy a handgun legally.


Now, I believe that both of these are factual. However, the way they are written together implies that the former has happened because of the latter.

I personally doubt that the lack of ability to purchase handguns in Japan has any significant affect on thier murder rate. Instead, I believe it is a product of thier culture, the racial homogeny of thier population, thier views on relationships, and lover poverty rates.

It is certainly easy enough to kill someone without a handgun.

I agree

You should disagree, it's more fun! :D

Yea, but i like guns and have 5 so it's hard too. Although what about the japanese camacazi(however u spell crazy japanese people) fighter planes of ww2. Wouldn't such violent craze carry over.

That wasn't done out of a violent craze. At that time in the war, most of Japan's pilots had already been killed. All that were left were newly trained, poorly equiped pilots. The people of that time believed highly in Bushido, and they would protect thier Emperor at any cost. That is where the Kamakazi attacks came from. Not out of some blood lust rage.

Of course, Im not sure I could explain the rape of Nanking in the same manner :/

I guess that statement does kinda imply that all or the majority of homocides committed in the U.S. are with the use of firearms. I can't make out whether the statment is saying 200 times greater in percentage of population or just as a total number (I don't know if I'm making sense here). They may be facts but they leave a little out!

they didn't need guns in the past when they were killing each other with swords and pikes! so i think it has something to do with the lack of weapons at hand. or perhaps the lack of weapons at hand is just an outcome of the change in their culture

I agree with the comment. Gun make it easy to kill people (the are easy to use and lethal). Most crimes are crimes of passion. It takes a lot more effort to kill some one by choking them to death with your own bare hands vs pulling a trigger. That being said if you look at other crimes ie aggravated assualt i would imagine they have a higher rate of those crimes.

Remember
Guns don't kill people dangerous minorities do.
NRA commerical on the Family Guy.

In Japan they kill each other with knives. Even if guns were not outlawed they would have a lower crime rate. It's all about culture. Ours is a more violent society. However, Japan's crime rate has gone up in recent years.

The anti-gun model used in Japan and the UK would never work in this country. It certainly hasn't worked in the UK where violent crimes are just as high if not higher than they were before the gun ban. In the US we would simply come up with new ways to kill each other. Plus, the people who would be put at risk would be the law abiding citizen who would be unarmed (in theory) against the gun-toting criminal.

you could just say America is 200 times more efficient at getting the job done.

We're just cold-blooded killas.....

you could just say America is 200 times more efficient at getting the job done.

LOL

But seriously. Culture has a lot to do with it. E.g., Canada is much safer than the US and we've thought very many times about movint to a Toronto burb. The lack of huge grocery stores and other easy and convenient shopping (walmart) is the only thing dampening our desire. Well plus the fact that you have to deal with the french speaking people.