The true revenge for using the atomic bomb

[jbuck919]

Gunman kills Nagasaki mayor outside train station
Suspect linked to underworld, authorities say
By Bruce Wallace, Los Angeles Times | April 18, 2007

From the Boston Globe:

TOKYO -- An assassin with alleged links to the underworld shot and killed the mayor of Nagasaki yesterday.

Mayor Iccho Ito was shot just before 8 p.m. local time outside a busy Nagasaki train station as he was returning to his headquarters after a day of campaigning for reelection. Police said he died early this morning.

Nagasaki was the second city ever attacked with an atomic bomb, and Ito, a vocal opponent of nuclear proliferation, used the pulpit provided by that legacy to press a pacifist message to the world. His comments during bombing anniversaries have criticized the United States as well as North Korea and Iran for contributing to proliferation.

Ito, 61, was campaigning for a fourth, four-year term in municipal elections, to be held Sunday.

The gunman was tackled by bystanders and police after firing the shots. Japanese TV showed him being shoved into a police car and an ambulance slowly taking the mayor away from the scene.

Japanese media reports quoted police asserting that the suspect had confessed to pulling the trigger. Police said the gunman was Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, head of an underworld faction that is part of a national criminal syndicate called the Yamaguchi-gumi.

Japanese media quoted police sources saying that Shiroo had not offered a motive for the shooting. But there were reports that Shiroo had been engaged in disputes with Ito's City Hall over bids for local public works projects. Japanese crime syndicates have ties to some nationalist political organizations, and there was immediate speculation that the shooting may have been politically motivated.

In 1990, then-Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima was shot in the back by a nationalist fanatic angered by the mayor's comments suggesting the late Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility for the wartime catastrophe. Motoshima barely survived.

Ito was shot twice in the back at close range, Nagasaki police official Rumi Tsujimoto said. One of the bullets struck the mayor's heart and he went into cardiac arrest, hospital officials said. He died after emergency surgery.

Shiroo was wrestled to the ground by officers after the attack and arrested, police said.

Because private handguns are banned, such shootings are rare in Japan. Only five Japanese politicians are known to have been murdered since World War II.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper

The number of handgun deaths in Japan is so negligible--exactly because "only the criminals have them"--that a statistician would consider it zero. But this incident, with its odd timing, will doubtless be used by "the other side" (i.e., the one that always wins) in the forthcoming renewal of the endless gun control debate in the US.

[Harvested Sorrow]

I love it. The classic 'let's look at gun violence alone instead of how violence as a whole changes post-ban' line.

But no, I doubt people will use an isolated incident like this as proof that gun bans don't work. There's the more reliable method of looking at violence as a whole and how it changes once you make the population sitting ducks for criminals with guns, knives of various sorts, brass knuckles, what have you.

[Brendan]

I love it. The classic 'let's look at gun violence alone instead of how violence as a whole changes post-ban' line.

But no, I doubt people will use an isolated incident like this as proof that gun bans don't work. There's the more reliable method of looking at violence as a whole and how it changes once you make the population sitting ducks for criminals with guns, knives of various sorts, brass knuckles, what have you.

Why are the population such sitting ducks? Have you no law enforcement? One can disarm criminals if one has the will and the process to do it.

[Harvested Sorrow]

They're sitting ducks because the police aren't around at any and every given moment to protect us, and most of us don't have the martial arts training (nor are the majority of us in shape enough to receive said training ) that would allow one to effectively defend against a criminal with a weapon (whatever it may be) and disarm them or keep them from causing serious harm before this occurs.

Of course, many of us do carry pocket knives...so I suppose they could be an 'effective defense' against criminals when they have nothing to fear from self-defense by gun. Of course, you're also banned from carrying a pocket knife in many places, too, so I suppose if we were to obey the law we wouldn't even have that to help us.

[Brendan]

They're sitting ducks because the police aren't around at any and every given moment to protect us, and most of us don't have the martial arts training (nor are the majority of us in shape enough to receive said training ) that would allow one to effectively defend against a criminal with a weapon (whatever it may be) and disarm them or keep them from causing serious harm before this occurs.

Of course, many of us do carry pocket knives...so I suppose they could be an 'effective defense' against criminals when they have nothing to fear from self-defense by gun. Of course, you're also banned from carrying a pocket knife in many places, too, so I suppose if we were to obey the law we wouldn't even have that to help us.

More efficient and effective law enforcement may be a better approach. It may at least be worth considering instead of declaring it to be impossible and advocating assault weapons for untrained paranoids (and encouraging high-calibre paranoia) when it is the norm in most of the developed world. Where I live, I have no fear at all of attack by firearm and so have no desire to have one to take out the neighbourhood cats or something.

The cops aren't perfect, but effective enough that firearm deaths aren't a concern here. No need for fear, so no need for guns to defend against others so armed.

EDIT: Nor in Australia do we have the particular paranoia that we must arm/defend ourselves against the state/democratic goverment that seems so prevalent in US gun-nut magazines and blogs.