TOKYO – It has been said that if you ban weapons, only outlaws will have weapons – but that is not true in Japan, which has some of the strictest laws that prohibit the carrying of weapons and imposes even more severe penalties on your use. If you shoot someone here, you will probably spend more than 20 years in prison. Severe penalties even prevent the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime syndicates, from using firearms. In 2017, there were only three people killed by gunshots across the country.
But human beings will always find ways to kill each other, and it seems that when you outlaw weapons in Japan, outlaws turn to other deadly weapons – like beasts.
Paulada.
Now, the Japanese government is considering banning most people from buying, selling or owning these semi-automatic bows and arrows. After a series of horrific crimes with the use of weapons, there are now pending revisions to the laws of Japan, which will limit their use to sports and animal tranquilizers. The new revisions are expected to be approved at the current session of parliament.
The new laws will be retroactive, so the bandits out there who planned to transgress with their useful beasts will have to report them to the authorities or get a license, or face jail time. If you were planning to try to be a Green Arrow in real (homicidal) life, think twice. The penalties for using it as a weapon are likely to be severe. However, if you are using a crossbow for a legitimate purpose, such as crossbow shooting, you will be allowed to keep it, And if you have received a license.
There have been several terrible murders in the past decade that have provided the impetus to crack down on the handling of these potential weapons. According to Japan’s National Police Agency, in the past 10 years there have been 32 cases of crossbows used in crimes, with six dead and 11 injured.
Of these murders, the most terrible was a familicide that left three people dead and one person in critical condition.
Last summer, Hideaki Nozu, a troubled 23-year-old who lives in western Japan’s Takarazuka city, bought a crossbow and used it to shoot his entire family. According to reports in Sankei Newspaper and other Japanese media, he had murderous violence on the morning of June 4, shooting his younger brother twice in the bathroom at close range, his mother in the living room and his 75-year-old grandmother in his bedroom.
Each shot was fired in the head and pierced the skull. Later that day, he called his aunt to his home. When she arrived and opened the door, he shot her in the neck at the entrance. She ran out of the house with the arrow still lodged in her neck and asked for help. Having successfully removed one of the arrows, his younger brother was still breathing when the police arrived, but died in a hospital seven hours later.
During a period of self-imposed isolation and possible mental illness, Nozu would have blamed his family for all of his problems, including having to drop out of college because he was unable to pay tuition. He was indicted for murder and attempted murder and reportedly told police that – in order to kill his entire family – he had practiced with the beast several times at home before putting his plan into action.
The crossbow murders sparked a barrage of imitating crimes. An incident, which occurred on July 26, prompted Hyogo Prefecture to issue a decree restricting the sale and ownership of crossbows. It involved an unemployed housewife who shot her husband with a crossbow while he slept. Luckily for her husband, the arrow only hit his head and he woke up before his wife could finish the job, trying to cut her throat with a kitchen knife. The beast carrier told police investigators that after losing her job and being stuck at home because of the pandemic, she became increasingly irritated. She had heard about the murders committed in June of that month and decided to buy her own crossbow to use on her husband.
The following month, there was another incident: an unemployed 28-year-old woman used a crossbow to shoot an elderly social worker, piercing her right arm. Fortunately, he survived and the attacker was arrested for attempted murder.
According to pending laws, crossbows – often called “bow weapons” or “western bow and arrow” in Japan, although they are officially called beasts in parliament – will be strictly defined as an arch that uses a locking mechanism to hold the rope after it is pulled and you can shoot an arrow hard enough to injure a human.
Nine months after the anti-beast bill becomes law, citizens who want to get their hands on the guns will have to get permission from the local public security commission and keep the bows locked when not in use. The use of a crossbow will only be permitted at firing ranges and other special locations. Newly released ex-convicts, drug addicts and minors under the age of 18 may not have beasts.
Illegal possession of a beast can be punished with a prison sentence of up to three years or a fine of up to 500,000 yen (about US $ 5,000). Restrictions on the purchase and sale of crossbows are being adjusted as the bill moves towards completion, but crossbow dealers who do not do proper background checks or confirm that the buyer is licensed may face up to six months in prison. or a fine of up to $ 2,000.
If there was a National Crossbow Association in Japan, they would be furious. The Daily Beast asked the National Bowgun Shooting Association for comments on the pending law, but so far they had not responded.