Much like how COVID-19 has surpassed international borders, gun violence has seen an uptick in multiple countries. Yet, when former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was assassinated with a gun, it shocked not just an entire nation, but the global community. Most people associate Japan as an extremely safe country, with violence in this form being astonishingly rare. Ranked the second-safest country in Asia in the Global Peace Index, and with Tokyo ranked 5th safest city in the Economist index, Japan has a reputation for being a secure country to live in and visit.
For a nation that is famously tolerant of other people’s behaviour, and where most prefer to look the other way than intervene in a situation they consider to be uncomfortable or none of their business, recent headlines suggest more Japanese people are giving free reign to their furies through acts of violence.
Contrast this attack with the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where the gunman’s high-capacity, rapid-firing AR-15-style rifle enabled him to kill 19 children and 2 teachers. Another attacker used a similar rifle to quickly kill 10 at a Buffalo grocery store. Last week, another murdered seven at a parade in Highland Park, Ill.
All of these American shooters acquired their guns legally.
On the other hand, it is impossible to acquire these weapons legally in Japan, even with handguns being banned. The few legally acquirable weapons, mostly hunting rifles, can only be purchased after a screening and a training process so onerous that it breeds one of the world’s lowest firearm ownership rates: one gun per every 330 residents. Japanese people are required to attend a full-day training session organised by the police, having to pass a test on the same day. Interested parties then have to apply for training at a licensed shooting range. They prepared the items they would need for their application; a certificate of residency, photo identification, a list of past jobs and addresses. Policemen may make surprise visits to applicants’ place of residence or work and conduct interviews with their coworkers or neighbours, pertaining to their behaviours and habits. The officers who handle these interviews have wide discretion to deny an application to anyone they deem high-risk. Their decision is final. Applicants then receive a temporary licence, required by firearm shops to complete a sale. Yet, after receiving their official licence, gun owners need to present their licence each time they purchase ammunition. They undergo unannounced home inspection to assess how they store their guns and ammunition, having to log all the ammunition they use and are not allowed to make unauthorised modifications. When all is said and done, the gun ownership process takes over 4 months for completion. Such a stringent process weeds out citizens who are unfit to own a firearm, leading to so few gun owners.
Although crime rates are still low in Japan, the rising violence in recent years is still a cause for concern. It seems that similar gun violence observed in the US is invading this once safe country, posing a critical question: Why is violence becoming more common in a country widely regarded to be very secure?
This worrying trend may be due to already existing factors in Japanese society. This can be seen as ‘Karoshi”, or death from overwork, is an ongoing issue within Japan’s extreme work culture.
As rising song artist Ado put it in her hit debut performance “Usseewa”, many of Japan’s working adults are “corporate slaves”. This lyrical verse is not just a jab at a company by a disgruntled ex-employee, but rather, points at an extreme societal problem that Japan has faced for decades. In fact, Japan is the birthplace of karoshi – “death from overwork” – a word invented in the 1970s to describe deaths caused by work-related stresses and pressures.
Unfortunately, it is still a regular fixture in Japan’s lexicon today.
The meteoric rise of new technologies is worsening the situation as companies scramble to keep up with the constantly changing market demands. This undoubtedly adds on to the workers’ already heavy workload. Overworked people expect speedy results and become less tolerant when it is not given to them.
Such a phenomenon is hard to eliminate in Japanese society. The main reason for such a worrying trend is guilt – a reflection of the pressures and expectations that weigh heavily on a workaholic society. Many refrain from taking holidays simply because their bosses do not take holidays, or they are afraid that it will disrupt group harmony. A deeply-rooted problem, as the mindset that “my coworkers are not even taking leave, so I should not be the only one taking time off work” has been ingrained into the minds of Japanese workers. This no doubt puts immense stress on them, and their mental health suffers, further exacerbated by the tumultuous period brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has certainly affected many individuals’ sanity.
That opinion is supported by responses to the 2015 International Survey of Life and Hope, which compared the outlooks of people in Japan, Britain and the United States. When asked whether they were “very happy”, 23.8 percent of Britons and 33.2 percent of Americans replied positively, as compared to Japan where the same figure was 18.5 per cent.
At the end of the day, the Japanese government still upholds its zero tolerance of gun ownership and gun violence, making it much harder for its citizens to have access to firearms as compared to America. Therefore, one ought to consider the attack on Shinzo Abe a particularly extraordinary act of violence. However, no one is able to stop more forms of violence from rearing their ugly heads and Japan is unfortunately not going to be the only victim. Moving forward, more action needs to be taken by leaders to ensure that the mental health of workers are protected.
[HACAS (CA) x PubSoc Collab]
Written by: Ryan Tan (22S75), Tian Xiran (22A12), Shen Yihan (22A12), Widyayuki Triyono (22S6D)
Edited by: Lee Ren Kai Artemus (22A15)
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