The shooting rampage last week in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, is shocking. A gunman in camouflage gear entered a sports club and fired a shotgun more than a dozen times, killing two people and injuring six others, including two children. Later, the gunman killed himself with the same gun on the grounds of a Catholic church where as an infant he had been baptized. The nation hasn't seen this type of crime before. One wonders whether Japan is about to become a society plagued by rampant gun crimes. Sasebo citizens will need a time to recover from the horror.
It is alarming that a licensed shotgun was used in the shootings. In July 2002, the gunman first received a license to use a shotgun for sports from the Nagasaki Prefectural Public Safety Commission. By September 2007, he had received licenses for two more shotguns and an air gun, for the purpose of hunting and sports. One wonders whether anyone should be allowed to keep four guns in Japanese society. Police examine anyone who applies for a gun license, including checking records of previous crime and mental illness. The applicant also must undergo a short training course.
On top of efforts to control guns possessed by gangsters, police must pay serious attention to the control of hunting and sports guns. There were about 305,000 licensed hunting guns and about 34,000 licensed air guns nationwide as of the end of 2006. In the January-November period of 2007, guns were fired in 54 "incidents" — 10 more than in the same period last year — and hunting guns were used in seven cases — up from three. The number of deaths shot up from two to 19. Just five days before the Sasebo shootings, a man in Tsuno, Kochi Prefecture, killed his neighbor's wife and injured his son with a shotgun.