In her Oct. 18 letter, "Security checkers accountable?," Cecilia Bustos' description of the American man who was arrested at Narita Airport for smuggling a loaded weapon into the country — who she knows personally to be "a God-loving Christian who would not cause harm to anyone" — seems out of sync with the episode reported in the Oct. 8 article "U.S. man carrying loaded gun arrested at Narita airport."
This apparent non sequitur begs consideration because he really could be a good and harmless man, and others could be wrong to think ill of him for the accusation of smuggling a loaded weapon. Christian history is overflowing with armed God-loving people perpetrating the worst atrocities imaginable, oblivious to the heinous evil of their own best intentions.
If the arrested man is a religious Christian, then what is he doing with a loaded weapon in the first place — at home, on a plane, abroad, anywhere? I know that many Americans love their guns, citing their presumed protective value, crime statistics and the Second Amendment right to own them. And I know that many of them are zealous about their religion, too.
In America, with its social history and laws, we have seen how the two get a little mixed up, resulting in the unique American phenomenon of gun-loving God-owners, or gun-worshipping God-lovers. Maybe the writer's exposition reflects this, blinding her eyes to the moral nonsense of good people carrying guns.
Her point about the failings of airport security in America missing the weapon is right on the money. More than one security person failed big time in San Antonio and Dallas, but that does not mean that the passenger himself should not be held responsible for carrying a loaded weapon into Japan even if it was an unintentional oversight.