A Little Lie for the Left

An Ars Technica article about a Japanese man who was arrested for creating guns with a "3-D printer" from plans he got on the internet. The interesting bit is not the subject, but the way in which it is presented. Ever since Ars Technica "went mainstream," they've been moving ever-closer to the leftist mantra. This is an excellent example of how journalists will manipulate the truth to produce a specific impression in the reader. After briefly discussing the arrest of the person in question, the author throws this at the reader:

"The rate of Japanese gun violence is among the lowest in industrialized nations. Guns are not illegal in the country, but buyers face several background checks and other impediments."

Well, that certainly seems reasonable, huh? The obvious implication is that Stricter Gun Control = Less Violence. Those two sentences are framed in such a way that they will almost invariably convey that point -- but it's subtle. It's not "in your face," Gunz-R-Bad-Mmmkay preachiness. It is designed (and believe me, it is very deliberately designed) to give the reader the feeling that they are drawing their own conclusion: "Hrm. So gun control may be a good thing after all. Maybe I should think about this some more..."

There's only one problem: it's a lie.

While guns are not technically illegal in Japan, gun ownership is nearly non-existent. The legal hurdles to acquiring and keeping a license were deliberately created to discourage 99.99% of applicants. Basically, they banned guns by making it a monumental pain in the ass to own guns.

The more important point, however, is why gun violence -- and violence in general for that matter -- are relatively uncommon in Japan. It's something the author of the article leaves out, probably deliberately. You see, the Japanese penal system is straight out of the middle ages.

The average American liberal would hemorrhage a kitten if they knew what Japanese prisons were like. Any American military personnel who have ever been stationed in Japan call tell you that the very first thing you're presented with upon setting foot on Japanese soil is a lecture from the local JAG office. They spell out to you in very precise terms how restrictive is the American Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Japan. Basically, if you commit any act more heinous than jaywalking, the Japanese government has the option to prosecute and sentence you. Then they describe Japanese prisons. In great detail.

Let's just say you wouldn't survive for long inside the walls of such a place. Nor would I. For that matter, a significant portion of the Japanese put in there don't survive. In the late 1970s the Japs had a prison overcrowding problem. Know how they solved it? They took everybody with a life sentence for capital crimes out back and shot them. About 300 of them, as I remember.

Oh, did I mention the Japanese capital punishment laws? Yeah, liberals wouldn't much like those, either.

This is yet another case of leftists cherry-picking information and presenting it in such a way that it forwards their agenda. Never mind the contradictory facts; those are just inconvenient truths.