Friday, June 20, 2008

Suicide is Painless (and Apparently Gunless)

This from Reuters:
TOKYO (Reuters) - Over 33,000 people took their lives in Japan last year, topping 30,000 for the tenth consecutive year despite a government campaign to reduce what is one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

A report issued by the National Police Agency on Thursday showed that 33,093 people killed themselves in Japan in 2007 -- the second-largest number on record after 34,427 in 2003 -- mostly because of debt, family problems, depression and other health issues.

There was also a leap in the number of suicides involving toxic hydrogen sulphide gas made from household detergents, a previously obscure method that is spreading rapidly as Internet messages tell victims how to produce the poison at home.
The population of Japan in 2007 was approximately 128 million. The U.S. is about 300 million people; in 2005, the most recent year with compiled number for suicides in the United States is 32,637.

Why am I talking about such grim statistics? Because, IMHO, the biggest success of the so-called "antigun movement," aided and abetted by the U.S. government and the MSM, has been the semantic "tricks" of combining homicide, accidental death and suicide into a single category of "violent deaths."

This has allowed the weasels at Brady to endlessly talk about "violent death" (or "gun violence") in the United States as if such terms represented a single entity. How many times have you heard how much safer the gun-free paradise of Japan is than the U.S.? Japan has a low homicde rate (although there have recently been a number of references that homicides are "buried" by Japanese police into other stats...for example, Yakuza soldiers are never "murdered," "disappear" or even "sleep with the fishes." They go visit relatives in Okinawa). Here's a little tidbit of what I'm talking about from a moonbat website:
In general, then, Japan has crime but it is of a much less violent nature than crime in the U.S. This makes Japan a much safer place to live then in the average American city. A great deal of this difference is related to the strict gun-control laws in japan, unlike the U.S. where special-interest groups promote the idea that people have the "right" to whatever kinds of weapons they want
in whatever quantity. Rights involve responsibilities and the concept of responsibility is more ingrained in the Japanese culture than it is in the U.S. culture. Guns kill people and it is people who are using the guns; the guns do not act by themselves.
Okay, we get it! Let's look at Japan's "violent death" rate...add 33,000 suicides to, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say 100 homicides and maybe 1000 "deaths by misadventure" to come up with 34,100 violent deaths. Now let's bring Japan up to a United States population level...multiplay by 2.3...and you get the equivalent of 78,430, almost 50% larger than the U.S.'s annual violent deaths. Hmmmmm...hell of a paradise when a big afternoon is huffling hydrogen sulphide!

7 comments:

Petey said...

Just a thought.

If japan is so great and so much safer. MOVE THERE!!

Anonymous said...

Howdy Michael,

I'm currently in Japan finishing up our vacation with the family (wife is Japanese) and just read your post about the suicide rate here. I'm sad to say that the biggest price I have to pay (bigger than the $5K in plane tickets we spent to get here) every time we visit Japan is that I must give up my right to self-defense and that of my family as the price of admission. The best I can do is to bring my Surefire 6P with me as a defensive tool. This really hit home on this trip.

I was with the family at Ueno zoo two weeks ago when a wacko went on a knife stabbing spree just two train stops away in Akihabara where he murdered seven and injured ten others during the weekend shopping crunch. While we were at the zoo, we could see several news helicopters circling over the Akihabara area, but didn't find out what was going on until we got back home later that day. Absolutely awful news...such a waste of innocent lives.

You know, Japan already has very strict knife and sword laws in addition to their draconian gun prohibitions. You are not allowed to carry a knife of any useful size without "due reason", which is totally up to the discretion of the Police Officer you might happen to meet. So, it was already illegal for the wacko to be carrying his knives. Did the potential penalty of incarceration stop him. Obviously, not.

Expectedly, the Japanese politicians immediately started making noises about whether stricter knife laws were appropriate. How predictable and spineless.

I'm 99% certain that none of the victims on that street in Akihabara had any effective means of self defense, as indicated by the large number of lives lost. It was only when the murderer was confronted at gunpoint by a police officer did he immediately surrender. It reinforced what I know to be true...guns are used to save lives every day.

I really miss mine.

APismoClam

Anonymous said...

Japanese history brings up the origins of Karate. The martial arts of Okinawa came about when all weapons were outlawed. Faced with a despot government and being defenseless, they turned to developing the fighting arts secretly. Ultimately use of your body is the last defense.

Within the last few years in NYC there were propopsals for REGISTERING Karate schools and those who study it. This after one homicide where the BG used Karate blows. Absolutely nothing is out of the realm of state management.

Anonymous said...

As I've heard it said before: "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." It seems that the lib's and their serfs, the ignorant, love to quote absolute numbers as their examples of what's wrong. It makes good press and "bigger is better", according to them. Take "Biggest oil compnay profits in history.", "highest number of murders", most guns ever in circulation" etc, as examples. When the educated, such as Michael here, look at the actual "rate", or percentage that things change, the story changes entirely. For the current manufactured oil crisis, they want to demonize the big, bad oil companies, but when these companies were called-out by congress twice this past spring, we find that their profit margins, or the actual rate of profit per total revenue taken in is only 4 to 8 percent. The oil companies pointed out the taxes on each gallon of fuel is up to 14 percent, or more! And, when the politicians challeneged the "excessively high salaries" of the oil exec's, the exec's pointed out that many of them have lower income than most of the senators. That was the last time that they were callled-out, but the focus was again switched to gross numbers. They've done the same with guns and gun related statistics. To hell with reason.
Life Member

Anonymous said...

To hell with reason indeed. A blind adherence to Reason is very nearly as detrimental to mankind as the dream of a Utopian society. To paraphrase Burke, Reason may be nothing more than a cover for the preferences of an individual. A dose of history, a bit of tradition, and wisdom of generations past may assist in lessen the impact of unintended consequences stemming from naked Reason. The idea that Reason alone is somehow the one true path to an ideal society is farcical. In much the manner that statistics can be bent towards whatever end you seek, Reason may also be bent and colored with one's own preconceived notions.

Anonymous said...

Ah my friend "middle man", enter the engineer, the mathemetician, the scientist AND the philosopher and true order can be achieved in the universe. Decisions based on real data and statistical analysis and conclusion will reflect the closest to "true" that one can get. Add to that the experiences and teachings of those who lived to tell about it and we get closer to reality. All of this depends on honesty and what one could call "core values". Where did I start? "Figures don't lie, but liars figure". You've proved my point. Otherwise, perhaps you could site some examples to show where I'm still going wrong.
Thanks.
Don't give up.
Life Member

Anonymous said...

Um yeah, exactly were did I disagree with "Figures don't lie, but liars figure"?

Expounding and widening the discussion to illuminate a certain relationship between those that would rely solely on the power of Reason (ie certain strident libertarians and Objectivists) and those who rely on socialist and Marxist ideals to shape society to conform to their desires is far from any of your points being incorrect.