GUNS

In my university class discussions at Kumamoto University this week, wherein we addressed the differences between the USA and Japan, almost every class asked me about the USA's gun society. In Japan, you can't get easily get a gun, and really nobody besides the yakuza gangsters, a few wild game hunters, and police (who only carry them in special circumstances) have them. Watch any Hollywood movie and its easy to assume that most Americans have them. Here are some of my own thoughts on guns:

I have never seen a real handgun, and have no real fear of guns. If you choose to join a gang in the USA or the yakuza in Japan, your chances of encountering guns is much greater. But, for the most part, regular citizens in the USA have no exposure to guns in their every day lives.

Yet, I know many stories of people who died in gun related accidents. One was a young boy from our hometown who, while cleaning his gun in preparation for the annual hunting season, shot his own brother by mistake when playing around with what he thought was an unloaded gun. Another incident was the suicide of one of our close friends in high school, who was clearly distressed with overwhelming personal circumstances, but who might not have died if her brother's gun was not so easily accessible.

I have fired a shotgun a few times with family members doing shot practice in the woods. A bit scary, but thrilling none the less. I grew up watching my father and brother bring home deer or elk during the month-long hunting season in Montana. Our family ate this meat year-round, and there was no question that the guns in our house were meant only to be used during hunting season.

A sad story of a young Japanese boy, named Hattori, who was an exchange student in rural Louisiana around 1992 and knocked at the wrong house, dressed in costume for a Halloween party. When the man at the door pulled out a gun and told Hattori to "freeze," he didn't understand, didn't do as he was told, and was shot and killed. Japanese people now know the word "freeze" quite well, and are further bewildered by our insistence on having the right to keep guns. I tried to explain to students today that this, "right to bear arms/ right to protect my own house with my own shotgun," is interpreted differently by different individuals and different regions of people. If a wild dress man came to our home in Montana, we would lock the door and call the police. Others choose to take the law into their own hands.

The USA has many wonderful freedoms, but with every freedom, and every right, comes responsibility.

In Japan, I am very clear in vocalizing my dislike for guns and other weapons. Guns or swords, whether they be metal, plastic or paper, are prohibited from our home, and I am constantly telling children around me to stop pointing weapons at people. I wish I could tell our President the same thing! Violence in any form, domestic or global, only breeds more violence.