That said, I think people need to recognize that in many aspects what's happening is connected to societal issues that gun control and gun regulations will have very little impact on - remember, even in Japan somebody could make some kind of battery ignited home-made shotgun and kill Shinzo Abe.
ok let's try data instead of feels. Per Capita, what is the number of mass shootings per year in the USA, and in Japan. I did't know the answer but asked Gemini.
The most recent year for which there is data, apparently, is 2023, during which there were 604 mass shootings in the USA, and 1 in Japan. Given the respective population counts, the per-capita rate of mass shootings in the United States was about 225 times higher than in Japan.
Given that, are you confident that your observation that "one guy made a gun once in Japan" is a strong refutation of the idea that the US could reduce mass shootings by strengthening regulations?
I can come up with a multitude of political violence examples in countries with strict weapons laws - New Zealand, France, Japan. Then if you add in other weapons - cars, knives, bombs, the list gets even longer.
The point is - gun control won’t stop political violence. Perpetrators will use other means at their disposal.
Technically true. But gun control means political violence will have to engage much closer and is less likely to be as deadly. Do we want more or less death+maiming in our political violence?
The issue is political violence. Whether it’s done up close or far away is a distraction from the fact it exists.