Japanese yakuza shooting/standoff

[Sharps-shooter]

Reports: Japanese Man Kills Officer
AP - Thu, 17 May 2007 17:58:17 -0400 (EDT)
By CHISAKI WATANABE

A man went on a shooting rampage in his central Japan home Thursday, killing a policeman, wounding three other people -- including his son and daughter -- and taking his wife hostage, news reports and police said.

Hundreds of police surrounded 50-year-old Hisato Obayashi's tree-shrouded house in a tense standoff in Nagakute city overnight and into Friday morning. One news report said Obayashi was a former mobster.

As the violence in the suburb of Nagoya erupted, an unidentified emergency caller to police cried, "My father has gone berserk with a gun!" Kyodo News agency reported.

The shooting was the latest in a series of unusually violent attacks in Japan, a country known for its low crime rates and tight gun laws. Last month, the mayor
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of Nagasaki was shot and killed, a crime police said a mobster admitted to.

The sequence of events was still unclear, but Obayashi appeared to have taken his wife hostage, shot his children and then shot at police responding to the emergency call. The wounded received medical treatment.

Several people were heard arguing outside the suspect's house late Thursday afternoon followed by the sound of five or six gunshots, national daily Asahi said in its Friday morning edition, quoting a male worker near the scene.

Police confirmed that police officer Kazuho Hayashi, 23, was shot and killed while trying to evacuate a wounded policeman. Hayashi was a member of a special assault team handling hijacking and hostage crises, according to Kyodo.

Officials said two other people, Kento Obayashi, 25, and Risa Obayashi, 21 had been shot and wounded. News reports said that Kento and Risa were the gunman's children, but police would not confirm that.

Police said that as of Friday morning, they had not fired a shot in return, and had cordoned off the residential area surrounding Obayashi's home.

"The suspect is still holding his hostage," said a police official who spoke on condition he only be identified by his last name, Yamaguchi. News reports said the hostage was Obayashi's wife, but police could not confirm that.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that Obayashi had once been a gangster. Kyodo said Obayashi was demanding to be put in contact with his daughter. It was unclear if he was referring to the one who was shot or whether he had a second daughter.

The incident comes just a month after the mayor of Nagasaki was fatally shot in an attack by officials have blamed on an organized crime chief, and a gangster attack that took place in the streets of a Tokyo suburb only a few days later.

The use of guns is still relatively alien to the Japanese public. Handguns are strictly banned, and only police officers and others professionals such as shooting instructors can own them. Hunting rifles are also strictly licensed and regulated.

 

[cambeul41]

Oops!

I read your signature line as part of the Japanese article.

 

[Kali Endgame]

Hey, I've been to Nagasaki. Aren't guns illegal in Japan?

 

[CypherNinja]

Pretty much.

 

[fireflyfather]

Guns are not illegal in Japan, but most foreigners do not know that. Citizens may attend special classes and jump through many hoops to own a rifle or shotgun, though very few do. Ammo and firearms must be stored separately in locked containers in different parts of the home, and the police have the right to come and inspect them at any time. In all my time in Japan, the only people I ever saw with firearms were the local cops who carried ancient-looking revolvers.

My uncle-in-law is an avid hunter in the mountains of Nagano, and a public school I used to work in had three stuffed bears in it. Handguns are strictly banned, but organized crime seems to be able to get their hands on them in small numbers. In my three years in a small Japanese city, I heard of only two gun related crimes in my area (roughly the size of los angeles county). One was a guy shot by mobsters at the local train station I used occasionally, and the other was a guy who stole a shotgun from a farmer and used it to kidnap a girl for ransom (she escaped when he went to sleep).

Strictly speaking, they have a very low crime rate, especially violent crimes, though I think they are under-reported. In addition, the group-think is very powerful, and the feeling is generally that you don't need to have any kind of weapon to protect yourself, because it is so unlikely that you will ever be attacked that it's ridiculous to think much about it. Then again, the people who DO have guns mostly don't bother the regular folks. The Yakuza(mobsters) have an (undeserved) robin hood reputation with some. Aside from protection rackets, pimping, drug running, and the like, they mostly make their money flouting environmental laws (junkyards on privately owned land that drains into rice paddies) and doing "jobs" (intimidating businesses that are causing problems in the community). It's pretty surreal. The biker gangs there are pretty lame, mostly just young punks revving their engines loud at 2am. It's a totally different threat scenario.

Anyway, after a recent string of elementary school stabbings....yes, school STABBINGS, they issued all the teachers at my junior high school a panic button, and two of the teachers collapsable batons (baseball and kendo coaches). Add in that a good chunk of the kids had tenis rackets, baseball bats, etc in the classroom, and a good number of them trained in judo several hours each day, we weren't too concerned about stabbings.

Anyway, gun deaths in Japan are VERY rare, and the public generally feels that they don't need them (and in their cultural/threat environment, they may be right).

 

[Kali Endgame]

fireflyfather,
Thanks for exposing my ignorance. When I was there I didn't have much interaction with the locals. We were told not to mess with the cops with the batons.

 

[fireflyfather]

Thanks for exposing my ignorance. When I was there I didn't have much interaction with the locals. We were told not to mess with the cops with the batons.

I spent a few years out in a community classified as a *village*. Then we went to my in-laws place that made my place look like times square. Ownership of firearms is *very low*. Just pulling numbers out of my butt, probably less than 100,000 non-military, non-leo firearms in the whole country (half the population of US). So, it's no wonder that you didn't meet any out-of-the-closet gun owners over there.

Also, do stay away from the cops. Not only do they know how to use those batons very well, but it's a first world country with a third world legal system. No jury trials, and some of those judges have literally never given a not-guilty verdict in their entire career. Makes me feel downright cozy living here in California.

Anyway, not to thread hijack, but a lot of the FUD/Lies spread by antis about Japan's gun free culture are just that: FUD/Lies. They have gun crime (although not much), and they have non-gun crime *shrug*. A very tiny female friend of mine was nearly raped at knife-point at the local university (she fought back and escaped with only minor cuts). They have school attacks, and this is the SECOND time that a mayor of Nagasaki has been killed by gunfire post WWII.

Back to main thread topic: There were lots of Yakuza around, even in rural areas, and people knew they had guns, but again, they were mostly concerned with making money, not gang warfare. Sounds like this old geezer just finally cracked and had a piece lying around from the old days. The SWAT types will eventually go in with body armor and flashbangs, and get out the hostage. If he hadn't killed a cop, the only way the guy would have been likely to end up dead is if he shot himself. Now I'm not so sure.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

Despite lack of real guns, youth seem to have a thriving fake gun culture. Pretty much anything airsoft, and high end airsoft comes from Japan. If you can't own real guns, just buy fake ones that cost as much as real ones, and put real gun accessories on them like Trijicon optics.

 

[MikeH]

A lot of airsoft and replica guns I saw in Hongkong cost more than real steel. But none compares to this US$964.99 Mosin Nagant:

http://www.redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/airsoft/ProductDetail?prodID=22301

 

[FieroCDSP]

I'll admit, that is the nicest looking airsoft I've ever seen. However, for the price, they could have given it a bit more power. I'll stick to my $89 real M44.

 

[wjustinen]

For what it's worth

every time a shooting occurs in Japan - at least as far as I've seen - the shooter is identified as a gangster. I wonder if that is done just to perpetuate the myth that guns are unavailable.

 

[zahc]

They also like to pin crime waves on 外人 (foreigners).

 

[fireflyfather]

No, they pretty much all are gangsters, with the occasional religious fanatic thrown in for variety (aum). You have to live there to believe it. The airsoft thing is dead-on, and it is topical for this thread.: If they see a gun, they assume it's an airsoft, unless you have the whole Yakuza look to you. So, from a tactical viewpoint, brandishing/showing the weapon is unlikely to stop an attacker.

In my estimation, if at all possible, they'd rather blame it on a foreigner (外人 refers mostly to whites/blacks) or a zainichi (2nd or later generation korean/chinese immigrant) than even a gangster, but usually the immigrants don't have access to handguns. It's awfully hard to get one, as there are so few in the country to begin with (pretty much police/military only), so the only people likely to have one are the people already involved in smuggling (drug rings & other organized crime).

Sidenote: The airsoft culture over there is pretty big. My cousins were into that, and I had a real nice semi-auto gas powered HK USP lookalike that field stripped exactly the same way as the real thing. Another reason people don't take a brandished weapon seriously unless you fit the stereotype of the kind of person who would use a real handgun.

edited to add: It's not a myth. Guns, especially handguns are not by any means a common black market item in Japan. The only ways to acquire handguns are to smuggle them in (difficult given the lack of a land border), steal them from the police or military, or build them yourself. Ammunition is a similar problem. Some guy dropped SEVEN rifle rounds a while back, and the police went crazy trying to account for all of them. It was in the news.

 

[CWL]

There are some ongoing Yakuza wars being fought in Japan right now with more gun violence than usual. The police have really cracked down on the gangs recently so there is pressure within every gang to make-up for losses in revenue. Makes for pretty interesting reading if you follow the news from Asia.

Japanese organized crime has plenty of guns of every sort. These are typically stolen from US Marine/Naval armories or smuggled-in from Phillippines and China.

Guns are not typically carried, but are issued during times of conflict. Sometimes, guns are 'rented' to criminals for the commission of a specific crime, the fee is a % of the loot.

 

[fireflyfather]

Japanese organized crime has plenty of guns of every sort. These are typically stolen from US Marine/Naval armories or smuggled-in from Phillippines and China.

Guns are not typically carried, but are issued during times of conflict. Sometimes, guns are 'rented' to criminals for the commission of a specific crime, the fee is a % of the loot.

Agreed. Outside of OC, however, few and far between. They also sometimes steal from the JSDF and local cops, though that is rarer..