2007-06-06 10:52:40
"There are not many guns made in Japan. The tighter the control is, the higher
the price goes up," he said.
2007/04/18
Japanese mayor killed by gangster
By CHISAKI WATANABE, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 9 minutes ago
TOKYO - When Nagasaki's mayor was fatally shot in southern Japan, it wasn't
much of a surprise that a gangster was arrested for the attack. In a country
where regular citizens face strict gun laws, the mob does most of the shooting.
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Iccho Ito, 61, was shot twice in the back Tuesday evening and died early
Wednesday. Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of Japan's largest crime syndicate,
the Yamaguchi-gumi, was captured at the scene and admitted to the attack,
police said.
"This murder, which took place in the middle of an election campaign, is a
threat to democracy," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said early Wednesday. "We must
eradicate violence firmly."
The killing reportedly linked to Shiroo's demands for city compensation for
car damage caused by a pothole focused attention on the role of the Japanese
mafia, or "yakuza," in the rare shootings here.
Of the 53 gun attacks reported in 2006, two-thirds 36 were blamed on
organized crime groups, the National Police Agency says.
Handguns are strictly banned for ordinary citizens in Japan, and only police
officers and others such as shooting instructors with job-related reasons
can own them. Hunting rifles are also strictly licensed and regulated.
Crime syndicates, however, have the money, numbers and international
connections that enable them to smuggle foreign guns into Japan.
"The mayor of Nagasaki was killed by a gun that was illegally possessed," Chief
Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said. "The fact that criminal organizations
have stashed away guns through smuggling and illicit sales ... is also a
cause."
The attack came despite a sharp drop in shootings in recent years.
The number of reported gun attacks have plunged from 158 in 2002 with 70
percent blamed on yakuza to 53 last year. The number of illegal guns seized
by police dropped by nearly 40 percent from 2002 to 2006, when 458 firearms
were confiscated.
Even gangsters are careful when it comes to opening fire, preferring to use
knives for mob hits because murders with guns typically carry heavier
sentences. Instead, mobsters sometimes use guns for intimidation, shooting the
outside of an office, for instance, as a warning to the occupants.
Still, public concern about gangster gunfights remains high amid a widely
publicized turf war between Japan's two largest underworld gangs earlier this
year that ended a yearlong lull in gang violence.
The boss of a gang affiliated with the Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi-kai syndicate was
shot to death in February, and the killing was believed to have prompted at
least three more shootings at gangland headquarters in Tokyo.
"I want Japanese laws to protect the general public," said Shinichi Tada, a
44-year-old manufacturing company worker in Tokyo. "I do not want Japan to be
like the U.S.," he added, referring to Monday's massacre in Virginia that
killed at least 33 people.
Japan's organized crime groups are typically involved in real estate and
construction kickback schemes, extortion, gambling, the sex industry and drug
trafficking.
Gunrunning is another main activity. Between 1996 and 2005, 8,180 smuggled guns
were seized by police, with the United States being the top origin with nearly
30 percent, the NPA says. The Philippines was second with about 10 percent.
Noriyoshi Takemura, criminologist at Toin University in Yokohama, said tight
weapons laws make Japan an attractive market for gunrunners.
"There are not many guns made in Japan. The tighter the control is, the higher
the price goes up," he said.