Indeed it does seem somewhat up my alley. I was a Japanese major in school and spent a decent amount of time there, and obviously I have an interest in guns and gun control as well. Crimes in Japan are very interesting. by any measure they have very low crime, but not as low I think as is reported. Many crimes get reclassified as non-crimes in order to keep their impossibly high (98%+?) closure rate.  The homogenity of the society, and the social traditions (particularly those that let them construct virtual/mental privacy and ignore any cognitive dissonance) are not things that can easily be replicated in other societies