From: yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Japanese exchange student killed in Louisiana...
Date: 10 Nov 1992 03:06:07 -0500
Organization: Yale Computer Science Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: cathy.na.cs.yale.edu

masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:
>C. D. Tavares writes:
>>Say, which of the three are you discussing?
>>
>>1) Accidents.
>>2) Erroneous use of a firearm.
>>3) Criminals intending to commit crimes.
>>
>>Courses will NEVER affect #3 -- they INTEND to be dangerous. Courses may
>>diminish the other two cases, but will never entirely remove them.
>
>   Now that the shooter was charged for manslaughter, actually, I am not
>sure which of your three category includes the exchange student incident.
>Probably, I should wait for the judgment before I answer your question. 

Good lord.  Can't you decide anything on your own?  Unless the facts have
been grossly misrepresented, 1) the shooter fired intentionally and not as
an accident, and 2) he was not intending to commit a crime.

I have half a mind to suggest that this unwarranted deference to authority
is typically Japanese.  Certainly it is something one hardly ever sees in
Americans, who often do not defer to authority even when it would be
appropriate.

Anyway, you do not seem to understand what the crime of manslaughter, as
distinct from murder, is.  First-degree murder is premeditated.
Second-degree murder is something done in the passion of the moment.
Manslaughter is something done accidentally.  Thus if the police charge
Peairs with manslaughter, this is in accordance with the facts as we know
them.

Unless the facts have been misrepresented it is an error to call what Peairs
did a misunderstanding.  It was simple idiocy.  There is a good reason to
charge him with manslaughter: to warn similar idiots not to shoot strangers.

>   You are right in saying that Japanese are aware of the fact that 
>misunderstandings could end up as a tragedy. However, many Japanese 
>including the late Yoshi Hattori have not been aware what kind of tragedy
>awaits us. This is also a tragedy for Mr. Peairs and his family, too.

Am I the only one to think that the focus on Mr. Hattori is exceedingly
strange?  No, Mr. Masuda, even looking at Hattori's case will not tell you
"what kind of tragedy awaits you", for the simple reason that this case is
rare.  A much more common case is that of crime.  Why is the Japanese press
and government focusing on the risk of accidental shooting, when the risk of
being killed by a criminal is so much higher?  Of course one cannot blame
them too much for simply reflecting the bias shown by our own press.

>   I don't believe that this incident is causing any hostility or distrust
>against the US in Japan.

Well, why not?  This is a pretty barbaric nation in ways, and it should be
treated as such.  I don't mean to say that this should be an international
incident where governments get involved, but rather that individual Japanese
should think badly of those in the US who permit the present crime-ridden
situation to continue.

>   I hope that this incident will somehow lead to a better US-Japan 
>relationship. By this way, Yoshi Hattori's death, although it's a sad fact,
>will have a value that it deserves.

To quote a book written over a hundred years ago:

	"Let us have a little less of 'hands across the sea', and a little
	more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations.
	War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal
	amity provide the night."
		-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_

--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu