"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." - Rahm Emanuel
Yakuza are going the way of the samurai... The ones I see never dress nice like this anymore.... They only dress nicely like this in the movies...
It looks like the Yakuza gangsters in Japan have really fallen on tough times. It seems that things are so bad that they've started eating out at crummy family restaurants. What ever happened to the classy joints these guys used to hang at at? You know, guys like Don Corleone who would only go to those ritzy members-only clubs that were filled with those classy hot dames like you see in the movies?
Yeah. Like this. High class women... Gentlemanly attitude
Gangsters hanging out at family restaurants!? I mean, has business gotten that bad? My business is bad too but I never go to family restaurants like Denny's. I hate that place. Family restaurants are over-priced and the food isn't good at all (excepting the salad bar at Sizzler's). And trust folks, even though I don't go, I do know that Denny's in Japan is MUCH better than Denny's in the USA. Denny's in Japan is actually kept very clean and the service is good (well, this is Japan, after all).
But, that's not the point. Never mind.
It seems that in Chiba, a Yakuza guy walked into a Denny's restaurant, pulled out a gun and blew away another Yakuza guy who was sitting there. I think it was a planned "hit" because there was no big scene or fight before the shooting.
The Japan Times Reports in "Mobster Dead in Eatery Shooting":
CHIBA — An apparently underworld member gunned down another yakuza in a crowded Denny's eatery in Togane, Chiba Prefecture, and then fled, police said.
The shooter, thought to be a gangster in his 60s, remains at large. The victim, Yoshiaki Furukawa, 62, from Kujyukuri, also apparently a yakuza, was shot in the chest. The gunman fled by car from the Denny's Togane Bypass outlet at around 10:05 a.m.
Police, who suspect the killing stemmed from money troubles, set up checkpoints on key routes.
Furukawa entered the Denny's with four others at 8:45 a.m. He started talking with the gunman, who came in shortly before 10 a.m., at another table near the door before he was shot.
"I heard a loud bang real close, just a few meters away from me," said one customer. "When I looked over my shoulder, a man was lying on the floor, bleeding."
So, the Yakuza are out shooting each other in what looks to be a planned event and what to the police do? They scare the entire eastern half of Japan by telling people to take their little children home from school and setting up roadblocks for someone who they don't even know what he looks like.
The female news reporter on the left at the start of the video is amusing in how much she tries her best to look serious and that she actually cares. Also notice the dozens of police and intentionally high visibility at the crime scene. They must have sent every single policeman available to make for great news video!
From the description of the Japan Times quote above the only thing that this news report adds is that the shooting was near a Denny's that is near two schools. I hate to sound like a Negative Nelly, but, well, yeah. The Denny's is near a train station, like probably every Denny's in Japan. Nobody in their right mind puts a family restaurant - or a school - too awfully far from a train station, especially when we're talking about big Japanese cities. Nevertheless, this gives the broadcasting station enough "gunpowder" to be able to scare everyone that the Yakuza are coming for your children! The underlying message being that we need the police to protect us from these out-of-control demons.
Once again, the police will use this incident as some sort of proof that we need more police protection and more laws clamping down on the Yakuza (which has been ongoing for this last year). I think that sort of notion is complete and absolute nonsense. Let me explain and add some perspective to this.
From the Associated Press:
Japan, where very few people own guns, averages 124 gun-related attacks a year, and less than 1 percent end in death. Police often raid the homes of those suspected of having weapons.
And may I add this from the Asia-Pacific Law Review:
Gun crime does exist, but in very low numbers. There were only 30 crimes committed in 1989 with shotguns or air rifles. With no legal civilian handgun possession, Japan experiences in an average year less than 200 violent crimes perpetrated with a handgun, of which almost all are perpetrated by Boryokudan, organised crime groups. Most gun crimes involve only unlicensed possession, and not the commission of another crime.
Anyone can see that the hype doesn't reflect the reality. We don't need more laws curtailing whatever it is that the Yakuza are doing, especially ridiculous things like scalping tickets and we certainly do not need to increase police or government budgets.We need to cut government spending. With our public debt at 229% of GDP, we certainly do not need to use these sorts of excuses to increase police budgets for crimes that kill 127 people a year (and nearly all of them perpetrated against gangster by gangsters - not regular people) in a country of 127 million people. Heck, in 2010 over 350,000 people died of cancer...
But laying in a hospital bed with tubes in ones nose doesn't make for good or exciting TV news, now does it? Shootouts and panic are much better for increasing budgets and asking for more taxation.
Thanks to Japan Times and News on Japan
You would think with a killer on the loose, they would have kept the kids at the safe school where they could be watched instead of having them walk all over town to their respective homes.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and why would a gangster just start killing random children? There's no money in it. These people are businessmen first and foremost.
It appears both the public and the police aren't very good at assessing risk.
ReplyDeleteThe history behind Japanese gun laws are more complex than people give it credit for. That being said, given the intense rarity of shootings in Japan, they shouldn't even be bothered with them.
ReplyDeleteTolerance for Yakuza has been dropping dramatically, largely due to the lost decade(s) that Japan experience since the Japanese stock market crash in 1991, the Yakuza had a lot to do with it, and the fact that they constantly exploit people economically has been causing them to be looked down upon. In the old days, the police would look the other way if a Yakuza was carrying a gun, now they would arrest them. They were less inclined to arrest Yakuza for violent crimes, but the tolerance has been dropping dramatically. There were many more Yakuza shootings in 2000, but they dropped down to less than a hundred in 2011 due to both the police and the people's lessening tolerance for such activities.
But like I said. Japan has far bigger fish to fry... I mean have they contained the situation in Fukushima yet? What about the massively declining birthrates? Japan has the fastest aging population in the world and it doesn't bode well for the nation once the average person is 50 or even 60 years old (right now it's around 44!)