> The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.

The vast majority to US police offers will never encounter these situations in their careers. There’s no reason to have every officer armed to teeth just in case they’re blind sided gang violence, or a mass shooting. Besides we also know that most U.S. officers have no interest in responding to types of incidents, preferring to sit it out until someone else comes a deals with their mess.

> American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.

That’s why police officers in other countries wear clip-on ties that are specifically designed to breakaway if yanked on. Nobody wears a real tie.

Japan does have drug violence. Also, being a cop in an America is fairly safe occupation. And most deaths are from traffic accidents - cops mortality is mostly because they are a lot on the streets and get killed by cars.

To play Devil’s Advocate here, could it be safe because they’re able to defend themselves against grievous injury and death?

Instead of looking at death, we should look at overall incidents of violence for an honest measure of the danger involved. There are somewhat controversial figures in the civilian world around “Defensive Gun Use,” including non-lethal acts ending possible or would-be violent encounters that, if true, speak to guns leading to less death and injury than the current ~10,000 number we suffer as a nation.

I’ve heard a similar argument that we shouldn’t look at the murder rate as a measure of inner city violence, but attempted murder type charges for the fact that casualty care in hospitals is so much better these days that would-have-been murders are now only attempts.

An interesting stats rabbit hole I have, sadly, not the time to explore.

I've never even heard of drug violence here. Where did you see it?

I used to do volunteer ambulance work - all our ties were clip-on. No risk of getting strangled with a clip-on tie.

I do want to add, I know Newton, Iowa--the town this article takes place in--and they do not have any mass shooting or gang violence. There is drug use, but barely any drug-related violence (unless you count alcohol, I guess).

I know you are talking about police in general, not this specific town, but I wanted to make clear that none of those are a daily reality in Newton.

I still think it would be a totally different story if it were Newton, Japan rather than Newton, Iowa. Police culture doesn't stop at city limits. It permeates a society. The police in Newton, Iowa likely have the same warrior mindset as the ones in Baltimore, they just don't see nearly as much action.

But every police officer in Newton knows that there's nothing stopping a criminal from another state just showing up in town, heavily armed, and robbing a liquor store. Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.

Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.

> Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.

Which does nothing at all to imply guns are hard to come by in Japan. I'm sure there are plenty of preppers in the US who make their own firearms.

> Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.

Why? It looks pretty easy to move around Japan?

According to Wikipedia, the US has an estimated 120 civilian firearms (registered and unregistered) per 100 people. In Japan, that number is 0.3 [1].

There are literally 400 times as many guns per capita in the US compared to Japan.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

You think a lot of people can figure out how to build their own guns and ammunition from raw materials? The shooter in this case used some metal pipes from a hardware store, a piece of wood, some duct tape, and an electrical igniter he made himself. He had to make his own ammunition and gunpowder from raw materials too. Moreover, the guy wasn't some random idiot; he was in the army before and had some kind of technical job there.

As for "moving around Japan", in case you've never looked at a map, Japan is an island (or more properly, an archipelago). You can't just import guns there. And buying a gun is very difficult and will put you on a first-name basis with the local cops, and even here all you can buy is a hunting rifle or shotgun, and you better have a good reason to own it. Handguns are completely prohibited. The idea that some criminal could just show up in town, heavily armed, is utter fantasy.