2,885 gun owners turning in firearm licenses after uproar over Sasebo rampage

Gun owners are turning in their licenses for thousands of weapons following public outrage over a shooting incident at a sports club in Nagasaki Prefecture last December that left two people dead, the National Police Agency said Thursday.

The NPA said a total of 2,885 gun owners have opted to return their licenses for 4,467 weapons and have either sold or disposed of the guns.

Of the total, 90 gun owners who had come to the attention of the police for instances of stalking or being violent toward their wives and other people close to them were told to turn in their weapons. The number of weapons in these cases totaled 145.

In 2006, police ordered 58 people to surrender their gun licenses under such circumstances.

The remainder are surrendering the licenses voluntarily. They have either sold or destroyed the guns and provided proof to police that the sale or destruction has been carried out.

Gun owners have been flocking to shooting ranges and buying safes to store their firearms in order to comply with police checks that have been conducted nationwide since the Sasebo shooting.

Last Dec. 14, Masayoshi Magome, a 37-year-old licensed gun owner, went on a rampage at a gym in Sasebo, killing two people and injuring several others.

Magome later turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.

The uproar over the shooting led police to require all 157,000 licensed gun owners nationwide to appear at their local police stations. Among licensed gun holders, some 326,000 guns were in circulation.

Police questioned them about how they store their weapons and what they plan to use the guns for.

By the end of January, police had checked about 66,000 people, or 40 percent of the total, who own 134,000 guns.

Police will finish checking the remaining 60 percent of all gun owners by the end of March.

In 2007, 22 people were shot and killed, a sharp rise from two the previous year, according to a separate NPA report.

It was the first time in four years that the figure had increased.

Ten citizens and police officers were killed and 13 injured by guns in 2007. The figures exclude gang members or people connected with gangs. The corresponding figure for those killed or injured was 11 in the previous year.

"Gang-related gun battles occurred one after the other," an NPA officer said. "In addition, the number of citizens and police officers fatally shot or injured rose because of heinous crimes."

Last year, 12 gun crimes arose that involved rival yakuza gangs. Several occurred when the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi attempted to move into the Tokyo area, and others involved a rift in the Dojinkai gang based in Kyushu.

In April, Iccho Itoh, then mayor of Nagasaki, was shot and killed by a gang leader.

In 2007, 66 gun-related crimes occurred in Japan, up from 53 the previous year. It was the first increase in six years. Forty people were killed or injured in the incidents, more than double the 19 in 2006 and the first increase in four years.

A total of 347 incidents involved guns, including murders and robberies, up from 325 in 2006 and the first increase in three years.

In 2007, police seized 548 guns, a 20 percent rise from a year earlier.(IHT/Asahi: February 8,2008)