Disarming Idea

The Japanese, unlike the Americans, deplore firearms. Their gun-control laws would bring tears to the eyepieces of the National Rifle Association of America. Last year Japan recorded only about one shooting murder per 2.27 million people (50 such killings in all); the U.S. total was one per 20,267 (or 10,698 in all). The Japanese did commit 1,075 other murders, but their methodology runs to the more intimate contact weapon, such as the kitchen knife or the blunt instrument.

But if the Japanese shun guns, they adore models of the real thing. Last year model-gun manufacturers turned out a $25 million arsenal of 600,000 ersatz weapons, among them exact replicas of the Luger PO8, the Walther P38 and the Mauser Military 7.63 mm. According to law, all barrels of metal models were colored yellow or white so as to discourage holdup men from fooling the public.

This color coding has not worked, since it is easy for a bandit with artistic bent to repaint his model gun to give it a menacing steel blue glower. Typical was the incident last July when a real robber brandishing a fake black Colt .38 held up a real Kyoto bank van carrying checks worth 50 million in real yen. That was the equivalent of 263,158 real dollars, which are fake nowadays in Japan anyway.

Now, much to the consternation of the Japan Model Gun Collectors Association (36,000 members), the National Police Agency is considering a ban on model guns too. The police are fed up, because holdup victims cannot tell the difference between a model pistol and the genuine article. If the ban succeeds, robbers may have to resort to rubber knives and bamboo bludgeons.

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