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Despite strictlaws, handgun crimes are on the rise in Japan.

IT WAS STREET THEATER for the crowd. Gunfire is rare here, and the perception
that only gangsters use guns added to a surreal sense of safety among the
onlookers, as though the mobsters were actors removed from reality. That two
men died in the gunfight was simply a cost of doing business in Japan?s yakuza
underworld.

But Monday?s shootout, which erupted after 15 yakuza members went to the
offices of a right-wing organization to collect debts, served as a reminder to
more sober observers that guns play a role in Japan?s rising rate of violent
crime.

GUN CRIMES ON THE RISE
Despite having some of the developed world?s most stringent gun restrictions,
the number of serious crimes committed with handguns here last year was the
highest since the National Police Agency began keeping such statistics more
than a decade ago. And the rate of gun crimes in the first six months of 2000
promises to exceed that record. ?I think the public believes it is safe in
Japan,? said Koichi Sunada, head of a citizens? anti-gun group in Tokyo. ?But
the situation is changing.?

Japan takes comfort that the incidence of violent crime here is still
minuscule compared with the United States. But comparison with the First
World?s most violent country is not the only valid one; Japan?s murder rate is
higher than that of England or Australia, for example. Guns remain a small
factor in the violence. Japanese police say 158 felonies were committed with
handguns here in 1998, compared to 364,776 felonies with firearms in the
United States, according to the latest FBI figures available.

Most gun crimes here involve yakuza members, who flout the police and laws to
carry firearms as a badge of their profession. But increasingly, guns are
getting into the hands of the general public, police say.

Last April in Kawasaki City, for example, police were called to the home of
Kentaro Ohashi, a 55-year-old company executive, where they found the bodies
of three gunshot victims. Takashi Kubo, 51, who had worked for Ohashi, nursed
a three-year-old grudge about a job transfer, according to police. He retired,
still angry, and took a trip to Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States,
apparently smuggling two revolvers back into Japan. Kubo took them to Ohashi?s
house, shot the man?s wife at the door and Ohashi in the bathroom, then took
his own life.

?My ex-boss changed my life?s course, so I will change his life?s course,?
Kubo wrote in a note found next to his body, police said.

?CLEAR CHANGE? TOWARD VIOLENCE
?Since 1994 or 1995, there?s been a clear change; the guns are now becoming
dispersed in the population,? said Hiroyuki Fujimura, a senior superintendent
in the Firearms Division of the National Police Agency.

A growing number of robberies accounts for the sharpest rise in handgun
crimes, he said: ?We are worried about it. Crimes are becoming more violent,
more serious. And handguns are very efficient weapons for that.?
Japan?s gun control laws are legendarily tough and date back to 1588, just
four decades after the first firearms arrived from Portugal. Simple possession
of a handgun and one bullet carries a prison term of three to 15 years, and
other laws have been toughened three times since 1991.
Virtually no one except soldiers and police may legally carry handguns; even
armored car guards are unarmed, and police officers leave their weapons in a
safe at the station when they go off duty.

A citizen can buy a hunting rifle, but only after an exhaustive process that
includes a lengthy waiting period and a police investigation of the potential
buyer?s background. Gun owners overwhelmingly support the tough laws; the
Japanese are perplexed at American toleration of easy access to weapons in the
face of widespread violence.

The yakuza are the exception. Experts believe most of the estimated 80,000
underworld members have weapons, and police have been unable or unwilling to
dent that figure. The yakuza have long held a curious place in Japanese
society. Flamboyantly visible ? they wear lavish tattoos and revel in their
stereotype gangster appearances ? they face little interference from police in
running such traditional underworld businesses as drug-dealing, prostitution
and gambling.

SKEPTICISM ABOUT POLICE
Some people believe the police are corrupt; others say they are simply
cautious, said Hiroyoshi Ishikawa, a professor of social psychology at Tokyo?s
Seijo University. ?We have a proverb here that says if you keep your distance
from the devil he can do nothing to you,? Ishikawa said. That worked as long
as the yakuza kept to an unwritten social pact that they would not harm
?average? citizens. ?But now, there is a kind of generation shift occurring
within the yakuza,? Ishikawa said. ?The younger generation violates the
principle; they are much more dangerous.?

Monday?s gunfight erupted in the offices of Sofusha, ostensibly a right-wing
political group known mostly for parading with nationalist slogans blasting
through loudspeakers mounted on ominous-looking black buses. Sofusha and some
other right-wing groups have close ties to the yakuza, and it is clear they
were as heavily armed as their visitors. Two yakuza members were killed and
four wounded; just one Sofusha member was shot. ?To have a shooting here was
beyond my imagination,? said Shiro Kino****a, 76, who owns a shop and several
offices in the group of buildings where the battle occurred. ?When they come
to sign a lease, they are properly dressed and well-behaved, and it?s hard to
know if they are
right-wing or yakuza. This was a safe place, but not anymore.?

EVADING GUN LAWS
To evade gun laws, yakuza members are thought to be placing their guns in the
hands of non-yakuza associates. Last May, police said they arrested a
53-year-old company executive who had hidden a gun for a yakuza friend in the
hollowed-out pages of a law book on a bedroom bookshelf in his mansion. This
year, police also confiscated guns concealed in abandoned cars and the
mattress of a sailor trying to smuggle them into Japan.
In fact, the number of seized guns has dropped steadily in the past five
years, from a 1995 high of 1,880 to to 1,001 last year, mostly because they
are being better hidden, experts say. About 42 percent of the seizures last
year were from ?ordinary citizens.?

The numbers of shootings reported to police also has dropped ? from 241 in
1991 to 162 last year ? a result, police say, of increased law enforcement
pressure on the yakuza. But in an ominous contradiction, the number of
serious crimes committed with handguns ? either fired or displayed ? has been
on the rise, reaching 170 last year, a 30 percent increase in the last decade.
?In Japan, it used to be said that oxygen and safety were free. Is it becoming
an illusion?? asked the daily Yomiuri Shimbun.

Keiji Oda, leader of Japan?s 280 Guardian Angels, said that in the five years
the group has been patrolling three of Tokyo?s sleaziest districts, they have
seen many things ? but no guns. Still, he said, he senses a rising level of
crime and violence. ?Five years ago, when we started, I didn?t think
patrolling and facing crime on the streets would be a big part of what we do,?
said Oda, 28, who imported the

Guardian Angels concept of highly visible civilian patrols from New York. ?On
our patrols, we would only find an occasional drunk fighting a drunk.
?Now we see prostitution, drugs,? he said. ?We see a dramatic change on the
streets. It?s gotten meaner. You don?t see many guns here, but what we?re
worried about is the apathy of citizens to what?s going on in their community.
Things are changing.?

Special correspondent Shigehiko Togo contributed to this report.
? 2000 The Washington Post Company