Japan’s parliament on Friday enacted a bill to revise the Firearms and Swords Control Law to ban online explanations of ways to manufacture guns and encouraging unlawful possession of such weapons, making such acts punishable.
The bill was approved at the day’s plenary meeting of the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of the country’s Diet. The bill passed the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, in April.
Japan is beefing up regulations on homemade guns after the suspect in the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022 apparently used a gun created with the aid of online tutorials.
Under the revised law, which comes into effect in July, a ban will be imposed on acts of encouraging or instigating unauthorized gun possession, including online. Such acts will be punishable by a prison sentence of up to one year or a maximum fine of ¥300,000.
According to the National Police Agency, the penalties will be applied in cases such as encouraging unlawful possession by posting online videos or blueprints for guns, and making offers to sell guns with contact information and prices.
The crime of firing firearms will be applied to users of hunting or homemade guns just like handguns. If people are found to have possessed hunting or handmade guns with the intention of injuring or killing others, the same penalties will be applied as for those possessing handguns.
In light of the use of a so-called half-rifle, which is a type of hunting gun, in an incident last May in the city of Nakano in Nagano Prefecture that ended with the deaths of four people, Japan will introduce stricter conditions on who can possess half-rifles.
Currently, even beginners are allowed to possess half-rifles. Under the revised law, half-rifles will be classified as a long-range rifle, meaning that the conditions of possessing such firearms will include at least 10 years of hunting gun ownership.
Japan will allow beginners in some areas of the country to own a half-rifle if they go through proper procedures that include having prefectural governments inform local police, with a major example being Hokkaido, where demand is high for the firearm for hunting Yezo deer and brown bears.
The changes to the half-rifle rules will be implemented within nine months of the promulgation of the revised law.
Meanwhile, the National Police Agency plans to instruct prefectural police departments nationwide to strengthen the examination of people applying for gun ownership or updating their licenses.
As the law states that drug addicts and those with criminal records are disqualified from possessing guns, police conduct interviews on three or four people designated by an applicant to make sure the applicant is not mentally unstable or involved in any trouble.
The agency will ask prefectural police forces to conduct thorough examinations, including holding interviews with more people regarding such cases as applicants who have little social contact.
The move is aimed at detecting dangerous signs among socially isolated gun owners.
