Shinzo Abe

Shinzo

Japan is in shock over the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He was a towering figure in the nation having served as Prime Minister twice, stepping down both times for health reasons. He was shot while campaigning for the Liberal Democratic Party, which is actually the conservative party of Japan that consists of right-wing nationalists. Abe was the longest-serving Prime Minister in post-war history.

The nation isn’t just shocked over the assassination, which many are comparing to the assassination of JFK, but that he was murdered with a gun in broad daylight and that the shooter was able to get so close to him.

Japan has strict gun control laws and shootings are rare. Japan doesn’t have a gun-worshiping culture as we do here in the United States. Even the Yakuza, Japan’s mafia, refrains from using guns. Just one person was killed by gun violence in Japan in 2021. The United States has a much larger population than Japan, but it’s still lopsided that there were over 45,000 gun deaths here last year.

Japan has about 0.25 guns per 100 people and the U.S. has 125.5 guns per 100 people. Cops in Japan can deny gun ownership to a citizen just on suspicion he or she may do something dangerous. Gun control is so strict in Japan that it’s against the law to own a gun if you have declared bankruptcy.

Japan is a peaceful nation and even gunless homicides are rare with a rate of 0.26 per 100,000 people in 2020 while here in the United States, it was 7.5 per 100,000.

There are 12 steps to getting a gun in Japan. You have to join a hunting or shooting club, take a firearm class, pass a written exam and have at least a 95% accuracy in a shooting-range test, get a doctor’s note stating you are mentally fit and have no history of drug dependency, apply to take a full-day course in how to safely fire and store a gun, complete a police interview explaining why you want a firearm, pass a background check in which police review your criminal record, employment history, financial status and relationships with family/friends/neighbors, apply for a gunpowder permit, obtain a certificate from a gun dealer describing the gun you want, buy a gun safe and ammunition locker that meet safety regulations, allow the police to inspect your gun storage, and last but not least, conduct another background check.

After a Japanese civilian successfully purchases a gun, the police must inspect the gun annually and the owner must retake the class and a license renewal exam every three years. Most of the nation’s prefectures are limited to three gun stores each. In order for a gun owner to purchase new bullets, he must return the used rounds he bought during his last visit.

In the U.S, you basically just go to the gun store and point out the boom stick you want. The National Rifle Association would lose their shit if U.S. gun humpers had to go through even one of the steps gun owners have to take in Japan.

Japan is fine with us importing Big Macs and Whoppers, but they don’t want our gun fetish. Either do I. In fact, the rest of the world rejects our gun fetish. What’s our deal? Are we just a stupid simplistic nation? Probably. We did make Donald Trump president (sic).

Here, we refuse to get rid of guns even after mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting. We have chosen our gun fetish over the lives of children. Conservatives like to blame culture and they point out that gun violence this is extreme is fairly new, having increased just over the past 20 years or so…ignoring that the Assault Weapons Ban expired in 1994. Huh. I wonder if the increase in mass shootings since 1994 is somehow related to the expiration of that ban?

So, how did Abe’s killer get a gun in Japan? He didn’t buy it. He built it. Here in the U.S, you can buy a gun building kit without any sort of regulations getting in your way.

The gun used in Abe’s assassination looked like a barrel attached to a box with black electrical tape. Police found more guns and explosives at the killer’s home.

The United States is used as an example by gun-control proponents in other nations. Anytime a right-wing goon in another nation brings up a proposal to make owning a gun easier, his opponents bring up mass shootings in the USA.

Gun lovers here say you can’t compare us to other nations where they have very few gun deaths because those are extreme comparisons. But the fact is, we are the extreme comparison.

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More Butt For Barr

cjones05282019

Once again, Donald Trump is politicizing the Justice Department, just like he promised he would as a candidate.

Trump has given Attorney General William Barr sweeping authority to declassify information related to the Russian investigation. This move frightens the intelligence community. It endangers sources, methods, and threatens to manipulate the intelligence that’s been gathered for political means.

You may have hopes that William Barr will push this new authority to the side, wanting to respect the intelligence community and not use his position to play politics for Trump, but according to Trump, Barr asked for this authority.

Trump has Barr investigating the Russia investigation. They and other Republicans are upset that the Justice Department pursued leads on people who were in contact with the Russian government and being useful idiots for the Kremlin. These people were in the Trump campaign. Trump has called the investigation treason. According to Trump, it’s unpatriotic to go after our nation’s enemies when they’re in close contact with Trump.

Trump has constantly attacked the FBI and intelligence community since coming into office and has not been subtle in calling for the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. In the future, we’re going to need an investigation into the investigation into the investigation.

Usually, the Attorney General would prepare a report on a matter and ask senior leaders at the NSA, CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and other agencies to declassify specific documents without harming the intelligence-gathering process. In this instance, he can do whatever he wants with the information without concern for who or what it hurts. He was given this authority by a man who gave Russians classified information in the Oval Office, obtained through an ally.

Trump is showing his ass. Currently, he’s in Japan showing our allies there his ass. These kind of moves, violating and abusing his power as president, are just a few of the many reasons his ass needs to be removed from the presidency.

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What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you. 
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
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G7 Pardon

cjones06132018

Before he stepped on Obama’s airplane to head to the G7 summit in Canada, Trump took questions from a few reporters and said that Russian President Vladimir Putin really wanted Hillary Clinton to win the election, and he, Trump, was his worst nightmare.

I don’t know about you but my nightmares consist of stuff, like spiders, finding myself naked in high school, falling off a cliff, Nickelback dressed as clowns, a hotdog with ketchup, you know….real terrifying stuff. Nightmares are not dreams of getting everything you want.

For Putin, that’s an American president who undermines democratic institutions like a free press while destabilizing NATO and our alliances in addition to spilling classified information to Russian spies in the Oval Office. Now, Trump is at the G7 campaigning for Russia to be invited back, which kicked Putin out for annexing Crimea.

What in the world could Hillary Clinton have given Putin to make him happier? Neck massages? Scratch that, because Trump may have already done that.

Trump was very eager to fight with leaders of our allies, like Canada’s Justin Trudeau and France’s Emmanuel Macron…on Twitter and through the press. Now that he’s actually face to face, he arrived late, and he’s leaving early. That’s because Donald Trump is a coward.

What does it say about our nation’s president who’s afraid of our allies but eager to get on a plane and arrive early for a date with the dictator of North Korea?

If Trump has prepared very little for meeting Kim Jong Un (who we hope is as dumb as Trump), the only thoughts he put into his trip to the G7 was how to get out of it. Reportedly, he asked aides if his presence was absolutely necessary and asked if he could cancel at the last minute.

Trump is now showing the entire world he belongs to Putin. At this rate, he may have to register as a foreign lobbyist. If Putin really wanted Clinton to win the presidency, he would have sent spies to her campaign HQ to dish dirt and had Wikileaks hack Trump. The only problem would have been Clinton’s refusal to collude with Russia because some people don’t want to commit treason.

You have to ask yourself what exactly does Putin have on Trump? That pee tape must be really nasty.

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